The Kiss that Sparked it All

Chapter 2634

“Mara, you should spend the rest of your days behind bars. Only then might you atone for the life that was lost because of you!”

Ivy’s words hit Mara like a freight train, and she recoiled, hands clapped over her ears, her scream piercing the tense air, “I don’t want to hear it. These are all lies! I won’t listen! Stop talking, stop!”

She stumbled and ran toward Balfour, grabbing his arms in a desperate plea. “Tell me it’s not true, right? They’re just ganging up to trick me. Say something, for God’s sake! My sister never mentioned this, so it has to be a lie. She was always so full of herself, always boasting in my face. If she knew, she’d be blabbing it all over town, not keeping it a

secret!”

Balfour shrugged off her grasp as if swatting away a pesky fly. How could he see her as anything but the vessel of a venomous soul?

“It’s you who made Victoria out to be your nemesis. She never wronged you. In fact, she always spoke of you as her lovely, earnest sister in front of our friends. Look inside yourself, Mara. Have you ever treated your sister fairly, or were you just poisoned with jealousy because she outshone you in every way?”

Mara had no answer.

relationship become so irreversibly fractured?

when had her envy of another person taken such

when she could clearly recall the nights of childhood when Victoria would wrap her in her small arms and lull her to sleep with stories learned from

biological

been holding onto

discern whether she truly desired Balfour or if it was the old grudge that hadn’t faded, the urge to prove to Victoria that she

and Ivy, united against the world, with Balfour’s unconscious gestures of protection and Ivy’s instinctive defenses against her, their love

with Victoria. Now, she had lost to Ivy. Alone and lost, she

her tumult of emotions, a single question spun in her head:

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08:44

officers poured into the

captain. “The case is on record at our station. We promise to bring justice to