Chapter 13
“Mom!” Adrian lunged to steady Eleanor Grace, his muscles taut under his uniform. “Richard, let’s go inside and talk.”
“Oh, now you care about appearances?” Vivian Whitmore flipped the table laden with birthday pastries, shattering porcelain in every direction. “Where was that shame when your family was driving my daughter to death?!”
Guests crowded closer, some climbing onto the tree for a better view.
Alexander Graham, Adrian’s father, signaled the guards to clear the courtyard, but two of the Langston family’s soldier nephews stepped in to block them.
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“Adrian Graham!” Richard Langston hurled a stack of papers into his face. “You drew Liana’s blood, didn’t you? You made her take the fall for Zoe Young, didn’t you? And when the mine collapsed, you left her behind- didn’t you?!”
Each accusation landed like an artillery shell in the courtyard.
Eleanor Grace’s knees buckled. She clutched Adrian’s arm. “Landon… is this true?”
“Of course it is!”
Vivian snatched a bundle from Lily’s arms and flung a thick stack of photocopies into the air.
White pages fluttered down, settling on cream–stained hands.
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Mine Collapse Incident Report (Signed: Landon Graham).
“Oh my God…”
“He really tried to kill a war hero’s widow?”
“No wonder Dr. Langston tried to take her own life..”
The gossip surged like a tide.
Adrian Graham’s face turned paper–white instantly.
“Heartless, the whole damn Graham family!”
Vivian suddenly collapsed to the ground among shards of porcelain, her cries tearing through the chaos.
Her emaciated fingers clutched an old photo
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of Liana in her youth, the knees of her pants soon wearing through to form two holes.
“My daughter mourned Adrian Graham for six months! Six months!” She pounded her chest, her fingernails drawing blood. “Is this how you treat the widow of a hero?!”
The scene spiraled out of control.
The gossiping old women gasped and pointed. Young nurses from the hospital wept silently. A few of veterans smashed their cups in disgust.
Every stare was a poisoned dagger, and Eleanor Grace was shaking under their weight.
“We didn’t know… we really didn’t…” she staggered back, clutching her chest before collapsing.
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“Mom!”
Adrian caught her just before she hit the ground–only to lift his head and meet Vivian Whitmore’s gaze, burning with hatred.
That look seemed to say. No one from the Graham family will get away with this.
Adrian Graham tried to reason with Richard Langston and Vivian Whitmore. “Richard, Vivian… Liana chose to remain widowed on her own. Today is my mother’s birthday. I hope you won’t cause a scene.”
“Fine! You want peace? Then let my daughter Liana come home and cut all ties with the Graham family–forever!”
BOOM-!
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A flash of lightning split the clouds, casting Adrian Graham’s ashen face in a ghostly glow.
The executive officer’s cigar clattered to the ground.
In over sixty years, he’d never witnessed such absurdity–a war widow severing ties with the family of the fallen soldier?
“No!” Adrian’s voice cracked with a blood–laced roar.
Just seven more months…
Once Zoe Young delivered the baby, he would shed the identity of Landon Graham and fall to his knees before Liana Langston to confess everything.
He’d tell her how every time he touched Zoe,
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he felt sick to his stomach; how every time she called him “Landon“, it cut like a knife.
But now the Langston family was about to destroy everything.
“You don’t get a say!” Richard Langston pulled out an official stamped document and slapped it onto the table. “Liana’s transfer paperwork–it’s already been approved by the hospital!”
The courtyard erupted.
Adrian staggered forward to snatch it, but two of the Langston nephews seized his arms and forced them behind his back.
He could only watch helplessly as the paper fluttered in the wind and rain and fell to the ground.
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“You dare!” he shouted, his military buttons popping under the strain. “I’m the real Anr-”
“What?” Vivian Whitmore sneered. “Captain Landon Graham? Or the long–dead Adrian Graham?”
The downpour lashed at the birthday banners tangled in the treetops, slapping them to the ground.
Adrian finally understood.
The martyr identity he had requested… had become the grave of his own love story.
Whether he acknowledged it or not, he had forever lost the right to love her in the open daylight.
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