But Nathaniel and Tiffany were just byproducts of the twisted, toxic environment cultivated by their parents. They didn’t despise us, and we had no reason to kill each other.
Anthony supported my weight as he helped me walk out the door, merely saying, “Let’s just get it over with.”
I knew the severity and emotions behind that simple sentence and stayed quiet as I let him lead me.
The entrance to the basement was in the garage next to the villa. The mercenaries that John had hired had all changed into casual clothes and were patrolling the area, but that didn’t change the fact that they looked intimidating enough to scare off anyone who might come to rescue the Halls.
Anthony kept one arm firmly around me as we passed them and entered the basement, the floor at our footsteps barely illuminated by the dim overhead lights. After a few turns, we finally saw Nicolas and Simone, locked up in a makeshift jail cell.
Nicolas was still wearing his pajamas, clearly having been taken straight from his home in the middle of his sleep. He stood up straight in the center of the dark cell, stubbornly refusing to let his clothes get dirty as if that would help him maintain his image of a “noble”.
Simone wasn’t sitting either, her face looking wrinkled and as pale as a ghost without the help of makeup to cover up her flaws.
They seemed drained, not even noticing us when we entered the room. It was only when we walked forward and stood right in front of Simone that her eyes widened suddenly, lunging forwards to get closer to us. “Anthony! You’re finally here! Let us go, we can’t stay here a second longer! Please, Anthony, I’m begging you, let us go…”
Nicolas peered at us down his nose, still wearing the same expression of contempt from before.
Anthony ignored Simone, raising his head to stare straight at Nicolas. “You’ve lost.”
“Hmph…” The older man rolled his eyes. “What do you mean, I’ve lost? Isn’t losing to my own son further proof that I was a successful father?”
“You wish!” spat out John.
Nicolas pushed his glasses further up on his nose bridge before holding his hands behind his back. “I have to say, the drastic measures you took came as a surprise. You’ve grown up, Anthony. Now I know that I can leave the family business in your hands without any worries.”
“Is that so…?” Anthony’s gaze grew sharp, and the temperature around us seemed to drop several degrees as he spoke. “Am I supposed to thank you for that?”
“Of course!” Nicolas raised his voice, strangely confident in his own convictions as he frowned at his son. “Do you really think that you would have survived until now if it weren’t for my precious blood running through your veins?”
I’d seen people blow their own trumpet before, but never to this shameless extent. I wasn’t even a part of the conversation, but I could feel my jaw clench unconsciously.
Anthony was where he was right now because of his own hard work. If there was anyone he should be grateful towards for having helped him, it should be the Featherstones who raised him, and certainly not the Halls who had nearly turned him into a monster.
I glanced at the back of Anthony’s large silhouette. He stood unmoving, the only visible proof of his suppressed rage being his clenched fists.
He took a moment to regain his composure and calm himself down. “You could have publicly come out with the truth when you first found out that you were a Hall,” he told them calmly. “Why did you have to set up an accident and bring Letty’s grandma and the Murphys into this…? You abandoned me, and now you will do nothing but push me up the corporate ladder?”
I swore that I could hear his heart shatter as soon as he got that last sentence out.
My vision blurring with tears, I stepped forward and took his hand in mine, hoping that my touch provided him some comfort.
But Nicolas, the truly twisted being that he was, had the gall to want to take credit for this delicate scene between us.
“Look at you two! You were made for each other. If I hadn’t planned all of that, do you think you would have ever met in the first place? I was the one who gifted you with such a beautiful marriage, my son. How could you bear to blame me for it?”
What?
The culprit is suddenly playing the victim?
“I’m just speaking the truth, but it’s up to you whether you want to believe me or not. Our original plan that year had been to completely wipe you out from existence and forget that we’d ever given birth to such a defective product. If I hadn’t pitied you, you would have disappeared because of that car crash a long time ago! What right do you think you have to stand in front of me pretending to be a victor and interrogate your own father?”
Anthony immediately started trembling, digging his nails into his palms so tightly that I could see the veins on his forearms.
In the Hall couple’s eyes, Anthony was not only an obstacle blocking their way, he didn’t deserve to continue living either.
From their point of view, “family” was nothing more than a manufacturing process. They expected only perfect products and destroyed any that were not “up to par” with the high standard of quality that they’d set.
But they were talking about a person. How could someone say “you should have died a long time ago” to another person so easily?
Anthony didn’t speak for a long time. I related to his feelings; the more precious something is to you, the harder it is to cope when it’s suddenly destroyed.
Yet, for some reason, Nicolas viewed his silence as silent agreement.
He turned his attention towards me, squinting at me as if we were the ones currently being locked up in a cage. “I must say: your grandma, Winona is a smart woman. She knew to team up with George Featherstone and match you two together in order to resolve Anthony’s grudge against the Murphy family. Her hard work and care are large reasons why Anthony is where he is today.”
“Too bad that the lower-class will always stay lower-class for a reason,” he shrugged, starting to pace around the cell. “They never realize when the thing they’re trying desperately to protect is stolen from them right under their noses. No, that’s not the right way to say it. If it weren’t for that petroleum contract, I wouldn’t have returned to the Hall family so easily. I should thank her for that.”
“You stole the contract?”
If that were the case, then what was the reason for Armond’s stubbornness all these years?
A horrid idea abruptly crossed my mind as soon as the words left my mouth.
Nicolas’ lips quirked up into an evil, satisfied smile. “I guess you’re not as stupid as you look. What do you think? Don’t you want to applaud my perfect scheme and praise my smarts after realizing the truth?”
Praise?
Applaud him for taking away the contract and manipulate Grandma and George in his hands as if they were mere puppets and leading them to their demise?
Or does he mean his scheme to make the Featherstones and the Murphys hate each other so that Anthony would live the rest of his life in wrath and loathing?
Anthony might have found himself unable to talk back to his birth parents, but I found no problem in doing so.
“So you saw through the Murphys’ plan since the very beginning and took the chance to pull the wool over their eyes,” I inhaled deeply to calm myself. “Not only did you take away the contract for the petroleum farming project, but you also used the fake death case to escape from the public eye. You left a bunch of crippled victims behind, then proceeded to let Anthony battle the Murphys tooth and nail all alone. Am I right?”
If my assumption was correct, it would mean that I had also been a part of his calculations.
Nicolas merely shrugged in admittance.
The relief of closure was quickly followed by a wave of fury and shock, crashing down and overpowering my rationality.
“You were the one who ruined Anthony as well as Armond! You knew that you could just take the contract away because of your background as a Hall, and the Murphys wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop you. Instead, you wanted Anthony to harbor those unnecessary feelings of revenge against his parents, and you wanted him to be tortured daily by nightmares and guilt! How could you do that to him?”
Nicolas spread his arms wide in a show of self-proclaimed innocence. “If I could perfectly wipe out the bloody past, why would I need to take the risk and get myself involved with those low-class vermin? Besides, I was merely acting in self-defense. The Murphy family had been planning for us to take the fall for their mistakes, but I was brainy enough to find a way out and escape my fate. They wanted to kill me, and Anthony is my son, so it makes sense that he would want to avenge me. What did I do wrong?”
“The problem is that you’re standing right in front of us, alive and well!” I screamed at him. “You even wanted to take Anthony’s life! You ruined the first half of his life, so who the f*ck do you think you are to stand here and call him your son? A piece of sh*t like you doesn’t deserve to be called a human, let alone a father!”
Nicolas tilted his head, the hints of a smile tugging at his mouth. “I don’t deserve to be a father? And what about you? Do you think that you’re above me? Do you think you deserve to stand up on Anthony’s behalf more than I do?”
“At least I never treated him like a product and threw him away when he was no longer of any use to me,” I spat out venomously. If Anthony didn’t have the heart to deal with this piece of trash, then I wasn’t going to back down on his behalf.
I must have been a sight, my face contorted in rage as I saw red, wishing for nothing more than to tear Nicolas to pieces with my bare hands.
But in the back of my mind, I knew that all I really wanted was to protect the man I loved. Getting myself worked up over Nicolas wasn’t worth it.
Upon hearing my rant, the man in question broke out into a chuckle that grated my ears, grinning meaningfully at me.
“What are you laughing at?” I scowled, unable to stop myself from responding.
Nicolas’ expression was now toned down as he stared at me, but his eyes were devoid of emotion. I felt chills run up my spine at the sight of them. “Women always like to make everything into a soap opera, don’t they? You’re selfless and you’re not scheming, so you expect the same from your partner? Should I tell you about Anthony’s hereditary blindness, and how he kept it under control for so long…”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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