After living under a secret identity in a classified facility for six long years, my request to visit my family was finally approved.

I was beyond excited as I arrived outside my husband’s company building, ready to surprise him.

Just as I parked the car, I saw my daughter, who should’ve been in school, standing timidly in front of a woman holding a young boy.

The woman was jabbing a finger in my daughter’s face, hurling insults.

Worse, she raised her hand and suddenly slapped my daughter hard across the face!

“Get on your knees and apologize!” she demanded.

Watching my daughter sink humbly to her knees in front of that woman ignited a firestorm inside me.

In return, I stormed over and slapped that bitch across the face.

My daughter looked so terrified, her little face drained of all color. When she finally snapped out of her shock, she frantically urged me to leave.

“Ma’am, p-please go! Y-You hit my dad’s assistant. She won’t let you go!”

I bit back the fury burning in my chest and the pain breaking my heart.

“She’s just an assistant. What gives her the right to make you kneel and apologize?” I asked through gritted teeth.

My daughter, who hadn’t even cried when she was slapped, now had tears welling in her eyes.

But she didn’t explain. She just kept pleading for me to leave quickly.

Just then, my husband’s assistant picked herself up off the ground and blocked my path, her eyes filled with arrogance.

“Bitch! You’re not going anywhere today! In Baton Rouge, President Armitage is like heaven itself. You slapped me—that’s like trying to tear down the sky!”

Taking a deep breath, I finally dialed my husband.

“I just heard from your assistant that you’re the sky in this capital. Well, today, I’m tearing down the sky!”

——

Cicely’s POV

All I wanted right then was to ask Sylvan two things.

‘After six years, is this how you’ve raised our daughter? How could you let your assistant lay a hand on our precious girl?!’

“I don’t care who you are,” his voice sounded cold and unfamiliar through the phone. “Or how you got my number. But just for threatening me, you’re doomed already.”

The next second, the call was abruptly cut off.

It was so fast I didn’t even get the chance to tell him it was me.

Seconds passed and I just stood there holding my phone, frozen on the spot.

Not only did he not recognize my voice. He also didn’t even recognize my phone number.

It was the same number I’d had six years ago, and yet he hadn’t even saved it in his contacts?!

I longed for him and waited six years to come home, and he just shattered it in less than a minute!

Seeing that my call had been hung up, his assistant sneered with contempt.

“Honestly, I thought you were someone important,” she sneered. “Turns out you’re just a clown who crawled out from God knows where.”

My fists clenched so tightly they trembled. I wanted to believe there had been some mistake, but deep down… my heart sank like a stone.

Then again—I had disappeared without a trace for six years.

I’d been in a place so remote that even satellites couldn’t detect a signal. Day after day, I did nothing but repeat the same experiments over and over.

Of course, Sylvan had moved on... I should’ve seen it coming.

Still, before I left, he made a promise. He promised me he would take care of our daughter.

Yet now, the bright and smiling girl I remembered had grown into a teenager so thin from malnutrition she looked like she might collapse at any moment.

That look of fear and helplessness on her face was like a knife stabbing deep into my heart, making my chest ache.

“Come, sweetheart,” I whispered. “Let’s go home.”

With tears in my eyes, I took my daughter’s hand, ready to get her out of Sylvan’s territory.

I had missed too much over the past six years, but I was going to make it up to Estelle.

I would make her the happiest little princess in the world again!

But just as we turned to leave, the woman behind us stopped us. “You threatened President Armitage over the phone. You think you can just leave now?”

After living under a secret identity in a classified facility for six long years, my request to visit my family was finally approved.

I was beyond excited as I arrived outside my husband’s company building, ready to surprise him.

Just as I parked the car, I saw my daughter, who should’ve been in school, standing timidly in front of a woman holding a young boy.

The woman was jabbing a finger in my daughter’s face, hurling insults.

Worse, she raised her hand and suddenly slapped my daughter hard across the face!

“Get on your knees and apologize!” she demanded.

Watching my daughter sink humbly to her knees in front of that woman ignited a firestorm inside me.

In return, I stormed over and slapped that bitch across the face.

My daughter looked so terrified, her little face drained of all color. When she finally snapped out of her shock, she frantically urged me to leave.

“Ma’am, p-please go! Y-You hit my dad’s assistant. She won’t let you go!”

I bit back the fury burning in my chest and the pain breaking my heart.

“She’s just an assistant. What gives her the right to make you kneel and apologize?” I asked through gritted teeth.

My daughter, who hadn’t even cried when she was slapped, now had tears welling in her eyes.

But she didn’t explain. She just kept pleading for me to leave quickly.

Just then, my husband’s assistant picked herself up off the ground and blocked my path, her eyes filled with arrogance.

“Bitch! You’re not going anywhere today! In Baton Rouge, President Armitage is like heaven itself. You slapped me—that’s like trying to tear down the sky!”

Taking a deep breath, I finally dialed my husband.

“I just heard from your assistant that you’re the sky in this capital. Well, today, I’m tearing down the sky!”

…

Cicely’s POV

All I wanted right then was to ask Sylvan two things.

‘After six years, is this how you’ve raised our daughter? How could you let your assistant lay a hand on our precious girl?!’

“I don’t care who you are,” his voice sounded cold and unfamiliar through the phone. “Or how you got my number. But just for threatening me, you’re doomed already.”

The next second, the call was abruptly cut off.

It was so fast I didn’t even get the chance to tell him it was me.

Seconds passed and I just stood there holding my phone, frozen on the spot.

Not only did he not recognize my voice. He also didn’t even recognize my phone number.

It was the same number I’d had six years ago, and yet he hadn’t even saved it in his contacts?!

I longed for him and waited six years to come home, and he just shattered it in less than a minute!

Seeing that my call had been hung up, his assistant sneered with contempt.

“Honestly, I thought you were someone important,” she sneered. “Turns out you’re just a clown who crawled out from God knows where.”

My fists clenched so tightly they trembled. I wanted to believe there had been some mistake, but deep down… my heart sank like a stone.

Then again—I had disappeared without a trace for six years.

I’d been in a place so remote that even satellites couldn’t detect a signal. Day after day, I did nothing but repeat the same experiments over and over.

Of course, Sylvan had moved on... I should’ve seen it coming.

Still, before I left, he made a promise. He promised me he would take care of our daughter.

Yet now, the bright and smiling girl I remembered had grown into a teenager so thin from malnutrition she looked like she might collapse at any moment.

That look of fear and helplessness on her face was like a knife stabbing deep into my heart, making my chest ache.

“Come, sweetheart,” I whispered. “Let’s go home.”

With tears in my eyes, I took my daughter’s hand, ready to get her out of Sylvan’s territory.

I had missed too much over the past six years, but I was going to make it up to Estelle.

I would make her the happiest little princess in the world again!

But just as we turned to leave, the woman behind us stopped us. “You threatened President Armitage over the phone. You think you can just leave now?”

Cicely’s POV

The female assistant blocked my path with a cold sneer.

“What, are you planning to restrict my freedom now?” I asked sarcastically, narrowing my eyes at her.

“Freedom?” She let out a sharp laugh. “You’re talking to me about freedom? In this capital?”

“Let me tell you something, dear,” she added. “Here in the capital, even the air you breathe belongs to the Armitages!”

While her arrogant grin stretched to her face, mine darkened.

All these years, I’d devoted myself wholeheartedly to the country in that classified facility. To compensate for my sacrifices, the higher-ups had clearly supported Sylvan quietly.

But I never expected that support to breed this kind of unhinged entitlement!

Suddenly, my daughter broke free from my hand and dropped to her knees in front of her dad’s assistant.

She begged, “Please, Aunt Sage—just let this lady go. She doesn’t even know you or my dad. She didn’t mean to offend you. I-I’ll apologize on her behalf.”

The moment I saw that, tears surged down my face.

This was my precious daughter—the one I dreamed about every night, whose photo I kept close to my chest just to fall asleep in peace!

And now, she was kneeling in front of that bitch and the young boy!

How much had I owed her in these past six years?

Sage curled her lip, clearly unimpressed and about to say something when the young boy holding her hand suddenly rolled his eyes and chimed in.

“You want to apologize for that lady? Fine. Then clean off the toy you knocked to the ground earlier. If you get it spotless, I’ll let her go.”

“Yes, yes!” my daughter agreed without hesitation. “I’ll clean it right away!”

She quickly picked up the plane toy. It looked expensive, probably costing more than a month’s salary.

But then the boy added, “But no water allowed. I want you to lick it clean. Every inch.”

My daughter’s face turned pale. She blurted out, “Jethro, I… I’m your sister! How could you ask me to do that?”

Jethro scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself, Estelle. You’re nothing but the child Dad had with a woman long dead. I’m the only real child of Mom and Dad. Are you gonna lick it or not? If you don’t, then don’t blame me for what happens next.”

“I’ll do it!” Estelle said in pained resignation.

She looked at me, then turned back, tears streaming down her face as she stuck out her tongue and lowered it toward the dust-covered plane.

Just as her tongue was about to touch it, I snatched the toy from her hands and slammed it to the ground.

“You people have gone too far!” I yelled.

I could barely breathe from the pain in my chest, my eyes bloodshot as I glared at the assistant and the boy.

I never imagined that Sylvan would already be married and have a child with another woman while he was still legally my husband.

What I couldn’t have imagined even more was that their child would humiliate my daughter like this!

‘Even if you’ve moved on, Sylvan—how could you treat Estelle like this?’ I imagined complaining to him.

“You… you smashed my plane?”

Jethro froze, his small face twisted into something far too cruel for someone his age.

He demanded, “Sage! I want her to pay for my toy—with her life!”

“Bitch!” Sage exploded. “You must be in a real hurry to die, daring to offend the young heir like that!”

“Where the hell is security?” she roared. “Didn’t you see them offending Sir Jethro? What are you all doing, playing dead?!”

The security lurking nearby exchanged glances before closing in on me.

“Beat her! Beat her hard! I don’t care if you kill her—it’ll be on me,” Sage barked.

I barely managed to fend off two of them before another struck me hard across the back with a baton, sending me crashing to the ground.

The rest piled on, kicking and hitting me relentlessly.

The surrounding crowd looked on but not a single person dared step in. They all just shook their heads and sighed.

“Poor woman. Must have a death wish—of all people to mess with, she chose Jethro, that little devil.”