Seeing that I was determined, Daniel’s face turned ashen.
The next morning, as I drove toward the court, I was caught in a chain-reaction crash. While waiting on the roadside, I received a terrifying phone call:
“Hello, is this Sophia Evans? Your daughter is in my hands. If you know what’s good for you, come to the abandoned warehouse in New Jersey right now. Otherwise, prepare to collect her corpse!”
“Mommy, help me!” My daughter’s voice jolted me back to reality.
“Don’t hurt her! I’m coming right away…”
In panic, I turned the wheel the wrong way, and another car slammed into me.
When I woke again, I was staring at the blindingly white ceiling of New York General Hospital, the sharp smell of antiseptic filling my nose.
I looked at myself in shock—still alive, but my legs were wrapped in plaster and bandages, throbbing with unbearable pain. I had been in a terrible accident.
Then I remembered—Emma was still in danger. I scrambled to find my phone to call Daniel.
But instead, from the room next door, I heard my daughter’s voice.
“Daddy, just because Mommy found out the secret of your half order and wanted a divorce, you made me pretend to be kidnapped so she would be distracted and crash her car, breaking her legs. That way, she couldn’t go to the court to finalize the divorce. You did all that because you still love Mommy, didn’t you?”
Daniel’s voice shattered my heart.
“Of course not. My marriage with her has long been meaningless. I was afraid that once she divorced me, she’d expose the secret behind that half order. Then my reputation, and Chloe’s reputation, would be utterly ruined!”
“How would I continue running my company? How would I face people? And how would Chloe survive it? Besides, don’t you prefer Chloe anyway?”
“Chloe’s life is pitiful. After being abused by her ex-husband overseas, she barely scrapes by here. What’s wrong with buying her a bag to brighten her day? Your mother is impossible to live with.”
Emma sighed.
“Yes, I do prefer Chloe. She always buys me burgers, but Mommy never lets me eat them. She forces me to eat disgusting green peppers!”
My heart grew colder and colder. Hearing this, all my worry for my daughter felt wasted.
At only eight years old, my little girl had already betrayed me—for Chloe, her father’s mistress. Together, they had deceived me and left me crippled.