Chapter 1042:
Her eyes swept the crowd, taking in every shocked stare and disgusted grimace. “If that’s what you call respectable, then perhaps I should fetch the little ‘souvenirs’ from his study. Then everyone can judge for themselves what a ‘respectable gentleman’ really looks like.”
Her words detonated through the crowd, Gregg’s depravity laid bare with a single, devastating blow.
Terrance and Laurel could only stutter uselessly, their once-perfect facade collapsing beneath the weight of truth.
“Enough!” a grizzled officer barked. His tone was low and controlled, but it carried the weight of someone who had seen far too many dark cases. “Get the injured to the hospital. Everyone else involved, to the station. Now. We’ll continue the investigation there.”
He stressed the last words deliberately, letting his gaze linger on Laurel and Terrance with an edge sharp enough to cut.
But Paola heard none of it. Her eyes were fixed on her mother, on the woman who had once stood regal and untouchable, now hollowed out and trembling. Tears spilled hot down her cheeks.
“Mom… answer me.” The words wavered from her lips, fragile and frayed. “All those years you made me play the piano, it wasn’t to nurture me. It was to make me more marketable. You groomed me into a perfect socialite, not because it made me happy, but because it raised my value. My whole life, I was nothing more than a prized possession waiting to be claimed by the highest bidder.”
𝗥e𝘢𝗱 𝘧ro𝗆 𝘆𝘰𝗎𝘳 𝗉𝘩𝘰𝗇𝗲 𝗈𝗻 g𝗮𝗅ոо𝘃𝗲lѕ.с𝘰m
Once, she had treated those demands as sacred, like stepping stones to becoming the perfect woman her mother wanted.
But she’d nearly lost herself chasing those hollow dreams. And then, at the very edge of that abyss, Rylie had taken her hand, and the world snapped into focus. All those goals, all that pressure, all the glitter she once worshipped, they seemed… useless.
She moved toward Laurel in slow, deliberate steps. The wild, hollow grief burning in her eyes made Laurel stumble back inch by inch.
“You never cared if I was happy! Not once! All you ever cared about was appearances, about molding me into some ornament to prop up your precious social ladder!”
Paola’s voice cracked upward, barbed with accusation. “So tell me, just once in your life, did you ever love me as your daughter?”
Laurel froze, as if rooted to the tiles beneath her, blindsided by a version of Paola she had never allowed herself to see. Her throat tightened around a truth she didn’t dare examine. Had she ever truly loved her daughter?
A sharp, bitter laugh tore from Paola as she swung to face the cameras. “Did you know?” she spat. “While my cousins and grandfather spent years searching for Rylie, Laurel already knew. She knew exactly where Rylie was. She even knew about Patrick’s trafficking. She hid it all. She was complicit.”
“Ahhh! Shut up! Just shut up!” Laurel screamed.
Few things could shatter a woman faster than her daughter turning her into a public villain.
Laurel lunged at Paola in a frenzy, but officers were on her in seconds, restraining her thrashing indignation.
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