The Lie Of That Night Chapter 10
At this moment, the Mendez’s mansion.
The smile vanished completely from Paulina’s face.
She gritted her teeth. “Useless, all of you are useless.”
At that moment, Roderick’s voice trembled with tears: “Mom… I, I want to ask… Ms. Harvey… did she really fall into the sea? Dad went to look for her, right? Can we… can we go see? I want to know…”
Paulina’s pent-up anger finally found an outlet. She spun around abruptly, glaring down at Roderick. “Roderick, I’ve raised you all these years, loved you, spoiled you, and this is how you repay me? What kind of spell did she put on you?”
Roderick trembled in fear, his eyes quickly filling with tears.
“How much have I worried for you? How much effort have I spent? Just because she’s your biological mother, you can’t wait to acknowledge her? Let me tell you, she’s a shameless wretch, a lunatic! She wants to steal your father.”
The more Paulina spoke, the more agitated she became, her chest heaving violently.
“All the kindness I’ve shown you over the years can’t compare to her filthy blood, is that it? You’re an ungrateful child.”
“No… Mom, I didn’t…”
Frightened by her terrifying appearance, Roderick kept retreating, his face drained of color, tears rolling down in large drops.
He was utterly confused.
On one side was Paulina’s ‘years of nurturing’ and her current rage, on the other was that lingering phrase in the hospital, “I am his mother,” and Gretchen’s look of despair.
Paulina pressed closer with every step, her voice sharp. “You just think, because I’m not your real mother, you can ignore my feelings, right? You can go and acknowledge Gretchen, right? I’m telling you, don’t even think about it.”
“As long as I’m here, don’t even dream of calling her ‘Mom.’ You have only one mother, and that’s me, do you understand?”
Her shriek echoed through the hall, completely shattering the mask of the gentle mother she once wore.
Roderick stared at her in a daze, forgetting to cry.
The Paulina before him was so unfamiliar, so terrifying.
Those accusations and insults doused the guilt in his heart like a bucket of ice water.
Poisoning… was it really Gretchen?
If she really wanted to kill him, why did she desperately try to save him in the hospital, drawing so much blood?
“No… you’re not…”
Roderick shook his head, murmuring.
The look he gave Paulina was full of fear, alienation, and a trace of loathing.
Paulina’s shriek stopped abruptly.
Panic instantly overwhelmed her anger. Her expression changed, and she hurriedly crouched down, trying to hug Roderick.
“Ricky, I’m sorry, Mom didn’t mean to be harsh with you… Mom is just too scared, scared of losing you… Do you know how much Mom loves you? Mom can’t live without you…”
She reached out, trying to wipe Roderick’s tears, wanting to stroke his hair.
But Roderick recoiled as if burned, shrinking back to avoid her touch.
Looking at Paulina’s anxious face, he felt nothing but utter falseness.
“I want to find her.”
Roderick’s voice was stubborn.
He no longer looked at Paulina and turned to run outside.
“I want to find my mom, I want to find Dad. I want to get to the bottom of this.”
“Ricky, Ricky, come back!”
Paulina chased to the door, but all she saw was the deep night.
Regret, anger, and panic twisted together, contorting her face.Â
Hospital.
Gretchen opened her eyes to see the haggard faces of her parents.
Her mother gripped her hand tightly, choking back tears. “Greta, don’t be afraid, Mom and Dad are here, no one can hurt you again… we won’t let anyone get away with it.”
Her father, Logan Ashford, stood silently by the bed, his eyes red-rimmed, his jaw clenched tight.
His voice was heavy with pain: “A year ago, when I found out you were entangled with Terrence, I should have revealed my identity and brought you back by force. It was my mistake… I just wanted you to have an ordinary life…”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he suppressed overwhelming fear. “If I hadn’t noticed your adoptive parents acting suspiciously and sent someone to watch, if we hadn’t caught that car trying to silence you, traced it to the mental hospital’s vehicle that disappeared halfway… if Kane’s inside man hadn’t pulled you out of the car before it exploded…”
This man, who had spent half his life dealing in life and death, was almost choked with emotion. “We almost lost you forever.”
Gretchen’s heart ached with sorrow.
Seeing the torment her parents had endured for her, she struggled to lift her hand and gently stroked her mother’s hand, her voice hoarse. “I’m fine now… Don’t be sad.”
Once her emotions had calmed a little, her mother, Eleanor Galloway, asked cautiously, “Greta, do you… still want to bring Ricky back?”
The mention of ‘Ricky’ opened the floodgates of bloody memories.
Her son’s look of disgust, the accusation of ‘bad woman,’ that slap, the pain of being shoved, his cold voice accusing her in public, ‘You poisoned me!…’
Her heart was gripped by an invisible hand, throbbing with dull pain.
The child she had given life to had been ‘cultivated’ by the Mendez family into a knife turned against her.
The obsession to win him back at all costs had become unbearably heavy and sad after all she had been through.
She slowly closed her eyes and opened them again. The madness and humble pleading she once had were gone, leaving only exhaustion and dead silence.
Looking at her parents, she spoke each word clearly and resolutely: “No more.”
Logan and Eleanor exchanged glances, feeling both heartache and a quiet sense of relief.
That child, ruined by his upbringing, was no longer worth their daughter’s pain.
Gretchen turned to look out at the sky, caught between night and dawn.
From now on, she was just Gretchen.
The daughter of Logan and Eleanor.