"I told you to never speak of this!" Aunt Margaretta whisper-shouted at Jannet.Jannet made an aloof expression. Refused to submit it to Aunt Margaretta's accusations. "So what? She deserved to know the truth!"Aunt Margaretta wanted to tear her hair out. Alexandra should never have known the truth! She had promised to keep this under the wraps and take this secret to her grave! "You've ruined everything! EVERYTHING!" The door swung open. Alexandra brushed past Aunt Margaretta and stomped down the hallway. "Young miss!" Aunt Margaretta called, following Alexandra. "Please listen to me!" Alexandra turned around, and Aunt Margaretta was torn apart. Alexandra was red with fury, as the color of danger and, worse, betrayal. "I've had enough of your lies!" ***Something cold and heavy dropped to Alexandra's stomach as she headed upstairs to the computer room to log into the surveillance system of the mansion. She opened it and looked for the CCTV footage of the day when her grandfather

Benjamin fell into a fit of turbulent coughs, blood, and vomit ruptured out of his mouth. Catherine hooked her hands under his sweaty armpits and pulled him to the loveseat before he could collide against the harsh marble floor. She recollected a faded picture-like memory of her father picking her up in his powerful, brawny arms, effortlessly when she was a small girl. She gloated about having the strongest man on earth as her father. Now she reduced him to a sickly skeleton.“Margaretta!” she called in anguish. The consequences of her outrageous sin, a gong banging on her conscience, reverberating and producing tremors that shook her to the vital core.Margaretta stepped in, cupping her round, fatty face in the horror of what lay before her eyes. Benjamin gasped for air, his thin, furrowed skin paled into a ghostly white. “Don’t just stand there! Tell the chauffeur to get the car ready, we have to take him to the hospital and get me something clean this off!” Catherine screamed, claw

YEARS AGO...It was a dreary monsoon morning when Catherine was woken up by the loud wails of her newborn. She slipped her long, naked legs out of the blanket and the cold gust gripped them with its icy fingers. Margaretta was taking a nap in the next room as she tended the baby for almost half the night. It was as though Margaretta couldn't get enough of the joy of getting to pamper an adorable baby. Hesitantly, Catherine picked up the baby. She had never been so careful not to drop something in her life. This precious little life in her hands should be handled with the uttermost care. That was all she knew from the moment she laid eyes on the beautiful infant. "Shh... go to sleep, little Alex," she whispered sweetly, placing the baby against her bosom. "Or are you hungry? Is that it?" She asked softly. That must have been the reason since the only two reasons babies cried so ferociously were when they were hungry or wanted their diapers changed. She knew little about babies or

For days, Catherine refused to talk to Benjamin. She shut herself inside her room and her depression had gotten worse. There was a suicidal thought haunting her day and night, and the hollowness in her chest kept getting bigger and inevitable to ignore. Eventually, she stopped spending time with her baby, too. Other than to breastfeed, she wanted nothing else to do with the baby and let Margaretta do the mothering work for her. Catherine began having nightmares about the night she was violated and like arsenic, it was making her sick. So sick that she felt hostile toward her child. Scared that if she warmed up to the baby again, then Alessandro would reappear in her life.Gabriel stopped his persistence in wanting to marry her and she, for once, dreaded he was over her. To test this, she invited him for tea to ask if he still wished to marry her. "Yes! Cathie, yes!" Gabriel said, thrilled. He was wearing a ridiculous-looking shirt with tropical patterns and black bell bottoms. His

The night weighed heavy on her like a wet blanket. She lay on the bed, curled up in a fetal position while she undid her past in her head. She couldn't tell when exactly Catherine began hating her. All these years, she had blamed her father for it; partly, he was the reason.Right?Worn with pain and exhausted from the prolonged hardships life had made her endure until this very night, she let herself be devoid of any emotions. Her heart clenched and unclenched painfully in her ribcage, but she loosened her body and let herself calm down. She needed a calm mind to think things through. She needed to sleep. Just as she closed her eyes, the door opened. She heard the familiar footsteps. Heavy but careful. Her back was turned away from the person. She couldn't see who it was, yet she guessed it. "Jonathan?"She felt the bed dip as he lay beside her.The sheets rustled as he closed the distance between them and circled an arm around her waist. Seeking some warmth, she pressed her nake