Elena Salinas POV:
Julian's words, his calm, decisive tone in the video, resonated in my head like a death knell. Go. Hide. I'll handle the police, the paperwork. Everything. He had known. All these years. He had held me as I cried, he had listened to my grief, and all the while, he knew the truth. He knew Aubrey had pushed my mother. And he had helped her lie. My own father, too.
I remembered storming out of the house after my mother's death, desperate to go to the police, to demand they investigate further. I hadn't believed it was suicide. Not my mother.
Julian had chased after me, his urgent cries cutting through the rain. He'd tripped, falling on the slick pavement, scraping his knee badly. He'd limped after me, grabbing my arm, his face etched with concern.
"Elena, stop! You can't go to them like this," he'd pleaded, his voice hoarse. "Let me handle it. I'll talk to my father's lawyers. They'll get to the bottom of it. I'll make sure justice is served. Trust me."
I had looked into his eyes, tear-filled and desperate, and I had seen genuine concern, genuine love. He was bruised, bleeding, but he was there for me. I had trusted him completely. I had put all my hope, all my fragile belief in justice, into his hands. I had been so stupid. So incredibly, devastatingly naive.
He had promised to protect me. He had promised to avenge my mother. Instead, he had protected her killer. He had built a wall of lies around me, letting me drown in manufactured grief and false narratives.
The gala. Aubrey's birthday. My mother's death anniversary. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. My face was pale, my eyes sunken, but there was a new, hard glint in them. No more tears. No more pretense.
I walked into the ballroom, a solitary figure amidst the glittering crowd. My hair was disheveled, my dress rumpled, a stark contrast to the perfectly coiffed and lavishly dressed guests. A ghost at a party.
Aubrey was there, radiant and smug, draped on Julian's arm. She was wearing my grandmother's emerald necklace, a family heirloom Julian had given her. It sparkled against her skin, a symbol of everything she had stolen. She looked like Julian's wife, the rightful lady of the house. The thought made me sick.
Every head turned. The hushed whispers started, a wave of judgment washing over me. Disgusted glances, mocking smiles, pity that felt worse than contempt. I could feel their eyes on me, dissecting me, branding me as the disgraced wife, the madwoman.
Julian saw me. His lips curved into a faint, confident smile. He probably thought I had come to beg, to reconcile. He opened his arms slightly, a silent invitation, a public display of magnanimity.
He was going to be disappointed.
I walked straight onto the stage, past the shocked guests, past Aubrey and Julian. My voice, when I spoke, was surprisingly clear, cutting through the celebratory chatter.
"Julian," I said, my voice echoing in the sudden silence. "Tell me. Tell everyone. What really happened to my mother?"
His smile faltered. His breath hitched, a fleeting flicker of guilt in his eyes, quickly masked by anger. "Elena, don't be ridiculous. Not now." His voice was low, threatening.
"No, Julian! Tell them!" I screamed, my voice cracking. "Tell them you helped Aubrey cover up her crime! Tell them you're an accomplice to murder!"
Before Julian could react, before I could say another word, my father lunged forward. His hand connected with my cheek, a painful, stinging slap that knocked my head to the side. The force of it made my ears ring.
"Stop this madness, Elena!" David Lucas hissed, his eyes wide with fear. Julian, his face a mask of cold fury, gave my father a subtle nod. Their complicity, their betrayal, burned into my soul. The video, the undeniable truth, slammed into me again. They had done this. Both of them.
Aubrey, sensing her moment, crumpled to the floor, sobbing dramatically. "Elena! How could you?! Mother never hated you! She hated me! She wanted me gone! She tried to hurt me! I just… I just pushed her for self-defense! Please, Elena, why are you doing this? Don't hurt me anymore! I'll be good! I'll do anything you say!"
She lifted her arm, revealing a faint, barely visible scar on her forearm. The one she had gotten from falling against a fireplace poker during a childhood tantrum. But to the uninformed, it looked like a fresh injury, a mark of my supposed violence. She looked up, her eyes wide with manufactured innocence, watery with fake tears. A perfect victim.
Julian's gaze softened, his brow furrowing with concern. He looked at Aubrey, then at me. His eyes, once full of a twisted kind of love, were now filled with profound disappointment.
"Elena, what have you done?" he asked, his voice laced with disgust. "You attacked her? You actually laid hands on her?"
A collective gasp went through the crowd. Whispers erupted, louder, more venomous than before.
"She's a lunatic!"
"A murderer's daughter, trying to kill her sister! Just like her mother tried to kill Aubrey!"
"And that fake affair! She's disgusting, a gold-digger, a cheat!"
"That common girl, always causing trouble! No wonder Julian never touched her!"
The words crashed down on me, a tsunami of condemnation. My mother's image, her face contorted in pain as she fell, flashed behind my eyes. These people, these vultures, they were twisting everything. They were slandering her memory. My mother, innocent, strong, dignified. And now, thanks to Aubrey's lies, thanks to Julian's complicity, her name was being dragged through the mud.
A red haze descended. All the years of silent suffering, of public humiliation, of buried grief, detonated inside me. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think.
My hands shot out. I grabbed Aubrey by the throat, my fingers digging into her soft skin.
"You killed her," I choked out, my voice raw with a decade of suppressed agony. "You killed my mother!"
