Alexandra Hoffman POV:
The chill of the night air bit at my exposed skin as I walked, my shoulders hunched against the emptiness. It felt like miles, though I couldn't say how long I wandered before a kindly stranger, seeing my distraught state, offered me a ride back to the only place I knew to go: my parents' house. The relief was a dull ache. The shame was a searing burn.
When I finally stumbled through the door, the house was quiet, bathed in the soft glow of a night light. It was late, past midnight. My parents were usually early sleepers. But the moment I stepped inside, my mother was there, as if she had been waiting, sensing my distress.
Her eyes, usually so bright, were wide with shock as she took in my tear-streaked face, my swollen cheek, my utterly broken posture. "Alexandra? My God, what happened to you?" she gasped, rushing to my side, her arms immediately wrapping around me.
And then, the dam broke. All the pain, the betrayal, the humiliation, the sheer exhaustion-it all came flooding out. I collapsed into her embrace, great, racking sobs tearing through my body. My mother held me tight, stroking my hair, murmuring soothing words that I barely registered. My cheek throbbed, my head ached, and a hollow emptiness gnawed at my stomach. But it was the pain in my heart, the betrayal from the two men I had loved and trusted most, that truly shattered me.
My father, roused by my cries, appeared in the doorway, his face creased with worry. He saw my face, my mother' s distress, and his jaw tightened. "What in God' s name happened?" His voice was low, dangerous.
"Hanson… Jaxon… Karla…" I choked out, the names tasting like ash on my tongue. "They... they betrayed me. Hanson hit me."
My parents' faces turned to stone. My mother held me tighter, tears now streaming down her own face. "Hanson hit you? Our Hanson?" Her voice was barely a whisper, laced with disbelief and horror.
I pulled away, wiping my tears, forcing myself to look at them. "Mom, Dad, please. Don' t call Hanson. Not yet. Not for a while." The thought of seeing his face, of hearing his voice, made me physically recoil. Jaxon' s betrayal was a poisoned arrow, but Hanson' s was a dagger twisted in my back. His violence, his words, had cut deeper than anything Jaxon could have done. He had chosen her. He had chosen the lie.
"It' s worse than Jaxon, Mom," I whispered, the words heavy with a truth I had only just realized. "Hanson… he chose the lie. He chose them over me. He hit me."
And then, through my ragged breaths, I told them everything. The years of Jaxon' s affair with Karla. The casual cruelty of their words. The parking lot confrontation. The manipulated video. Hanson' s cold, unwavering belief in Karla, his violent blow, his threats. I laid it all bare, every ugly detail, every shred of evidence I had.
My father listened in grim silence, his fists clenching and unclenching. When I finished, he stood up, his face a mask of furious determination. He walked to the mantelpiece, picked up a heavy porcelain vase, and smashed it against the fireplace. The sound echoed through the silent house, a violent punctuation mark to my story.
"That' s it," he roared, his voice shaking with rage. "That' s absolutely it! This wedding is off! Over my dead body will that conniving woman become a part of this family. And Hanson… Hanson will pay for laying a hand on you."
My mother, her face still streaked with tears, nodded fiercely. "Absolutely not. I' ll call them first thing in the morning. Hanson needs to understand the consequences of his actions."
It wasn't long after, probably just a few hours given the early morning light, that Hanson burst through the front door, his face a thundercloud of fury. He must have heard from Jaxon, or from Karla, or both. Or maybe he just sensed the impending doom. He stormed into the living room, his eyes immediately locking onto me.
"You! You told them, didn't you, you viper? You just couldn' t stand it, could you? Me finally having something good, something real!" He lunged towards me, his hand raised, his eyes blazing with the same cold hatred I' d seen on the golf course.
But this time, my father was faster. He stepped between us, blocking Hanson' s path, his body a solid wall of paternal protection. "Stop it, Hanson! Not another step!"
"Get out of my way, Dad! She deserves it! She' s trying to ruin my life!" Hanson snarled, trying to push past him.
My father grabbed Hanson' s arm, his grip like iron. "You will not lay a hand on your sister again! Do you hear me? Never!" His voice was low, menacing, a stark warning.
Hanson struggled, his face contorted in a sneer. "Oh, so now she' s your precious angel again, is she? Always her, never me! You always fawned over her, always put her first! I' ve been hearing it my whole life, 'Alexandra is so smart, Alexandra is so kind, Alexandra is so perfect!' " He spat the words, venom dripping from each syllable.
I watched him, numb, my cheek still aching. His words, so familiar in their bitterness, barely registered. I was too tired, too broken, to engage. His resentment was a bottomless pit, a dark shadow that had always loomed over our relationship, but I had never truly understood its depth until now.
My mother, her eyes blazing with a rare fury, stepped forward. SLAP! The sound echoed through the room. My father, equally enraged, followed suit. SLAP! Two sharp blows, one after another, landed squarely on Hanson' s face.
Hanson froze, his eyes wide with shock, then a twisted, humorless laugh burst from his lips. "See? See? Even now! Always her! Always the golden child! You never loved me, did you? Not really." His voice was raw, brimming with a pain I almost, for a fleeting second, pitied.
He turned to my parents, his eyes cold and hard. "Fine. You want to choose her? You want to believe her lies? Fine. I' ll marry Karla. And if you try to stop me, if you try to ruin this, I' m cutting you both out of my life. You' ll never see me again. And you can forget about Hoffman Properties. I' ll take what' s mine, one way or another." With that, he turned and stormed out, the front door slamming shut behind him, leaving a chilling silence in its wake.
My parents stood there, their shoulders slumped, their faces etched with a profound weariness. My mother' s hand trembled as she reached for my father' s. They looked at each other, a silent conversation passing between them. A secret, I realized, something deeper than Hanson' s rage. Something they had held onto for years. And in that moment, I knew they had more than just my word. They had proof.
