The onlookers, confused and eager for gossip, began whispering among themselves.
“My God, Mrs. Hughes actually abused her sister-in-law! No wonder the girl retaliated—she had it coming!”
“Exactly! Isabella Hughes always has such a good image in public. She doesn’t seem like the reckless type at all. It must be this wicked woman’s abuse that pushed her to act out in front of everyone!”
“Poor Isabella…”
“Nonsense! Don’t you know Isabella’s past scandals? She used the Hughes family’s influence to bully classmates and even harass others. If it weren’t for her family’s PR covering it all up, her reputation would’ve collapsed long ago!”
“And wasn’t Sophia Carter the one managing her PR? She hid everything for Isabella, making her look clean. Now it’s backfiring on her—serves her right!”
Voices rose and fell around me, each harsher than the last.
I listened, a bitter smile curling on my lips.
They didn’t know. They couldn’t know.
When my mother learned that the Hughes family had used her debt to coerce me back, guilt consumed her until she fell gravely ill.
Even then, they forced us out of the hospital under the excuse that her medical bills hadn’t been paid.
If not for the Hughes Group sinking deeper into crisis, they never would have remembered me at all.
I stared at the crimson drops staining the pristine white tiles, my lips curving into a cold smile.
The company I built—burning through countless sleepless nights, finally nearing success, only days from going public…
They destroyed it all, wiping out my life’s work for their own profit.
Over the past three years in the Hughes family, because I managed everything so tirelessly, their lives had been smooth, prosperous.
Isabella, freed from financial crisis, clung desperately to her social status. Terrified of falling, she drowned herself in reckless spending and flaunted wealth, becoming more and more arrogant—brazen enough to slap anyone, no matter who they were.
The Hughes family cared most about their reputation, and Isabella’s behavior threatened it, dragging down their stock prices.
When persuasion failed, they simply dumped her onto me.
They called it “letting her elder sister-in-law discipline her.”
But in truth, they were exploiting my PR skills to whitewash her image.
To clean up her disasters, I followed her everywhere, patching up mess after mess.
I rebuilt her image into something flawless.
And for that, she despised me all the more.
Time and again, she jabbed a finger in my face, snarling:
“Sophia Carter, even my parents don’t dare control me like you do. Who do you think you are, ordering me around?”
“You’re nothing but a dog kept by the Hughes family! And a dog dares to lecture its master?”
“If you ever try to control me again, believe me, I’ll have you killed!”
So when she blinded me today, I wasn’t surprised.
It was the revenge she had long been plotting.
Even as I lay on the floor, I caught the triumphant smirk tugging at her lips.
Pain stabbed my ruined eye again, sharp and merciless.
A fleeting, bitter smile twisted across my face before vanishing.
Facing the Hughes family pressing in on me, I stayed calm, my voice steady as I said:
