“My eye injury is severe. I could lose my sight, which means I won’t be able to handle business in the future.”
The moment Ethan Hughes heard that I could no longer sign contracts for the Hughes family, his impatience flared, his face tightening with anger.
“It’s just an eye injury, some blood—why make such a fuss?”
“At most, you’ll have blurry vision. What’s the big deal?”
“Don’t forget, you came into the Hughes family under a contract. You’re here to sign deals in the name of Mrs. Hughes, to boost our image!”
“You’d better remember your place, instead of pretending you have the right to throw tantrums like a real wife!”
Three years ago, the Hughes Group was in crisis.
They tracked me down—while I was running a startup in Silicon Valley—shorted my company on purpose, and drove me to the brink of bankruptcy.
Then they leveraged my mother’s debts to coerce me into signing a three-year contract.
Their condition was clear: if I helped the Hughes family survive the crisis and paid off all their debts, they would give me back my freedom.
I believed them.
And so, I was forced to return, replacing my deceased sister Emily Carter, and marry Ethan Hughes, becoming the Hughes family’s daughter-in-law.
In name, I was their daughter-in-law. In reality, I was nothing more than unpaid labor.
I took care of their household, managed their company, conducted business negotiations, and expanded their ventures.
When negotiations turned cutthroat, I became a bargaining chip, ready to be sacrificed at any time.
On top of that, I had to raise Isabella Hughes through her rebellious teenage years.
She was spoiled, reckless, constantly causing trouble. I cleaned up her messes again and again, maintaining the image of a responsible sister-in-law, even rebranding her reputation repeatedly to make her look better in public…
Thinking of this, Robert Hughes had already made up his mind.
He turned to me and said,
“Since your eyes are injured and no one else will want you, it’s best if you behave, stay put, and stop dreaming beyond your station. The Hughes family will ‘take care of you’ for the rest of your life.”
I sneered inwardly.
That was always how the Hughes family dressed up their words—grand on the surface, rotten underneath.
“Taking care of me” was nothing more than keeping me trapped in their home, treated like a dog to be ordered around.
I shook my head and said,
“My eye has been damaged permanently. I won’t be able to negotiate or sign deals again. And besides, the three-year contract is up. It’s time for me to leave.”
Robert grew anxious, but still snapped impatiently:
“You’re a blind woman now—where else could you possibly go? Only the Hughes family is kind enough to take you in. Staying here is no big deal, just one more place at the table. Stay.”
The last word was issued like a command.
But what he never expected was that, after three years of submission, I would finally resist so firmly.
“No, Mr. Hughes. A businessperson values credibility above all. The contract has expired. It’s time for me to go.”
Ethan grew frantic.
He stormed over, yanked me up from the floor, and roared furiously:
“Sophia Carter, what do you mean by this? Are you really going to hold a grudge against Isabella over something so small?”
“You’re her sister-in-law! Do you have any sense of what it means to be an elder?”
“Have you thought about this—if you’d treated Isabella better all along, would she be this angry at you?”
“If you ask me, Sophia, our family hasn’t even pursued you for abusing Isabella, and now you dare to walk away? Don’t you think that’s going too far?”
