Chapter 447
“Don’t be afraid, sweetheart,” Lacey cooed, stroking Mara’s hair while shooting Ethan a lethal glare. “As long as your father and I are here, no one is going to touch you. He’s just trying to scare you. He loves you, Ethan just p>
Lacey stopped mid-sentence when she looked up. Ethan wasn’t raging anymore. He was standing there with his arms crossed, watching them with eyes so cold they practically burned.
“Ethan, you p>
Ethan casually flicked a stack of papers, letting them scatter across Lacey’s chest and flutter to the floor.
“That’s the lab report for the soup,” he said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “Read it yourself. Take a good look at the monster you’ve spoiled p>
A sickening knot tightened in Lacey’s stomach. Ethan wouldn’t go to this extreme unless Mara had done something truly unforgivable. She scrambled to pick up the papers, her eyes scanning the bold text.
“A neurotoxin? How is this possible?” Lacey gasped. She grabbed Mara’s shoulders. “Tell me the truth. Where did you get this p>
Mara’s mind raced, desperately trying to calculate a lie that would minimize the damage.
Before she could speak, Lacey offered her an out. “Did someone trick you? You didn’t know what it was, right p>
“Yes! That’s exactly it!” Mara cried, clinging to the lifeline. “I was at the market, and this man was selling health supplements. He said they boosted energy and relieved stress. I knew Ethan was exhausting himself running the company, so I bought some for him… I didn’t know… I swear I didn’t know p>
“You see? She didn’t know. She had good intentions and just made a mistake p>
Lacey turned to Ethan, her face a mask of desperate hope.
Ethan let out a dark, mocking laugh that echoed in the grand foyer. “Good
intentions? Was she having ‘good intentions’ when she sabotaged Julian’s race car? Oh, right, in your eyes, she was just trying to cheer him on p>
He took a slow step forward. “When she stole highly classified company data, was that an ‘accident’ too? Oh, wait, you made excuses for her then, too. You claimed she was forced into it. Every single time she commits a crime, you twist reality to make her the victim. Just like when she spent years torturing Mira p>
He leaned in close to Lacey. “I just want to know one thing. Are you genuinely this stupid, or are you just playing the part? Because I’m starting to suspect you aren’t our real mother at all p>
Lacey froze. “What p>
“You’re just Mara’s mother. You were my father’s mistress, weren’t you p>
“I—!” Lacey stammered, her mind short-circuiting at the sheer absurdity of the accusation.
“Shut up and listen,” Ethan hissed. “After you birthed Mara in secret, you and Dad conspired to bring her into this house. You handed her to my real mother and lied, claiming they were twins p>
Ethan had been torturing himself trying to make sense of the family’s endless tragedies. He had hired private investigators to track down the oldestate staff and the nurses from the hospital where Mira was born By piecing together the fragmented clues and his own. repressed, nightmarish memories, he had constructed this narrative.
“Then, you two hatched a plan to throw Mira away in the slums. But the universe has a sense of humor. The thugs you hired screwed up and threw your precious Mara away instead p>
While Ethan was hallucinating the plastic surgery angle, his deduction about the baby swap was terrifyingly close to the truth.
“And to cover it up, you murdered my real mother, got plastic surgery to look exactly like her, and took her place p>
Lacey stared at him in horrified silence. She had absolutely no idea she was supposedly a murderous, shape-shifting mistress. The accusation was so deranged she wanted to slap him across the face.
She raised her hand, but Ethan caught her wrist in a vice grip and shoved her back, sending her stumbling.
“What? You want to hit me? You really think you’re my mother?” he sneered. “You’ve been playing the lady of the house for so long you’ve actually started believing i it For seventeen years, you treated Mira weff because you thought she was Mara! But the second thereal Mara came back, you and Dad realized the mistake and instantly transferred all your love to her p>