3: 3

Everything was going exactly according to plan.

Edward was lost in the spectacle of two women fighting over him, and he never tired of it.

Right up until the week before the engagement.

Then he started to get anxious.

More than once during this stretch, he'd pushed me to send Yvette to see him, and never once got an answer.

The need to control everything ran too deep in him. He couldn't sit still.

When Vivien's message came through, I went straight to a private auction downtown.

My late husband had once been a respected name in business. The James family had fallen far, but I could still get my hands on an admission ticket to an auction.

I'd barely stepped inside when I caught sight of the lot on the big screen.

My blood pressure shot up and the room went dark at the edges of my vision.

Those were my daughter Yvette's favorite pieces of jewelry, and the wedding gown she had designed with her own hands.

Even some of her everyday things were there.

She had left them all behind when she moved into Edward's home, her heart full of hope, dreaming of the love she thought she'd found.

I couldn't hold it in anymore. I burst into the private room and rounded on him.

"Edward! What gives you the right to auction off Yvette's things?!"

Once, my daughter's love for this man had been so pure.

Even now I can't forget the way her eyes shone whenever she talked to me about him.

How could he use something like this to humiliate her?

Edward turned his head, leaned back into his chair, crossed his legs, perfectly at ease.

"Mom, what's the rush?"

"All I'm doing is giving Yvette a little push."

"She's made a scene for three years, hidden for three years. That's enough, isn't it?"

"Isn't this gown the thing she treasures most? Let's see whether she can really steel herself and watch it all fall into someone else's hands."

He swept a contemptuous glance over me, mockery all through his eyes.

"What? Mom, you want to buy them back for her? Does the James family still have that kind of spare cash?"

I was so furious I could barely breathe, my chest heaving.

He wasn't wrong. The James family was nothing like it used to be.

To get Edward the seat of power in the Gilbert family, we had long since emptied our coffers.

What was left of our fortune truly wasn't enough for me to bid on these lots, each one running into the tens of millions.

Edward, you ungrateful animal.

Just as I wanted nothing more than to lunge at him and tear that mouth off his face.

Vivien came sauntering over in a couture gown, every step swaying.

She gave me a taunting look, then settled beside Edward as naturally as anything.

She hooked her arm through his and gave it a little shake, cooing at him.

"Mr. Gilbert, I love all of these things."

"Buy them for me, would you? Please?"

She glanced at me on purpose.

"Yvette still won't come out. Surely she wouldn't mind me using her things?"

"After all, out with the old, in with the new."

Edward seemed to think that handing Yvette's belongings to a stand-in would sting the hiding Yvette even more.

He turned to Vivien and tapped the tip of her nose, doting.

"Fine. Anything you like, I'll buy it for you."

That same afternoon, Edward owned the headlines across every major outlet.

#Gilbert Group CEO in a Rage for Love, Drops Fifty Million on Ex-Fiancée's Belongings to Gift His New Flame#

The stories quietly speculated over which woman he would choose this time.

The stand-in who had been at his side for three years.

Or the fiancée he'd once had.

You didn't need to think hard to see it: Edward was building his own hype.

I sat in the dim room and picked up the phone my daughter had used while she was alive.

The screen lit up. On it was a text Edward had just sent.

【Yvette, this is the last chance I'm giving you.】

【If you still don't show, these things, and the place as Mrs. Gilbert, will really belong to someone else.】

【Don't test my patience.】

I let out a small, scornful laugh and shut off the screen.

A chance?

What chance do you want to give a dead woman?

The chance to drag you down to hell.

4: 4

The day before the engagement party, Edward grew visibly restless.

Every time I left the house, I could feel someone trailing quietly behind me.

His people, no doubt. Following the thread, hoping to trace where I'd hidden my daughter.

How amusing.

She was dead. Burned to ash.

Not even a god could find her now.

So I took out my daughter's old phone and sent him the first message in three years.

【The engagement party tomorrow. I'll be there.】

After I sent it, I kept my eyes on the screen.

Edward was anxious, and yet he made a show of playing it cool.

He deliberately made me wait three hours before he replied, short and cold.

【Good.】

I didn't answer again. I just pulled out the SIM card, snapped it in two, and dropped it in the toilet.

Then I sent a message each to Vivien and Savannah.

Ever since my daughter died, the three of us had been quietly plotting.

One was a mother whose daughter had died a brutal death, her heart full of hatred.

One was a girl who'd had a bright future ahead of her, her wings snapped clean off.

And then there was Vivien.

Her sister had been the nanny who cared for my daughter, and my daughter had relied on her deeply.

Back then, to punish my daughter for defying him, Edward had tormented the people around her, trying to force her to give in.

Vivien's sister was framed by Edward's people and driven out of her home, buried in debt, cornered until she jumped from a building.

The debt passed to Vivien too, and she was trampled underfoot.

I saved her. I paid off her debt.

I had her face surgically altered, and little by little I made her look like Yvette.

Edward was the heir the Gilbert family had groomed with care, a towering tree.

And the three of us.

One family fallen from grace, two women with no power and no standing.

Nothing but three tiny insects trying to shake a great tree.

So we spent three whole years.

Three unremarkable little insects, slowly hollowing that tree out from the inside.

On the surface it stood untouched. But today was the day it came crashing down.

Early the next morning.

I put on black mourning clothes, a white flower pinned over my chest.

The driver saw the way I was dressed and froze for a moment.

"Ma'am, where am I taking you?"

"To a funeral."

I answered calmly.

The driver coughed, a little awkward.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. My condolences."

I said nothing. I only shook my head.

I would not let my grief settle.

I would repay every grievance, avenge every wrong.

The car stopped in front of the most luxurious hotel in the city.

This was where Edward was holding his engagement party.

The driver stared at the lanterns and decorations outside, the luxury cars packed everywhere, dumbstruck.

"Ma'am, are you sure this is the right address?"

"It's right."

I pushed the door open and got out.

As I walked toward the gleaming golden entrance, I caught the sound of voices drifting out from inside.

"Edward, didn't we hear Yvette James had passed away? Turns out it was all just a way to get a grip on you!"

At his friends' words, Edward let out a contemptuous laugh.

"Women. They love pulling this crying, screaming, threaten-to-kill-themselves routine."

"She thought if she hid, I'd cave?"

"Little girls like her scare off with the smallest push."

"Forget it. Since she's willing to bow her head and admit she was wrong today, I'll marry her. Call it making up for the child she lost back then."

"After all, she's loved me hopelessly for all these years. Besides me, who else could she ever marry?"

His buddies immediately clapped him on the shoulder, laughing along.

"Ha, no one handles women like you, Edward. Guess she's getting exactly what she wanted!"

Exactly what she wanted... was it?

My daughter's last wish was probably to kill him with her own hands.

Just then, my phone buzzed.

A message from Vivien.

【Mrs. James, everything's ready.】

I smiled, and through the black leather bag I gently touched the small, delicate urn inside.

"Yvette, Mama's most beloved daughter."

"Today, Mama will give you exactly what you wanted."