I felt no pity.
Because in that video, it was Clara, just 15 years old.
Her eyes weren’t innocent. They were filled with venom.
The footage clearly showed Clara shoving Justin’s parents–tied up and helpless–off the 10th floor of an abandoned factory.
“Why? Why was it you?”
Justin had lost his mind. He even broke free from the officers holding him and grabbed Clara by the collar, shaking her as he screamed.
The moment Clara saw the video, she knew she was finished, and yet, she laughed.
“Why? Justin, do you even need to ask? Of course, it was because those two old bastards wouldn’t let me love you.”
Her laugh was twisted and unhinged.
“Justin, you took me out of that orphanage. You were supposed to love me, only me.”
Anyone who stood in the way of her and Justin being together, Clara eliminated them.
Even after I disappeared, Clara couldn’t understand why he still didn’t love her.
When Justin’s parents discovered Clara’s obsession, they made plans to send her out of the country.
She couldn’t accept it, so she lured them out with a group of hired thugs and killed them herself.
It had all been carefully covered up. Those thugs? She’d taken care of them, too.
What she never expected was that one of them had secretly recorded everything.
Justin had gone completely mad.
After his parents‘ deaths back then, he’d found Clara beaten and bruised. She’d clung to him, sobbing pitifully.
“Justin! It was the Prestons! They kidnapped me, Mom, and Dad. They forced our parents to hand over the Garner business. When our parents refused, they threw them off the building!”
He’d seethed with hatred.
After Justin’s parents died, the Garner estate was picked clean by his greedy relatives, leaving him with nothing but crushing
debt.
That was when my dad stepped in, helping him deal with the loan sharks and smoothing over the mess.
Justin pretended to be grateful, but deep down, all he wanted was revenge on the Prestons.
He couldn’t touch us back then. The Prestons were the wealthiest family in the region, and he was just a powerless boy with nothing
So he played the role of the perfect boyfriend, while secretly plotting my parents‘ deaths.
My mysterious illness back then? That was his doing. He poisoned me.
For years, fueled by his hatred for my family, he did everything he could to hurt me. Every time, he told himself, “She owes me this. This is revenge.”
Now he knew the truth. It had all been Clara’s lie,
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The real murderer of his parents was the very girl he’d pulled out of an orphanage and treated as his sister.
Worse yet, in a drunken night of weakness, he’d even fathered a child with his parents‘ killer.
That night, Clara had cried about missing his parents and thrown herself into his arms. Then, he’d completely lost himself.
Regret crashed over Justin like a tidal wave. He stared at me with bloodshot eyes, his voice breaking. “Maxine, I… I was wrong. I didn’t know… I thought-”
The words stuck in his throat.
I’d grown tired of his endless excuses. My tone was ice. “You were wrong? And then what?”
Would an apology bring my parents back?
My parents were good people. They were honorable in business and kind to others.
When the Garners fell apart, they poured every Preston resource into helping Justin, only to be repaid with a backstabbing wolf who didn’t care about right or wrong.
“If you were deceived, you could’ve come to me directly. Instead, you took someone else’s word and murdered my entire family? Justin, you really are something. I wonder if your parents, looking down from heaven, regret the son they raised.”
Justin and Clara were sent to prison. Now, all that awaited them was the judgment of the law.
What I hadn’t expected was that Justin asked to see me.
In the end, I agreed.
Through the glass, I stared at Justin–sunken–eyed, broken, and hollow. My face remained expressionless.
His lips trembled before he finally spoke. “Maxine… If we had gotten married back then, would things be different now?”
If he had repented in time… Maybe…
However, I cut off his delusion. “There are no ‘ifs,‘ Justin. Your lack of trust is what dragged me into hell.”
In my previous life, I’d given up everything–my entire fortune–just to come back to him, and for what?
I still remember the taste of those abortion pills. Three days and nights of agony and bleeding, until I bled out and died.
Maybe Clara had switched the pills, maybe Justin hadn’t intended it to go that far, but the truth remained–my tragedy began
with him.
So in this life, after Samson pulled me from the ocean, I made my choice.
I aborted that three–month pregnancy without hesitation.
After I left the prison, the news came.
Justin had killed himself.
I froze for a few seconds, then sighed.
Just as I stood there in a daze, I was pulled into a warm embrace, surrounded by that familiar, calming scent of cedarwood.
“Honey, remember what we promised? To travel the world together?” Samson said.
I let out a small laugh and nodded. “Alright. We’ll leave tomorrow.”
Samson immediately pulled out his phone to book the tickets.
Then, suddenly, I felt something around my wrist. When I lifted my hand, I saw it–my bracelet.
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It had been carefully repaired, and the cracks were faint now, almost invisible.
The past was dark and heavy, but thankfully, someone had given me a tomorrow worth living for.
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