Chapter 5 - The Stolen Childhood
The photograph trembled furiously between Valeria’s manicured fingers, but I could not tear my eyes away from it. I stared at the little girl in the faded pink dress. Me. I looked smaller, thinner, holding onto a woman whose face radiated a gentle warmth I had only seen in vague, fleeting dreams.
"Explain this to me," I demanded, my voice slicing through the heavy silence of the ballroom. I turned away from Valeria and leveled a devastating glare at my husband. I wanted him to tell me it was a forgery. I wanted him to laugh it off as one of Valeria's desperate lies.
But Alejandro remained rigidly motionless beside me. The face that had been an impenetrable fortress of defense moments ago was now the face of a man utterly crushed under the weight of a lifelong guilt.
Mr. Lu, the absolute ruler of this empire, slowly lowered his eyes to the floor. That simple gesture broke my heart more than Valeria's cruelest insults ever could. Up until this very second, I had genuinely believed that Valeria and her sycophants were the only ones who hated me. I believed my husband and his family were simply distant, waiting for me to prove my worth. But now, I realized the terrifying truth: they weren't waiting. They were hiding.
"Well, Clara?" Valeria taunted, her smile twisting with sadistic joy as she relished my total disorientation. "What's wrong? I thought you told me to shut up."
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Alejandro finally moved, taking a lethal step toward her. "I told you to shut your mouth."
"No," I interjected, stepping between them. He stopped abruptly. I looked him dead in the eye. "Not this time. I am done letting other people decide which truths I am allowed to hear."
