Where Petals of Vengeance Bloom

Chapter 408

If only she could have stopped chasing after her family's affection, stopped trying so desperately to please them-if she'd fought back, fiercely, whenever they hurt her—maybe, just maybe, her story would have turned out completely different.

In nearly thirty years of life, she was the most remarkable woman I'd ever met. Who wouldn't like someone so wonderfully, heartbreakingly normal?

And that was exactly why the Linwood family seemed so twisted by comparison. She was like a sane person trapped in an asylum, slowly driven mad by the constant torment-every day she spent among them was pure agony.

She spent fifteen long years in an orphanage. Then, after returning to the Linwoods, suffered three more years of humiliation, and later, five years in prison.

In her short twenty-three years, she never knew a single day of real happiness. Not one day free from pain or the shadow of suffering.

Whenever I think of what she endured, it feels as though someone is twisting a knife in my heart.

After she was gone, I wandered through my days like a ghost-I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep.

I'd never fallen apart over anyone like this, not even when my own mother passed away. Back then, I hadn't lost myself the way I did now.

I used to believe that someone as cold-blooded as me would forget her quickly.

But a month passed, and her memory only became more vivid, more deeply etched into my soul. The ache of missing her grew with every passing day.

Standing in the living room, my eyes always drifted-helplessly—to the sofa by the tall windows.

When Claire was alive, she loved to lie there in the sun.

She was so frail that she'd often drift off to sleep, bathed in sunlight.

Her small frame curled up on the cushions made her look even tinier.

over her, almost as if it could shine right through her pale

like that, I'd just stand there quietly,

looking at her brought me a deep, unshakable peace, as though

that gentle, sunlit scene

has been pure torment-like living through

I wondered if I'd ever climb out of this pit of

learned the truth: we had a daughter together.

between us was a

crossed any further lines, and yet, fate played its cruelest trick-

daughter entered the world, and neither of

after the

I found a reason to keep

especially fond of children. But

her face-so much like Claire's-or perhaps the instinctive bond

she looked more and more

Claire's beauty, but she

She

but

her mother's brilliance,

setter fortune-she finished

place at Foster & Co.

grow up, poured

drop

éto our daughter.Onteed. I

only there were