Chapter 549

Their eyes met.
She didn’t shy away from his intimate gesture, and the two of them simply gazed
at each other, locked in a silent, electric moment.
Time seemed to freeze right then.
The timestamp on the photo: 8:30 p.m., tonight.
Eve hadn’t shown up for her date; she was out with Brooks instead.
Evelyn’s almost blatant choice cut Charles like a knife.
…
Maplewood Estate
Josephine tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
As she rolled over once more, Evelyn switched on her bedside lamp and looked at her.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
Josephine gazed at Evelyn, then admitted, “Brooks invited you to dinner tonight. I just didn’t want Charles to show up and ruin things between you and Brooks.”
“So, I took your phone and texted Charles myself, inviting him out to meet you, just to get him out of the way.”
“Adam passed by that spot at eleven. I asked him, and he said Charles was still there waiting for you.”
Josephine paused, letting out a soft sigh.
Her intention had been twofold: she didn’t want Charles interfering with Brooks and Eve, but she also wanted Charles to experience what it felt like to wait in vain.
Yet knowing he had waited all night left her with a pang of guilt.
“Mom, so what if I did invite him? In the past five years, how many nights did Charlie and I wait for him for nothing? He waited one night—what’s that compared to what we went through?”
“You don’t have to feel bad. Everything Charles went through tonight, he deserved.”
Evelyn knew Charles had waited the whole night, but she felt nothing.
Her mother’s generation, deep down, always valued the original marriage most. They were softer at heart.
If Charles hadn’t been indirectly responsible for Charlie’s death, her mother probably would have still favored Charles.
So, she was conflicted, torn between rejecting Charles and feeling sorry for him. Evelyn was different.
For Charles, she felt only hatred.
His betrayal of her love-she’d never truly hated him for that. She had given her heart willingly.
But Charlie…
That was a wound she would never heal from.
She could never forgive him.
“It’s late, Mom. Get some rest.”
Josephine listened, then closed her eyes and quickly drifted off.
Evelyn didn’t dwell on it either. She turned off the light and soon fell asleep.
Dahlia spent a week in the hospital. Her injuries slowly healed, the infection subsided, and the flesh on her back began to recover. Gradually, she could stand and walk again.
Once she was stable, she was sent back to the penitentiary.
The cell’s “queen bee” was there because her own daughter had been pushed off a balcony by her husband’s mistress. In a fit of rage, she’d murdered both her husband and the other woman. Afterward, she called the police and confessed. Cóntent
The one thing she despised most was people who hurt innocent children because
of their own relationships.
At Charles’s instruction, Aiden had
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told the queen bee everything about how Dahlia had cruelly caused Charlie’s death, tormented Evelyn, and even abused and ultimately killed her own daughter.
From her very first day back, Dahlia endured inhuman torment.
Slaps and beatings became routine.
Her daily water came from the toilet.
Somehow, the inmates always had hidden sewing needles. Whenever she fell
asleep, they jabbed her mercilessly.
If she was slow to obey, she’d get stabbed, slapped, or kicked.
Whenever their mood soured, she suffered for it.
Everything she’d done to Sandy was now returning to her a hundredfold.
Every day was a living hell for Dahlia.
She’d thought about reporting them, but the threats were real-if she dared, they’d kill her.
Changing cells wouldn’t help.
Inside, the queen bee held real power.
Dahlia had seen how everyone treated her.
She knew that reporting would only bring even worse torture, maybe even death.
She’d already stared death in the face once.
And now, she was more afraid of dying than ever.
The rage that once pushed her to force Charles to kill her had long since faded.
That night.
Dahlia had just survived another round of torture.
Dragging herself back to her cot, she curled up in a ball, every inch of her body aching.
A lifetime of this? The thought was unbearable.
She couldn’t let herself rot away here, suffering like this.
She had to find a way out.