Betrayal and Reckoning in Hornet's Venom

I was overwhelmed by the grief of losing my in-laws. Picking up the phone, I called Vince to tell him the devastating news.

"Honey, Mom and Dad are gone. It was painful for them at the end. You should come back to handle their affairs," I said, my voice trembling.

To my shock, his response was a sneer.

"They're dead? So what? Why make such a fuss?" he snapped. "People die every day. Do you think your parents' deaths are somehow a big deal? Don't be ridiculous!"

I opened my mouth to explain that it was his parents who had passed, but he cut me off abruptly.

"Why are you even calling me about such a minor thing? Don't bother me unless it's important!"

From the other end of the line, I heard a soft, delicate voice interject.

"Vince, is it Belle calling to pressure you to go home? Don't worry, I can manage things here with my mom. It's tough, but I'll be okay," Penny said sweetly.

His tone immediately softened, oozing with concern.

"I'm here for you. Don't worry about a thing," he murmured to her.

Then, in an instant, his voice turned cold and venomous again as he addressed me. "Don't call me again! Losing your parents is not some kind of monumental event. Don't bother me anymore!"

With that, he hung up.

It was only then that I realized he didn't even know it was his own parents who had died.

For a long time, Vince had been doting on his junior, Penny. At first, I dismissed it as mere kindness. But later, I learned through whispers from others that their relationship was unusually close, even intimate. They were often seen together, inseparable, and everyone seemed to know about it.

This knowledge had eaten away at me, and I found myself obsessing over their every move. Whenever Vince came home even ten minutes late, I would call to check on him, terrified they were crossing some boundary.

But after today, I felt a strange sense of clarity. It turned out that Vince was nothing more than a heartless beast. To him, the lives of my parents were worth less than the time he spent comforting Penny.

My emotions were a tangled mess—anger, sadness, disbelief—but above all, relief that it wasn't my parents who had died.

After scheduling for the cremation, the doctor offered me a word of consolation.

"Many people go herb-picking in the mountains, but I've never seen such a severe case of an attack by a queen hornet. It's really strange."

There was something in his tone that made me pause. I sensed an underlying implication, a possibility I hadn't considered before: this incident might not have been an accident at all.

The thought chilled me. I dialed an unfamiliar number saved on my phone.

"Hello, thank you for calling me earlier. If you hadn't, I wouldn't have been able to find my in-laws in time. Unfortunately, they didn't make it. Still, I'm grateful to you," I said. "By the way, did you notice anything unusual on the mountain today? I can't shake the feeling that the queen hornet attack wasn't random."

The person on the other end sighed regretfully. "Today seemed no different from usual. There weren't many people around, so the hornets shouldn't have been disturbed. But… something did feel off, though I can't put my finger on it."

Hearing this, my heart sank. Without concrete evidence, there was no way to initiate an investigation.

Sensing my despair, the person on the other line tried to comfort me. "I took a lot of photos today. Your in-laws are in some of them. If you'd like, I can send them to you as a keepsake."

Minutes later, I received the photos.

In the images, my in-laws looked vibrant, their faces lit up with smiles as they held freshly picked herbs. The sun illuminated their joy, utterly oblivious to the shadow of danger that loomed just out of frame.

As I scrolled through the pictures, a dark figure in the corner of one photo caught my eye. My breath hitched.

I zoomed in, my hands trembling.

It was Penny.

I would recognize her anywhere, even if she turned to ash.

Racing against my own pounding heart, I reported the photo to the police, submitting it as evidence.

But after reviewing the case, the officers looked at me with hesitation.

"Your evidence is insufficient," one of them said cautiously. "We can't definitively confirm the shadow in the photo is Penny Madison. Moreover, the direct cause of death might not be the queen hornet stings but other complications. There's no clear link."

My instincts screamed that Penny was involved. This wasn't a coincidence. It couldn't be.

Driven by unshakable conviction, I hired a lawyer. With a single lawsuit, I accused Penny of premeditated murder and took her to court.