She glared out at the city lights. “I don’t believe you’ll keep hiding. Just wait—I’ll be harsher than you. When I find you, I’ll break your leg. Let’s see how you like it.”
I stood behind her, sighing at her unyielding back.
Was this lingering affection—or a cursed bond reigniting?
I remembered five years ago, when she had nearly died saving me from being hit by a car. Even before her wounds had healed, she came to me, but I slammed the door in her face.
She had cried outside, begging me not to leave her, promising she wouldn’t drag me down.
I hired a woman to stage an act with me, taunting her: “You’re crippled, what courage do you have to say you won’t be a burden?”
She clung to my leg, refusing to leave, until I kicked her away and she fainted.
My chest clenched painfully as I watched her carried into the ambulance. That was the last time I saw her alive. I only wanted her to survive, even if she hated me.
But now, not finding me, she turned her hatred onto my mother.
The next day, she brought my mother—fresh from resuscitation—to my home.
The house was bare, without anything of value.
Emily sneered. “Wasn’t he kept by some rich woman? Why do you live like this?”
My mother stayed silent, staring at my photo on the wall.
Emily snatched it down, smashing the glass, then tore the picture apart.
“No! That’s my last memory of Ethan. Please, don’t!”
“Don’t call me your daughter-in-law. Do you think your family deserves me?”
At that moment, a furious voice thundered through the door.
“Emily Carter, stop this right now!”
Emily froze, a flicker of joy flashing before it vanished. It wasn’t me.
It was my best friend, Daniel Ross, rushing in to lift my mother from the floor.
“Mom, are you okay?”
Since my death, Daniel Ross had taken care of my mother under the name of a godson. But she refused to leave the family home.
She never saw my body. In her heart, she believed I could still come back to see her.
So she stayed in that old house, waiting for her son’s return.
“It’s you? Hah, people befriend their own kind. You’re just as rotten as he was.”
“And what about that heartless bastard Ethan Brooks? Still planning to keep being a useless coward?”
Hearing her insult me, Daniel roared in fury.
“Shut up! You don’t deserve to even speak his name.”
“If it hadn’t been for your little thrill-seeking street racing back then, his car wouldn’t have nearly been hit—”