Ninety-Nine Times, Then No More

The news of Chase's "heroic" act spread like wildfire. The media had a field day. "CEO Chase Vargas Burned by Acid While Protecting Wife and Sister-in-Law." June gave tearful interviews from his hospital bedside, spinning a tale of terror and Chase's selfless bravery. She skillfully painted herself as the primary victim he was protecting, and I was just... the wife. The public ate it up. They saw a tragic love story: the noble CEO, his fragile true love, and the jealous, bitter wife who was probably behind the whole thing. My name was dragged through the mud. Online forums called me "the ice queen" and "the manipulative heiress." People threw coffee at my car. Someone spray-painted "homewrecker's sister" on my gate. I didn't care. I turned off my phone, shut down my laptop, and ignored the world. It was all just noise. I spent the next few days methodically dismantling my life in that city. I signed the final papers for my father, transferring his remaining local assets to his European headquarters. I packed my single suitcase again. I booked a one-way ticket to London, leaving that night. There was one last thing I had to do. I drove to my family's old home, the house I grew up in. The house where my mother had died. It had been empty for years, a silent monument to a happier time. I needed to get her things. The house was just as we'd left it, covered in a thin layer of dust. I went straight to my mother's room. Her scent still lingered in the air-a faint mix of lavender and old books. I ran my hand over her vanity, her bookshelf. I carefully gathered her photo albums, her favorite books, a small jewelry box. Things I couldn't bear to leave behind. I remembered a small safe she kept hidden in her closet, behind a loose panel. I knelt and entered her birthday as the code. It clicked open. Inside, nestled on a bed of velvet, were letters. Stacks of them, tied with a blue ribbon. They were all addressed to me. My hands trembled as I picked them up. I sat on the floor and read the first one. It was dated the day before her death. Her familiar, elegant handwriting filled the page. She wrote about her pride in me, her hopes for my future, her unconditional love. She wrote about how she worried I loved Chase too much, that I was too willing to sacrifice my own happiness for his. Tears I didn't know I had left began to fall. I had been so angry with her in those last few years, angry that she and my father had pushed me into this marriage. I had been cold and distant. I never got to tell her she was right. I never got to say I was sorry. I clutched the letters to my chest and sobbed, all the grief and regret I had bottled up for years pouring out of me. The old housekeeper, Mrs. Gable, must have heard me. She appeared in the doorway, her face full of pity. She quietly came over and handed me something. A pen. It was a beautiful fountain pen, one I had given my mother for her last birthday. I looked at it, then at Mrs. Gable. She had a strange, nervous look on her face. She gave me a small, hesitant nod and then scurried away, as if she were afraid. I twisted the cap off. It wasn't a pen. It was a digital voice recorder. Before I could process what it meant, a voice came from the doorway. "Crying again, sister? How predictable." It was June. She sauntered into the room, a victorious smirk on her face. She poured herself a glass of my mother's sherry from a decanter on the table. "You really shouldn't be here," I said, my voice thick from crying. I quickly hid the recorder pen in my pocket and held the letters tighter. "Why not? This was my home too, for a while," she said, swirling the sherry. "Though I'm much happier now. Chase is redecorating the villa for me. Getting rid of all your depressing gray furniture." She laughed. "He just can't do enough for me. It's a shame you could never make him happy." "You lied, June," I said, my voice shaking with a new kind of anger. "You lied about everything. About my parents threatening you. About why you left." She burst out laughing, a high, manic sound. "Of course I lied! God, you're slow. I've been lying since the day your parents brought me home. It was so easy. You were always so serious, so boring. And your mother... so gullible. She believed every sob story I told her." She took a sip of sherry and her eyes gleamed with malice. "You and your mother. Two of a kind. So noble, so trusting. So incredibly stupid." Something inside me snapped. I stood up, my hand flying through the air before I even thought about it. The crack of my palm against her cheek echoed in the silent room. She stumbled back, her hand flying to her face, her eyes wide with shock. "Don't you ever," I snarled, my voice low and dangerous, "talk about my mother again."