Chapter 273
Isolde walked straight to the bed and placed her hand over her mother’s trembling fingers. “Mom, are you okay?”
Ellyn whispered, her voice weak and raspy. “She wants the factory… for the land. InnoTech wants to bulldoze it.”
Isolde turned slowly to face Cheryl. “You’re here to scavenge? My mother is in critical condition.”
Cheryl stood up, smoothing her skirt. She didn’t look apologetic. She looked bored.
“InnoTech is generous,” Cheryl said, checking her manicure. “We are offering to pay off the corporate debts. You can keep the house. It’s better than bankruptcy, Isolde. Think of the future.”
𝘠оu𝗋 nех𝘵 𝖿а𝘃𝗼𝗋і𝘵𝗲 𝗿𝗲a𝖽 𝗶s о𝗇 g𝖺𝘭ո𝘰v𝖾𝗅ѕ.сo𝘮
Cheryl leaned in slightly, her perfume — a heavy, cloying floral scent — filling the air between them.
“Think of that defective daughter of yours,” Cheryl said softly.
The air in the room seemed to vanish. The temperature dropped to absolute zero.
Isolde felt a roaring sound in her ears. “What did you say?”
Cheryl sighed, feigning pity. “Effie. She’s slow, isn’t she? Socially awkward. Needs special care. Expensive care.” She smirked. “Grayson won’t pay for a retard forever once he marries Belle and has a real heir.”
The word hung in the air. Ugly. Hateful.
Isolde saw red. Not metaphorically — her vision literally tinted crimson at the edges.
Her body moved before her brain could process the legal consequences. Her left hand, unburdened by the still-healing fracture in her right wrist, shot out.
The slap cracked through the sterile room like a gunshot.
Cheryl stumbled backward, clutching her cheek. Her eyes went wide with shock. A bright red handprint bloomed instantly across her pale, powdered skin.
“You… you crazy bitch!” Cheryl shrieked.
Isolde didn’t stop. She stepped into Cheryl’s space, forcing the older woman back toward the door.
“Say her name again,” Isolde whispered, her voice shaking with a terrifying rage. “I dare you.”
Cheryl looked into Isolde’s eyes and saw murder there. She saw a mother who would burn the world to ash to protect her child.
Cheryl was genuinely scared. She scrambled backward, her heels slipping on the linoleum.
Isolde grabbed Cheryl’s expensive cream jacket and shoved her toward the open door.
“Get out!” Isolde screamed.
She threw Cheryl into the hallway. Cheryl stumbled and nearly fell, catching herself on a nurse’s cart.
“If you or your daughter come near my family again,” Isolde said, standing in the doorway like a guardian demon, “I will burn InnoTech to the ground. I will leave you with nothing but the clothes on your back.”
Nurses came running down the hall. “Mrs. Lancaster! What happened?”
Cheryl straightened up, her hand still pressed to her stinging cheek, her eyes wet with humiliation and rage.
“Assault!” Cheryl screamed, pointing a shaking finger at Isolde. “She assaulted me! I’m calling the police! I’m calling Grayson!”
Isolde stood tall. She didn’t tremble. She didn’t regret it.
“Call him,” Isolde said. “Let him see what you really are.”
She slammed the door in Cheryl’s face.
She turned back to Ellyn. Her mother was crying silently, tears streaming into her oxygen mask. Isolde walked over and gently wiped them away. Her hands were steady now.
.