Before he could finish, the line cut off. Then my phone started ringing.
Without any expression, I answered. On the other end, Scott’s angry voice came through.
“I used to think you were just spoiled and selfish because we spoiled you too much.”
“I didn’t expect that now, just to force a marriage, you’d lose all sense of shame.”
He clenched his teeth, breathing heavily as he forced out each word. “You not only made your sister’s condition worse, but now you even have the nerve to make my coworkers lie for you, saying you’re acting as bait. You want to trick us into pitying you so we’ll let you marry Atlas, isn’t that it?”
“Sienna, you’re just like that foster mother of yours, cheap, shameless, and obsessed with men. You dare use such a serious case just to feed your pride!”
He spoke clearly, his voice cold and cutting. “Get over here right now and kneel before your sister to apologize!”
“In front of everyone, make it clear that Atlas has nothing to do with you. You’re just a disgusting woman trying to steal your sister’s man!”
As I listened, my hand slowly tightened. When he compared me to my foster mother in that tone, my mind went blank.
He had once read the investigation file and knew how my foster mother, just to keep my foster father, Stephen Hayes, pleased, could watch without a word as he came into my room at midnight.
And when I cried and fought back, saying I would call the police, she hit me with a vase, leaving a scar on my forehead that would never fade.
Back then, his hands shook and his eyes turned red as he gently touched the scar on my face.
He swore to me in that same tone, “Sienna, anyone who has ever hurt you, I won’t let a single one of them go.”
I let out a faint laugh and spoke calmly. “My adoptive mother is Heidi’s real mother.”
“By what you said, she’s the one who should’ve inherited her mother’s bad side.”
“After all, she’s the one who pretended to be crazy and acted pitiful just to steal her sister’s marriage.”
“Aren’t all of you part of it too?”
There was silence on the other end of the call for a few seconds before I heard my foster sister crying in panic.
“Sister, I really didn’t mean it… I’m sick and can’t remember some things. I didn’t know about you and Atlas…”
“Mom, Brother, Atlas. I didn’t know my illness would upset Sienna. I might as well just die…”
Then my mother’s angry voice came through.