Chapter 276: Flashback – The Trap of Fate (23 Years Ago)

Author’s POV

After Meredith emerged from the operating room, the space felt like a silent battlefield reeking of medicine and charred emotions. Meredith lay on the white bed, as pale as if the blood had been drained from her veins, while Stewart and the mother surrounded her with worried, fabricated looks. In the corner of the room, Violet stood like a cold shadow, crossing her arms with a provocative indifference, her calm features radiating a stillness that could drive anyone witnessing it to madness.

The mother cleared her throat, breaking the heavy silence with a grave voice carrying the tone of unarguable authority. She looked at her ailing daughter intently and said: "Meredith, since you’ve now passed the danger zone and will be discharged by evening, it’s time we speak of a matter of utmost importance... I have a subject that will completely change the course of things."

Meredith tried to shift her tired body under the covers, exhaling heavily as she opened her withered eyelids to ask in a weak voice barely audible: "What is it, Mother? Has something happened that you haven’t told me?"

The mother exchanged glances with Stewart, then tilted her head rigidly and said with a tone as sharp as a knife: "Violet is pregnant."

Meredith’s eyes widened in thunderous shock, as if an electric bolt had struck her frail body. She never imagined in her worst nightmares that her reckless sister would fall into this pit. She gasped with a shock that made her chest heave violently: "What? Did I hear you correctly? Violet is pregnant?"

The mother continued, averting her gaze toward the window, trying to escape her daughter’s eyes: "This is the reality we are facing now... and what’s worse, she claims she doesn’t know the father’s identity and simply wants to end it and abort the fetus."

Meredith’s gaze shifted toward Violet sharp as blades, loaded with years of contempt and suppressed malice. She gritted her teeth and said bitterly: "All those years of blind pampering and spoiling... look at what things have come to! Look at the honorable result!" She turned back to her mother, tears welling in her eyes from sheer oppression: "This is all because of you alone! You’re the one who turned her into a spoiled monster who doesn’t care about consequences... look at what she’s done to us and our reputation!"

Violet watched this theatrical display, interlacing her fingers with icy coldness. Not a hair on her head stirred, nor did she flinch at her sister’s insults. She maintained a profound silence, and in her silence was a sickening pride; she knew well that silence was far more valuable than words.

The mother snapped and shouted a warning, striking her palm against the edge of the bed: "Meredith! Weigh your words carefully... stop this attack immediately!"

But Meredith had lost control of her nerves; she continued screaming while trembling on the bed: "Despite all her filth, you’re still defending her! She’s nothing but a whore... she got pregnant by a nobody and doesn’t even know which man fucked her and left her with this shame!" Deep in Meredith’s heart, a beast of fear was gnawing at her vitals; she feared that this fetus might be the child of "Morgan," the man who had stripped her of everything and still inhabited the folds of her broken heart.

A funereal silence hung over the room when the mother spoke in a stern tone that shattered all bridges of discussion: "Listen, Meredith, if you add one more word, I will completely forget that you are my sick daughter who just came out of surgery... I will forget everything!" Meredith felt a suffocating lump, a physical and psychological pain squeezing her chest; at this moment, she was certain for the thousandth time that her mother’s heart had room only for Violet.

The mother continued in a commanding tone: "I did not allow Violet to abort this child, and I never will... because I have decided that she will give you this child, for you to raise as your own son."

Meredith’s body went rigid under the heavy covers. She felt as if a boulder had dropped onto her chest to crush her breath. Wasn’t the hell of her illness enough? Wasn’t the deprivation of her womanhood enough? And now she was being asked to spend her life caring for the fruit of her hated sister’s sin? She screamed in weakness and brokenness: "I don’t accept! It’s impossible for me to agree to this nonsense!"

The mother was shocked by the violent reaction and said in disbelief: "What? How do you dare refuse? Is this your response to my attempt to compensate you?"

Meredith replied, digging her nails into her palm until she almost drew blood: "I won’t raise her child... I will never touch anything that came out of her tainted womb!"

The mother tried to change her tone to one of persuasion, leaning in and saying with a false calmness: "He is your nephew, your own blood... he will be like the son you never gave birth to... haven’t you longed all your life to experience motherhood? This is your golden opportunity."

Meredith did indeed crave motherhood sincerely, but she wanted a child that was the product of love a child that carried her features, not a child that would remind her every morning and evening of her sister’s betrayal and recklessness. She said sharply, through tears: "I don’t want her child! Am I to play the dirty role? Am I to waste my life raising and staying up late while she goes on with her life and enjoys her whims as if nothing happened?"

The mother settled the matter with a position of absolute power: "Meredith, the discussion is over... you will raise this child whether you like it or by force... this is my final decision."

Meredith pressed her fingers together with a frantic force until she heard her bones pop; she felt an indescribable humiliation, knowing she was just a tool in her mother’s hand. What fueled the fire of her malice was catching a glimpse of Violet, who still maintained her lethal coldness, looking as if she had just won a profitable bet.

Two months had passed since that night that turned Violet’s life upside down. She was now nearly three months pregnant, but what was surprising and suspicious was her body, which seemed to rebel against the laws of nature; her belly remained strangely flat, and she showed none of the common signs of pregnancy. Except for a very slight bulge that was barely noticeable, Violet with her usual intelligence and narcissism explained it to Thomas and her friends as a "slight weight gain" resulting from the stress of university exams. No one doubted her, given her slender body that hadn’t lost its allure.

During that period, her relationship with Thomas was at its peak, with feverish encounters continuing between them, while Morgan had completely disappeared from the scene, as if he had evaporated or withdrawn to arrange his cards in the dark. With the end of her university year, the hour of truth struck; it was time for her planned departure to the countryside, to disappear from sight before her pregnancy became obvious and the scandal was exposed.

Violet felt no guilt; her only concern was ending her relationship with Thomas with minimal losses. She decided simply to leave him without long introductions.

She pulled out her phone and, with steady fingers, sent a text: "Thomas, baby, where are you?" The minutes passed heavily. She was surprised when the response didn’t come immediately as she was used to from a man who panted for her approval, but after fifteen minutes, the text arrived: "Hi baby, sorry for the delay, I was in the bathroom... are you okay?" Violet replied with curtness and coldness: "Come meet me at the apartment, now." He answered with clear eagerness: "Okay, I’ll be there in minutes."

Violet took a taxi to the luxury apartment Thomas had bought for her as a sanctuary for their secret love. As soon as she stepped inside, she felt a sudden hunger pang. She asked the building guard over the intercom to bring her a heavy meal, then went inside and took off her coat. A short time later, she heard the key in the door.

Thomas entered and didn’t even wait for her to speak; he rushed toward her like a deprived man, circling her waist with his strong arms and pulling her close before devouring her lips in a deep, mad kiss that expressed his lethal longing.

Violet tried to pull away slightly, panting, and said in a serious tone: "Thomas, stop... I need to talk to you about something very important regarding my future."

But Thomas, who was under the influence of her spell, whispered with shallow breaths while burying his face in her neck: "Please, Violet... postpone any talk for later... I miss you so much it’s making me lose my mind." He returned to kissing her wildly, and clothes began to fall away from them in a bout of feverish passion.

She stretched out on the plush sofa, and he was above her with his muscular mass. As soon as his dick sank inside her, she closed her eyes and let out muffled moans of pleasure that shook the room, forgetting for moments the decision to leave and the child growing in her womb.

Suddenly, at the peak of their union, the sound of violent banging on the door pierced the stillness. Thomas stopped abruptly, his body going rigid above her as if struck by lightning. He said in a low voice filled with anxiety: "Who the hell comes at this time?"

Violet replied, trying to catch her broken breath, her body still trembling: "Don’t worry... it must be the building guard, I asked him to bring food before you arrived."

Thomas exhaled with a fake relief, saying as he toyed with a strand of her hair: "Ah baby, if you had told me, I would have brought the finest food with me... stay here, don’t move, I’ll take the food from him quickly and come back so we can finish what we started."

Thomas rose from the sofa, and with his body completely naked and covered in beads of sweat, he headed toward the door with confident steps. He stood behind the wood cautiously and opened it just a crack, tilting his head out so his naked body wouldn’t be visible to the guard.

But at that moment, every atom of his being froze. His face turned the color of the dead, and his eyes bulged with indescribable terror. The person standing outside wasn’t the guard with the expected meal; it was his wife, Elizabeth, standing with tense features and eyes radiating both doubt and certainty.

Thomas froze in place like an ice statue. He felt a piercing cold strike his heart, and he spoke in a faint, trembling voice that almost vanished in his throat: "Elizabeth...!"

Elizabeth pushed the door with all her desperate strength, and the wood slammed against the wall with a thunderous bang that echoed throughout the apartment, sounding like the crash of Thomas’s stable life. She stood there at the threshold, her body trembling violently as if an electric current were surging through her veins. Her eyes were red and raw from the suppressed crying that had finally exploded.

Thomas recoiled with shaky steps, his feet tripping over the living room rug as he desperately tried to hide his nakedness and cover his body with anything his hand could reach, whispering in a voice filled with terror and shame: "Elizabeth... please, listen to me... I’ll explain everything... it’s not what it looks like, trust me." 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Elizabeth screamed in a broken tone that tore at the heartstrings a cry that came from the depths of a soul just slaughtered: "What are you going to explain, Thomas? What new lie will you weave now while I see you completely naked in an apartment I know nothing about?" Her breath came in short, jagged gasps, as if the air in the place had turned toxic.

She pointed a trembling finger at his face and said with a bitterness dripping from every word: "I saw her message, Thomas... that cursed message that scorched my heart: ’Come meet me at the apartment’... You were in the bathroom and left your damned phone beside me, so I read it all... I read how you were deceiving me with slogans of love and loyalty while I was the naive one, thinking you were staying up late working to secure the future of your two children who are waiting for you at home!"

She didn’t wait for a response; she rushed toward the living room with staggering steps, as if rushing toward her own demise, only to find Violet standing there. Violet was gathering her scattered clothes from the sofa with a lethal coldness, her movements mechanical and devoid of any tension or agitation, as if she were dressing after an ordinary stroll. Elizabeth froze before her, her gaze fixed on Violet’s beautiful, cold face.

She felt a horrific shock and brokenness, then turned back to Thomas, who was trying to pull on his pants quickly, and said in a husky voice choked by pain: "Is this why you were distancing yourself from me? Is this why you became a stranger in your own home? For her? Were you fucking her here with such lust while I, your wife, sat with your children for long hours waiting for you to have dinner together?"

Under the weight of the bitter truth, Elizabeth gradually collapsed. Her legs betrayed her, and she fell to her knees on the rug, covering her trembling face with her palms, wailing with a bitterness and lamentation that shattered the silence. "Why, Thomas?" she screamed from behind her fingers. "What sin did I commit against you? I gave you my youth, my life, and every atom of love in my heart... how could you do this to me in cold blood? How will I explain your absence to your children’s eyes now?"

Thomas stood frozen in his place like an idol, feeling a shame he had never tasted before as he watched his fortress and real life shatter beneath his feet, unable to utter a single word to justify the ugliness of the situation. Meanwhile, Violet watched the scene as if watching a movie whose hero meant nothing to her. She finished putting on her jacket, adjusted her hair with a terrifying indifference, then directed her gaze toward Thomas and said in a tone completely devoid of any empathy or regret: "Thomas... you never told me you were married, and you never mentioned that you had two children."

Through her torrential tears, Elizabeth looked at Violet, feeling a profound disgust at the calmness of this woman who had stolen her husband. She said in weakness and humiliation: "And you... how do you accept being the hand that destroys a thriving home? Don’t you have a heart? Don’t you have a shred of conscience or humanity to do this to another woman and orphan children while they are still alive?"