Where Petals of Vengeance Bloom

Chapter 299

Adah shook her head desperately, tears streaming down her face.

"I can't. Please, I don't want to go to a place like that."

"Claire, I'm begging you," she sobbed, her voice breaking. "Just forgive me, just this once-please! If you forgive me, I'll do anything you say. Anything!"

Claire stood there, cold and unmoved, staring at Adah's pitiful pleading. Her lips were pressed together in a hard line, her silence more cutting than words.

The more Claire's expression hardened, the more Adah unraveled. She nearly collapsed at Claire's feet, crawling forward on her knees and reaching out as though Claire were her last hope, the way a drowning woman claws for a lifeline.

She tried to touch her, to embrace her, desperate to show how truly sorry she was. But before her fingers could graze the hem of Claire's coat, Liam seized her arm and yanked her away.

"Claire-!" Adah wailed, her sobs echoing off the walls. Her face was streaked with tears, and she looked utterly broken.

so much-can't you have just

the words biting. "Do you even hear

rigid with shock. A frantic look flickered in her eyes as memories crashed back: that night-she, Nathan, and Ethan-all standing over Claire after she'd been hurt. Not only did they refuse to defend her, they sided with Vanessa. They accused Claire of making a scene, of trying to frame Vanessa

had snapped—tackling Vanessa, pinning her down, raining blows

body. She slumped to the floor,

you threw May out of the

up halfway through the night and

myself was I just not good enough? Was that why you all

I'm not making you suffer the way you made me suffer. I'm just putting you where you belong. You should be grateful

Adah like a sledgehammer,

she'd shown Claire over the years came flooding back, slicing her open with a thousand dull knives. The pain was

realize she didn't even deserve to apologize, let alone ask for forgiveness. What she'd done to