Where Petals of Vengeance Bloom

Chapter 418

"No, you've got it all wrong. There's just been a misunderstanding between your mother and me—I was manipulated by someone with bad intentions. As long as I can clear things up with her, everything will be alright again."

He looked at Amara pleadingly. "Will you help your uncle? Please, just ask your mom to come out. I have so much I need to say to her."

Amara snorted. "You really are something-absolutely ridiculous."

With that, she ignored him and headed straight for the front door.

Ethan tried to follow, desperate to keep pleading his case, but the driver blocked his way. All he could do was watch helplessly as Amara walked inside and shut the door behind her.

Kneeling in the pouring rain, Ethan's hands fell limply to the ground. His voice trembled raw and broken. "Claire, I know what I've done is unforgivable. For ten years, I've lived with this torment, every single day a kind of hell. I'm begging you —just give me a chance. Let me spend the rest of my life making up for my sins."

Upstairs, Amara stood behind the tall windows, silently watching the man outside sobbing and begging on his knees.

Her eyes stung, turning red despite herself.

"Go tell her? Tell who?" she whispered bitterly. "Mom's been gone for years. She left this world a decade ago."

She'd grown up surrounded by love, but there was always a longing for a mother's embrace.

one around her ever shied away

her how her mother was a prodigy-top of her class year

Amara had seen her mother's work herself; even

never even got to meet her. She was taken from this

mistaken for weakness. I won't always be here to protect you. You have to become strong enough that

to call himself her uncle?

on such a dramatic display of remorse, Amara felt nothing

Ethan until he looked

remained on his knees, hoping this pitiful scene would move

Surely, if she saw him like this, she would come out-she wouldn't be able to

time, no matter how much Ethan humiliated himself, Claire never

settled in, and after the downpour

black Rolls-Royce pulled up outside the

a sharp black suit. Nearly forty now, he was

striking. features were set in a

people instinctively avert their

feet-but after kneeling so long, his

nearly