Eileen spoke up from the side：“That's……Effie, how could you say that about me……”
She covered her nose and mouth with one hand, letting out a soft whimper.
My father's voice cracked like a whip：“You ungrateful wretch! Who do you think you are?! Someone take her to the basement and lock her in. She stays there until she's ready to apologize.”
“Lock me up instead!”
My mother stood rigid in front of my father, staring him down.
【No, Violet! You're only going to make the male lead angrier!】
【He responds when you yield. Stop going head-to-head with him!】
Sure enough, Abner fixed my mother with a long, searching look, trying to find the smallest trace of surrender.
He found none.
“Your health is too fragile for me to touch you, but……” His gaze turned razor-sharp：“I'm cutting off your mother's medical expenses.”
My mother's body went rigid.
The year my father lost everything, my grandfather's family hadn't lifted a finger. They'd even humiliated him publicly when my mother remarried.
Later, when my father clawed his way back, he didn't just crush his longtime rivals. He destroyed my grandfather's entire family too.
My grandfather and uncle were driven to take their own lives. My grandmother collapsed from illness not long after.
The Summers family, once powerful enough that people fought for their favor, had been reduced to a single survivor: my mother.
My father knew that my grandmother was my mother's last line of defense and her only living relative.
She stared at him, tears rolling down her face in heavy, unbroken streams：“You have no heart, Abner. The year you went under, it was my mother who secretly sent someone to——”
“Ahh——”
A raw, guttural scream tore out of her.
【Stop talking, Supporting Character! You broke system rules by defying fate to save this father and son. The punishment has been triggered. The system will not let you speak the truth.】
I stared at the golden text, frozen.
The truth?
What truth?
What really happened that year?!
Just as the text warned, my mother crumpled to the ground. Her mouth opened again and again, but each time it was forced shut.
She writhed on the floor, moaning in agony, as though some invisible torture was being inflicted on every nerve in her body.
【Has the system lost its mind? That voltage will kill her!】
I crawled to her side：“Mom, stop. Please stop talking.”
“Come on, sis, this really isn't the time to put on a show. Just apologize to Abner and it'll all blow over. No need for the theatrics.”
“Seriously, Mrs. Summers, nobody even touched you. This act is way too over the top. Just say sorry to Mr. Farley!”
Mother and daughter, perfectly in sync. A few sentences was all it took to turn my mother's real, suffocating pain into a cheap performance.
My father's hand, half-extended toward her, slowly pulled back.
Whatever flicker of concern had crossed his face curdled into the cold fury of a man who believed he'd been played.
“Fine! You want to take the punishment for that little brat? I'll grant your wish!”
“Someone get them out of here! Both of them kneel outside. Without my permission, no one helps them. No one.”
I scrambled across the floor on my hands and knees and grabbed the hem of my father's trousers：
“Father, I was wrong, I was wrong! Mom just had a miscarriage. Please don't punish her. Please!”
He didn't even glance at me. He just kicked me away like something dirty on his shoe.
Then he left, his arm around Eileen, Liam, and Celia.
My mother and I knelt outside the entire night.
A heavy rain started at midnight. My mother pulled me tight against her, shielding me with her body.
She didn't make it to dawn. The fever took her consciousness first.
The punishment was finally over.
Late that night, my father pushed the bedroom door open a crack and stood there, watching my mother lying unconscious on the bed.
After a few minutes, he stepped inside.
