Where Petals of Vengeance Bloom

Chapter 281

Because Vanessa and Nathan never imagined that their secret plot would be discovered by Irene, killing Irene to silence her was an impulsive, desperate decision.

Yet when Irene tumbled down the stairs, her head cracking open and blood pooling around her, panic seized both Vanessa and Nathan. Murder was a crime -one that could land them behind bars for the rest of their lives. Vanessa, terrified of prison, didn't hesitate for a second when Claire appeared at the top of the stairwell. She immediately pinned the blame for Irene's death on Claire, framing her for a murder she never committed.

But this reckless move threw all of Vanessa and Nathan's carefully laid plans into chaos.

Instead of becoming a helpless victim for their schemes, Claire was dragged away by the police and locked behind bars. Ironically, prison spared her from a far worse fate-being forced into brain death, dissected alive for her organs, her conscious mind trapped in horror until the very end. Had things gone as Nathan and Vanessa intended, Claire would have been butchered while still aware, her body pillaged for parts, and when it was over, she'd have been donated to the medical school—a nameless anatomy cadaver for students to cut apart, all so Nathan could bask in the glory of a noble sacrifice.

In a twisted way, Irene's death saved Claire's life.

But even though she escaped her planned execution, Claire's time in prison was a nightmare of its own-a relentless cycle of humiliation and violence. She endured agony that no human should ever have to suffer. In the end, no matter which way the conspiracy played out, Claire was never meant to walk away whole.

Vanessa's plot had succeeded, her body would have been hollowed out, and they would have gotten everything they wanted. If it failed, and she was sent to prison, she'd still be tormented-targeted by Jarrod and

she survived long enough to

truth was the cruelest blow of

a sacrifice, or live as a scapegoat. During those endless days behind bars, her tormentors made sure she knew exactly who had sent them-the Cole family. She hated the Coles for five years. Yet now, with the truth laid

intervention, Claire would have died five years ago, her body destroyed and discarded. She would have become nothing more than an empty shell, her remains chopped

Coles after that? If not for Irene, there would be no "today" for her

and in doing so, saved her life. Claire

it felt like needles piercing her chest, her vision swimming with tears. She thought she'd grown numb after years of neglect and suffering. She thought she was used to

offer up his daughter's body for slaughter. He'd abandoned her to a lonely childhood in an orphanage, and when she finally returned to the Linwood family,

could a father like Nathan exist in

so utterly heartless? What crime had she committed to deserve