Chapter 5
My father froze, stunned by the slap.
For a few seconds, he just stood there, too shocked to react.
The gasps from the crowd seemed to jolt him back, and the guilt in his eyes hardened into anger.
“Serena Whitmore, what do you think you’re doing? Have I been too lenient with you and your mother?”
Brielle stepped forward, smug, and looped her arm through Graham Whitmore’s.
“Daddy, it’s her! The mistress’s daughter. She hit me, she hit my brothers, and she even laid a hand on Mom.”
Graham rushed straight to Claudia Sinclair. “Claudia, what happened? Did she hurt you?”
“You’re just now showing up?” Claudia’s voice cracked with outrage. “I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. I told you ages ago to get that woman out of this house, but you kept her here anyway.”
“And now her daughter storms into my birthday party and treats me like this? Graham, if you let this slide, you’re telling the whole world we’re a joke.”
Claudia cried as she glared at us, her expression vicious.
Graham pulled her into his arms and turned to me with a cold snort.
“The only reason I let her stay was because her parents were long–time employees. I never imagined she’d try to seduce me–let alone raise such a poisonous daughter.”
In just a few words, he’d cast my mother and me as ungrateful leeches.
I could see it clearly–he wanted to pin everything on us now, before Grandfather found out, so he could get his hands on the whole Whitmore fortune.
My brothers nodded furiously.
“That’s right. Some people need to know their place.”
“Kneeling was the easy way out before. Now they’ve sealed their own fate.”
I stared at the five of them, my anger simmering.
If it weren’t for my mother, Graham would still be some small–town nobody, making barely enough
to
cover
rent.
I’d always known my brothers were jealous that Mom treated me better. They also hated that, from the time them in everything.
we
were kids,
I outshone
Back then, they’d turn classmates against me, leaving me isolated. My mother had no choice but to keep me close.
And now, they stood here, driving knives into her heart for another woman.
Hearing her husband and sons speak that way, my mother broke down completely, her sobs shaking her shoulders.
!
I swallowed my rage and asked again, “You’re sure your wife is the woman next to you–Claudia Sinclair?”
Graham pulled her in closer and kissed her in front of everyone.
“My wife has always been her, She’s only been away in for her health–never for anyone to impersonate her.”
“You and your mother stormed into her birthday party,” he said, his tone sharp. “You’re not leaving today.”
He barked an order to the security team, telling them to grab us.
“Bag them up and take them out,” he said flatly. “Hand them over to people who’ll make sure they disappear.”
Their secret romance is soon discovered, sparking a community–wide 4.6 FREE
A few guests tried to talk him down, but he only scoffed.
“If I can’t protect my wife and daughter, what kind of man would I be?”
L
