The Heiress They Chose To Lose Chapter 08
Claire’s remarkably athletic sprint and piercing screams landed like a slap across Victoria and Alexander’s faces.
Victoria’s entire world collapsed.
For twenty years, she had poured all her love into this supposedly fragile adopted daughter.
She had even hurt her own biological child to protect her.
And now that same “sickly” daughter was scrambling around the house like a terrified rat.
“You… you aren’t sick?”
Victoria’s voice shook uncontrollably.
She stumbled toward Claire and grabbed her arm.
“You lied to me?”
“You’ve been lying about being sick for twenty years?”
Claire was caught.
So she finally stopped pretending.
She violently jerked her arm away.
For the first time, her sweet and harmless expression twisted into something ugly.
“If I didn’t pretend to be sick, would any of you have given me all your attention?”
Claire screamed hysterically.
“If I wasn’t sick, would you have willingly spent millions on my medication?”
“If I hadn’t transferred that money out ahead of time, it would’ve disappeared with the rest of your fortune!”
“You idiots!”
“I knew the second Elena came back that she was dangerous.”
“You’re the ones who insisted on looking down on her and provoking her!”
“Now the Sterling family is finished.”
“And I’m not going down with you!”
Claire spun around and tried to run.
But the two rows of black-clad bodyguards blocked every possible exit.
The head of the Harrington medical team smiled pleasantly.
“Miss Claire, Miss Elena gave us very clear instructions.”
“Your ‘condition’ needs to be completely treated before you’re allowed to leave.”
He gestured toward the equipment.
“Let’s begin.”
Claire screamed as the bodyguards forced her back onto the couch.
The cold diagnostic equipment was brought directly in front of her.
Alexander closed his eyes.
A tear slid from the corner of one eye.
He finally understood.
The “rationality” he had been so proud of had never been rationality at all.
He had been manipulated from beginning to end.
And because of that lie, he had personally pushed away his biological sister—the woman with enough wealth and influence to have taken the Sterling family to heights they had never reached before.
That afternoon, two people knelt outside the gates of the Greenwich estate.
Alexander and Victoria.
It was November.
The Connecticut wind cut straight through their thin clothes as they knelt on the freezing pavement, trembling.
“Elena… please…”
Victoria’s voice was already hoarse from crying.
“Please see your mother.”
She pressed her forehead against the ground until the skin split and began to bleed.
“I was blind.”
“I didn’t know she’d been lying to me all these years…”
“Please forgive me.”
“The Sterling family can’t go bankrupt. Your father spent his entire life building this company…”
Alexander wasn’t crying.
But the proud, straight back he had carried all his life was finally bent.
His hands clenched against the pavement as desperation entered his voice.
“Elena, all of this was my fault.”
“I was arrogant.”
“I played favorites.”
“If you want my life, you can have it.”
“Just please show us mercy.”
“Give the Sterling family one chance to survive.”
I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window on the second floor, looking down at them.
A cup of coffee rested in my hand.
“Should we have them removed?”
An assistant stood respectfully behind me.
“No.”
I took a small sip, my gaze completely cold.
“If they enjoy kneeling that much, let them kneel.”
“After all, when they made me sign away the Sterling trust, didn’t they think I should be grateful just to have a place in their family?”
Another car pulled up outside the estate.
Julian Prescott stumbled out.
Nothing remained of the polished East Coast heir he had once pretended to be.
His suit was wrinkled.
His tie hung crooked.
His hair was a mess.
With a single decision, Adrian had frozen the Prescott family out of the port project they had been depending on.
The banks cut off their credit.
Julian’s father suffered a heart attack and ended up in the ICU.
Julian had come to beg me not to end our engagement.
“Elena!”
He dropped to his knees beside Alexander.
Then he looked up toward the second-floor balcony.
“Elena, I was wrong!”
“I don’t want to cancel the engagement!”
“You’re the one I’ve always loved. Claire manipulated me!”
“If you ask Mr. Harrington to help us, I’ll marry you immediately!”
“From now on, you can make every decision in the Prescott family!”
I looked at the three people kneeling in the freezing wind.
One tried to guilt me with blood ties.
One tried to repair the damage with an apology.
And one was still trying to bargain with a marriage I didn’t want.
Pathetic.
Every single one of them.