Chapter 15
Blanche let out a muffled sob through the tape over her mouth, her body jerking desperately, eyes pleading for mercy. Edmond stepped forward and ripped the tape from her lips in one swift motion.
“Edmond! Please! Let Finn go! It was all me-everything! He had nothing to do with it!”
Edmond merely stared down at her, cold and detached, as if watching a circus act.
“You lied to me for seven years. Let me play house with your little family like some brain-dead fool.” His voice was razor
sharp. “He ate my food, lived in my house, spent my money. And you want me to believe he had nothing to do with it?”
He crouched beside her, jabbing a finger dangerously close to her face.
“Riddle me this: if Finn’s blood type is O, why did you pay off a doctor to fake his records and match him with April’s rare RH-negative blood?”
“Blanche, is your heart made of stone?”
He could still see the forged documents in his mind’s eye. The original birth certificate listed Finn’s blood type as O-until Blanche bribed the nurse to rewrite it. Even during that preschool checkup, the truth was in black and white. And yet…
he’d missed it.
And that face. Finn’s features-the eyes, the nose-were carbon copies of the man still bound and gagged on the floor. That bastard. That kidnapper. Not a shred of resemblance to him.
Edmond suddenly laughed-dark and bitter. God, he’d been such an idiot.
“Mr. Robinson, please,” Blanche whimpered, voice cracking. “Punish me, hurt me, I don’t care. But Finn’s just a child-”
“A child?” Edmond sneered, rising to his feet and knocking over a chair with his boot. “That ‘child’ stuffed glass marbles down my daughter’s throat! Don’t talk to me about innocence!”
He spun on her, his voice sharp as a whip. “Tell me where Amelia is.”
Blanche’s face twitched. Her eyes darted, then she shook her head. “I don’t know. She just… left with the baby. Didn’t say where.”
Edmond marched over to the couch and grabbed her phone. After unlocking it with her fingerprint, he scrolled-then stopped cold.
An encrypted file. He opened it.
A signed agreement.
“I, Amelia Austin, willingly relinquish the title of Mrs. Robinson and vow never to seek further contact with Edmond Robinson.”
Signed in her neat, unmistakable handwriting.
Boom.
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It was like a grenade exploded in his skull.
“You bitch!” Edmond roared and kicked Blanche square in the chest, sending her sprawling. “You made her sign this?!”
Blanche coughed blood but suddenly let out a crazed, cackling laugh.
“Damn right I did! So what?” she shrieked. “I’m your legal wife, Edmond! She was nothing but your secret plaything!”
“You wanna divorce me? Split your empire with a whore? Dream on! I’m entitled to seven years’ worth of damages and
mental anguish. You owe me-every cent!”
That was it. That was the last straw.
“Damages?” Edmond’s lips curled into a smile that wasn’t a smile at all. “You think you can demand a cut of my life?”
He slammed his boot into her stomach with all the force he had. Blanche curled in on herself, gasping in pain, and
Edmond turned to the bodyguards.
“Show her what hell feels like,” he said coldly. “Make sure she never forgets who she dared to cross.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. The door slammed shut behind him, drowning out Blanche’s shrill, inhuman screams.
Outside, it had started to rain. Thin, steady drops, like that day April was born.
Edmond stood in the storm, unmoving as the water soaked him to the bone. He didn’t know whether it was rain or tears
trailing down his jaw-but he clenched his fists and looked up into the grey sky like it could hear him.
“Amelia, I swear-anyone who hurt you or our daughter will pay. Thousandfold.”
Three days later.
Edmond stood outside the courthouse, a fresh divorce file in hand. But there was no satisfaction in his eyes.
Every one of Blanche’s assets had been frozen. Finn’s registration had been expunged from the Robinson family records. All the money she tried to squirrel away was recovered-and she now faced a corporate embezzlement charge to her name, with a debt figure that would crush anyone.
But prison? That was too merciful. He’d had her locked away in the basement of a remote house. No daylight. No contact. Just one bowl of rotten food a day and a rotating crew of bodyguards who “entertained” her.
Everything she’d once done to Amelia-he made sure she experienced it tenfold. And yet… the more Blanche suffered, the emptier Edmond felt.
Amelia’s face haunted him.
Her warm soup after late-night work. The way she ironed his shirts to crisp perfection. The glow in her eyes when she looked at him-not the CEO, not the public figure-but him.
She was everywhere: In his bones, in his blood, in every breath.
And now-she was gone.
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He’d turned the world upside down trying to find her.
Harris combed through international travel logs, only to find Amelia had purchased dozens of airline tickets-Ottawa,
Paris, Sydney, Toronto…
All around the world. All decoys. She clearly didn’t want to be found.
“Sir…” Harris began hesitantly. “They say when a woman’s angry, she goes back to her parents’ place. Do you think maybe… she returned to the Austins?”
Edmond froze. Then, with trembling fingers, he dialed Amelia’s mother.
His voice was lower than ever. “Ma’am… is Amy with you?”
Silence.
Then: “You’ve got some nerve, Edmond Robinson!”
The fury in her voice nearly shattered the phone line.
“She was blind for seven years. Seven! But she’s finally seen through you. Don’t you dare drag her down again!”
She’s finally seen through me…
Edmond stood frozen, the phone slipping from his fingers.
She knew. She had known everything. About Blanche. About the lies.
He tried to call back, but the line was already cut. Panic clawed at his chest.
He bolted for the Social Security Administration, storming the front desk.
“I need to check a registration record. Name’s Amelia Austin. Has she come in recently to register a child? Name: April Robinson.”
The clerk tapped away at the computer for a while, then shook his head. “No new entries under that name.”
Edmond’s breath hitched in his throat. Relief crashed over him like a wave. Thank God. She hadn’t registered April. She hadn’t officially cut ties.
He whispered to himself, “It’s not too late… I still have a chance…”
Then-
“Wait!” the clerk suddenly said, snapping his fingers. “There was an Amelia Austin here about two weeks ago. She registered her baby girl under her last name. Kid’s name is… yeah, here it is-April Austin.”
“She even made a note-no paternal information. Said the father’s not involved.”
Boom.
The world stopped. Edmond’s knees buckled as he lunged toward the screen. Chapter 15
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There it was.
“April Austin.”
His daughter. Legally no longer a Robinson.
And as far as the system was concerned… He is no longer existed in her life.
Chapter 15
