Accused of Poisoning Grandma, I Watched Him Break

When Grandma Shaw collapsed after eating the healthy meal I had prepared, Walter Shaw and his beloved Carmen Simmons happened to walk in.

I knelt beside Grandma to check her condition, only to realize the poison in her system was a rare herbal toxin known only in my family’s mountain town.

Walter panicked, scooped Grandma into his arms, and rushed her to the hospital. Only I knew there was an antidote—and it could only be found back home.

Not wanting to waste time, I didn’t even explain to Walter. I booked the soonest flight to my southern hometown.

But as soon as I landed and stepped out of the airport, I saw Walter leaning against his car, waiting for me.

“You ungrateful witch! I trusted you, and you poisoned Grandma with such a cruel toxin?”

Before I could reply, he motioned to his bodyguards, who knocked me unconscious and shoved me into the trunk.

When I woke again, I was tightly bound in the basement of the Shaw Family Mansion.

As my eyes slowly focused, Walter sat across from me, his brows furrowed, his eyes bloodshot and filled with hatred.

He didn’t speak. He just stared at me, his gaze sharp enough to cut through flesh, as though he wanted me to die with Grandma. I twisted against the chair, desperate to explain, but my mouth and limbs were bound with tape.

After a moment, one of the bodyguards handed Walter a glowing hot branding iron.

He stood, pulled off his tie, took the iron, and circled me like a predator.

“I can’t believe I kept a snake like you in my house! If I hadn’t come home early, Grandma would be dead by now because of you!”

“All I did was have dinner with Carmen, and you stooped so low as to poison Grandma just to drag me back home? I really underestimated how vicious you are!”

His eyes glinted with cruelty as he pressed the red-hot iron against my face without hesitation.

The pain was searing, ripping a scream from deep within me—but no sound escaped my gagged mouth.

“Grandma treated you so well. Do you know why my parents never made things hard for you? It was all for her sake. And you dared try to kill her? Then you can die first!”

I thrashed until the chair toppled, and Walter crouched beside me.

He ripped the tape from my mouth and grabbed my chin, forcing me to face him.

I ignored the pain on my face, tears streaming as I cried out,

“It wasn’t me! Walter, I didn’t poison her! I don’t know why my food was tainted—you have to believe me!”

But Walter’s hatred deafened him.

“Still denying it? Do you even know what kind of poison Grandma was given? Who else but your mountain town could have it?”

He was right—our family’s toxins were traditionally used for hunting, and few elders even made them anymore. They were never shared with outsiders.

But why would it appear in my food?

When the hot iron moved toward me again, I screamed and tried to turn my face away.

Walter ignored my plea and pressed it to my skin until he was satisfied.

Then he planted one foot hard on my chest, crushing me under his weight.

He knew my heart was weak, that even a shock could send me into painful spasms—and yet he pressed down mercilessly.

“Now you’re scared? Where was that fear when you poisoned Grandma?”

Without hesitation, he pressed the iron against my forehead. Smoke curled up as I lost consciousness, my body too weak to fight back any longer.