Chapter 12
After we got discharged, I made sure the timing was perfect.
Torren’s car was already waiting outside the hospital, sleek and polished like a promise. And of course, the paparazzi were there, just how I wanted them. I held Jude close, wrapped in a soft designer blanket with the Massaro emblem stitched right on the edge. I “accidentally” let my sunglasses slide down enough for them to get a full shot of my face. No makeup, just glowing skin and that perfect tired–mother look. Vulnerable but stunning. The kind of image that wins sympathy and clicks.
Torren stepped out like some dutiful man, walking ahead of us, then turning back and placing a hand gently on my lower back for the cameras. What a performance.
“This is Ruby and Jude,” he told the reporters crowding the hospital entrance. “They’re family. That’s all you need to know.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
We slid into the car like royalty. Jude was quiet in the backseat beside me, clutching the little plush dog I bought him earlier. His eyes darted toward the crowd outside.
“Why are they taking pictures, Mommy?”
I adjusted his collar and kissed his cheek. “Because we’re news now, baby. The world wants to know who we are. Let them look.”
The next few days blurred fast.
Back at the Massaro mansion, I moved quickly. The house still stank of Therese. Her scent lingered in the curtains, her voice in the way the staff hesitated when speaking to me. I hated that. I hated her invisible presence more than I hated her face.
So I started the cleaning.
The old housekeeper? Gone. I told Torren she made me uncomfortable. The driver that once drove Therese to charity events? Fired. Said he made comments about my figure. The cook who kept serving Jude boiled vegetables? Replaced with a younger one who understood how to take instructions without asking questions.
I brought in my own people…girls who owed me, men who feared me. Maids that knew how to stay silent. Staff who accepted extra cash in envelopes and didn’t blink when I said, “Burn that photo. Don’t ask whose.”
One morning, while Torren was out at meetings, I stood in the grand hallway and watched as two workers pulled down Therese’s enormous wedding portrait. God, it was hideous. All white lace and fake smiles. She looked like she was holding her breath.
I sipped my tea and pointed at the wall. “Replace it with that photo from Jude’s birthday. The one where I wore that gold dress.”
He Left Me for Dead. Now He Beas Me for Mercy
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And they did. Just like that.
Now there we were, the three of us. Me, Torren, and Jude smiling like the perfect little family. Jude had cake on his chin in the photo. I made sure they didn’t edit it out. It made us look “real.”
**
4
Later that afternoon, Jude and I were walking down the staircase when he looked up at the new portrait.
“Mommy,” he whispered, tugging on my hand. “That picture… It looks like we live here now.”
I crouched down, smoothed his hair, and smiled. “That’s because we do, baby. This house? Soon it’ll be ours. His wealth, his name, all of it. You won’t ever have to be scared again. No more hiding. No more running from your useless father who used to beat me till I bled.”
Jude frowned a little. “What if that Therese comes back? What if she brings that Cleo with her?”
I chuckled softly. Then harder. Then I laughed until I had to hold my stomach.
“Oh baby,” I leaned down and whispered in his ear, “Cleo’s already dead. That ash in the urn you saw? That was him. He’s not coming back. And Therese? She’s nothing without him.”
Jude blinked, then grinned wide. “Really? So she’s all alone now?”
“Just a shadow,” I said sweetly, brushing his cheek with my thumb. “And you know what we do with shadows, right?”
He nodded. “We don’t look back.”
“Exactly,” I said. “That’s my boy.”
I kissed his forehead and stood up tall. “But listen to Mommy carefully now. Never speak of Therese again. Not to me, not to Torren, not even in your dreams. She’s gone. We buried her with her lies.”
Jude zipped his lips with his fingers, then threw away the invisible key.
Good. He was learning. I looked back at our photo on the wall. Therese was erased.
I was blooming.
And my son? He was becoming the perfect prince of a kingdom I would steal.
**
THERESE’S POV
It’s been two days I’m here on my father’s estate, and everything still feels like it’s holding
its breath.
The Calderon estate is cold in ways I forgot.
And I clearly remember, I was just stepping out of the car when I saw her.
Fleur.
Chapter 12
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She stood at the gates like she owned the world. Her hair was perfect, her dress worth more than most people’s monthly salary, and those sunglasses were just for show. She didn’t need them. She always liked watching people flinch.
She smiled when she saw me. That slow kind of smile that doesn’t reach the
eyes.
“Back to the cage, sister?” she asked, voice sugar–slick and fake sweet. “The runaway bride finally returns. Oh wait, no longer a wife, huh? Just the beat–up ex of the great Torren Massaro.”
I didn’t answer her. I just tightened my grip on the luggage handle and walked past.
She followed me, of course.
“You look… tired,” she said. “Was prison life that hard or was it just the betrayal? Or maybe the fact your husband dumped you for a whore who replaced you in bed, and in the family portrait?”
I paused only for a second at the word “family,” but I didn’t give her what she wanted. I kept walking.
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