Chapter 148 Heartless
The moment Belinda woke up, she looked for Camila.
Her eyes darted around the room in a panic. When she finally spotted Camila sitting quietly on the sofa, Belinda didn’t care about her frail condition or how disheveled she looked.
With trembling legs and hands pressed against the floor for support, she crawled toward Camila, tears streaming down her face uncontrollably.
“Camila, I’m sorry! I swear I won’t side with Agnes anymore. Please, forgive me. Harry is in prison because of Arthur, and now you’re all I have left!” she cried, her voice cracking with desperation.
Belinda’s voice was hoarse and trembling, filled with despair. Kneeling before Camila, she sobbed uncontrollably, pouring out her regret. Her frail figure and tear–streaked face painted a picture of utter misery.
But Camila remained unmoved. She cast her mother a cold, fleeting glance before turning her gaze away, her nonchalance cutting deeper than any words could.
Her icy demeanor, as if she had given up on her mother entirely, was like a dagger piercing Belinda’s heart. In that moment, Belinda truly felt the crushing weight of complete despair.
Realizing that Camila would never forgive her, Belinda felt as though her heart was being torn apart.
Her eyes filled with despair, she cried out in a trembling voice, “Camila, are you really so heartless that you don’t even want your mom anymore?”
Camila’s gaze never once landed on Belinda, nor did she pay attention to her words. It was precisely this silent indifference that made Belinda’s heart ache even more.
Hazel stood to the side, her face dark with fury. Her voice was sharp as she lashed out, “Mrs. Jackson, you have no right to call Camila heartless. In the three years she lived under your roof, you never cared for her–not even once.
“You knew she spent fifteen years suffering in an orphanage, yet when she finally came home, you ignored her completely. Every month, you gave Agnes 300 thousand dollars, but Camila? Not a single penny.
“Agnes dressed like a princess every day, while Camila was always in her school uniform. You saw it, but you turned a blind eye. Three years, and you didn’t even buy her one new outfit.
“Camila and Agnes share the same birthday, but you’ve only thrown parties and bought gifts for Agnes all those years.
“Camila left early and returned late for school every day, often going an entire day without a hot meal. Meanwhile, your family of four sat together, eating, laughing and chatting.
“When I suggested bringing Camila food, you stopped me, saying she didn’t come home to eat because she wasn’t hungry.” Hazel sneered, her eyes filled with contempt. “Camila was in high school, a time when she needed proper nutrition. But she was so starved that her face turned pale, her hair dry and brittle. And you had the audacity to say she wasn’t hungry?
“You didn’t hit her like Arthur or frame her like Agnes, but your heartless neglect was worse than any abuse.
“I’ve kept track of every vile thing you’ve done. So tell me, what gives you the right to call Camila heartless? Have you ever done even one thing a mother should for her?”
Hazel had been holding these words back for years.
During the five years Camila was wrongfully imprisoned, Hazel had considered leaving the Jackson family more than once. But back then, Lucy was still in high school, and money was tight everywhere. When Lucy went to college, the expenses only grew.
The Jacksons were terrible people, but the pay wasn’t bad. More importantly, Hazel couldn’t stop worrying that if she left, there’d be no one to truly care for Camila when she finally came home.
So, despite her resentment toward the Jackson family, she gritted her teeth and stayed, enduring it all for the sake of Lucy and Camila.
Later, events proved her decision had been the right one.
There was that horrifying day when Belinda, desperate to protect Agnes, smashed an ashtray against Camila’s head, leaving her bleeding profusely. If Hazel hadn’t carried Camila out of the house and happened to run into Giovani, Camila might not have survived.
deeply into Hazel’s memory. Today, she finally
Every single one of these moments, every injus Successfully unlocked! had the chance to let it all out. As the grievances spilled out, felt years of suffocating pain lift off her chest. Lindsey and Keira had always known that Camila’s life in the Jackson family was tough, but they never imagined her own mother could be so heartless. Their eyes were filled with disgust as they glared at Belinda.
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Enoch and Abigail were completely stunned, unable to believe what they were hearing.
Chapter 148 Heartless
As parents who deeply loved their own daughter, Emily, they couldn’t fathom the pain Camila had endured. Their blind rage over Emily’s condition had driven them to take revenge on Camila, but now, learning the truth, they were consumed by quilt. Knowing that Camila had been wrongfully imprisoned and suffered because of their actions, their hearts ached with remorse. When Enoch and Abigail looked at Belinda again, all they saw was a despicable woman.
William, collapsed on the ground, was overwhelmed with heartbreak. He couldn’t even imagine facing Camila again. Arthur, sitting in his wheelchair, paralyzed, was overcome with regret. Tears of remorse streamed down his face.
Agnes wasn’t his daughter. He had been deceived for over twenty years. For the sake of a child who wasn’t even his, he had cruelly mistreated his own flesh and blood.
For more than two decades, they had treated Agnes like a princess, while his real daughter was abandoned to an orphanage, left to grow up alone and unloved.
He had sent his own daughter to prison in Agnes’s place and even taken her kidney to save Agnes,
He wondered if Agnes had been laughing at him all these years, mocking his blind devotion. And Ivanna and Claude might
have ridiculed him behind his back, calling him a fool for sacrificing his own daughter.
The weight of his grief was like a mountain, crushing him and making it hard to breathe.
Arthur wanted to confess, to pour out the regret that was tearing him apart, but all that came out were garbled sounds. Saliva dripped uncontrollably from the corners of his mouth, a pitiful reflection of his broken state.
Hazel’s words dragged Belinda back to the past, where scenes of her sharp and cold treatment of Camila played out in her mind like a reel of painful memories.
Her gaze turned hollow, as if each memory was a needle stabbing into her heart, twisting deeper with every thought, leaving her gasping for air.
She could almost see young Camila, standing quietly in the corner in her worn–out school uniform, her eyes filled with envy and sorrow as Agnes basked in the crowd’s attention.
And yet, Belinda had turned a blind eye to it all, pouring every ounce of her love and care into Agnes without hesitation. “No,” she murmured, clutching her head with trembling hands, her body shaking uncontrollably.
How she wished this was just a nightmare, that she could wake up and turn back time to make up for everything she owed Camila.
She remembered the look in Camila’s eyes when Arthur scolded and hit her–a silent plea for help that Belinda had coldly ignored. Now, that gaze haunted her like a ghost, wrapping around her soul and leaving her no escape.
She clutched at her chest. If only time could rewind, she would hold Camila tightly, buy her beautiful clothes, celebrate her birthdays with laughter and joy, and make her the happiest daughter in the world.
But time is merciless; it never rewinds. She couldn’t undo the past. The scars she left on Camila’s life were etched deeply- not just in Camila’s soul, but in her own–becoming a pain she would carry for the rest of her life.
Tears streamed uncontrollably down her face as she cried out in anguish, her voice hoarse and broken, as if trying to release all the regret she had bottled up over the years.
At this moment, she was no longer the proud woman she once was, but a mother consumed by sorrow and remorse. She spun around, her emotions spiraling out of control, and charged at Arthur, her fists raining down on him in a frenzy. “It’s all your fault! Every bit of it! If you hadn’t dumped my daughter in that orphanage, Camila would have grown up happy and loved under my care. You stole the life she was meant to have!” she shouted.
Arthur, too weak to fight back, was left battered and bruised, his face swollen and distorted from the relentless blows. Exhausted from her outburst, she glanced down and caught sight of the crumpled DNA test report clenched tightly in Arthur’s trembling hand.
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