The words landed heavily in the air.
Annie paused, her gaze sharpening. A wave of suspicion washed over her.
With Maya’s manipulative nature, if Nick truly wanted to harm Jules or pressure her, Maya would have handed over Jules’s address long ago.
But she hadn’t. That ant sothing was off.
Annie shifted her gaze to Maya, who returned a stiff, strained smile. Then Annie looked back at Nick and spoke calmly,
"Why do you want to know where Jules is living?"
Nick lowered his eyes. His voice softened, tinged with sothing that resembled regret.
"I know Jules may have been responsible for Laurie’s death. Even if what she did was wrong... she’s already paid the price."
Annie felt her stomach tighten.
"For an entire year," Nick continued, "I tortured her. Emotionally. ntally. I made sure she suffered."
He inhaled deeply. "And recently... I found out she was once pregnant with my child."
Annie’s breath caught.
"I want to know if she’s still pregnant," Nick went on. "And even if she isn’t... I’m willing to keep her. I’ve thought about a lot of things over the past three months."
His hand tightened slightly. "It feels like a piece of my heart has been missing."
He lifted his head and looked directly at Annie.
"Back then, I punished her so she would understand how it feels to be tortured. I thought she needed to learn her lesson." His voice grew steadier. "Now... I just want to start over."
He waited.
Annie studied him coldly before asking, "And what about Laurie?"
Nick answered without hesitation,
"It’s been a year. We’ve mourned long enough. It’s ti to move on."
Before Annie could respond, Maya suddenly stood up and rushed toward Nick. Her voice sharpened, laced with agitation.
"Nick, that’s going too far! Laurie saw you as a big brother. She even saved you!"
She reached for him, clearly about to drag him into another guilt-laden narrative.
But Annie interrupted her.
"That’s not true," Annie said calmly.
The room fell silent.
Annie turned toward Maya, her eyes unwavering.
"From what I know now, it wasn’t Laurie who saved Nick. It was Jules. Jules did everything."
The mont those words left Annie’s mouth, both Nick and Maya froze.
Nick stared at Annie in shock, his face draining of color.
Maya felt as if she had just been struck by lightning.
"That’s a lie!" she snapped instinctively. "Why are you suddenly siding with Jules? Did Jules feed you so story?"
Hearing Maya’s words, Annie spoke calmly, her tone steady despite the storm raging inside her chest.
"Jules didn’t tell anything."
She lifted her gaze to Nick, her eyes sharp and unwavering.
"But there is one thing I am absolutely certain about. It was never Laurie who saved you."
Nick stiffened.
"If you’re talking about the incident at the river," Annie continued slowly, "then you should rember this clearly. Laurie didn’t know how to swim. She was terrified of deep water."
The air seed to thicken.
"In our entire family," Annie went on, "only one person knew how to swim well enough to save soone from drowning. And that person was Jules. It was always Jules."
Nick’s face drained of color, the blood retreating as if fear itself had clawed it away.
Maya shook her head imdiately, her voice rising in protest.
"That’s not true. I knew Laurie better than anyone before her death. I can testify, it was Laurie who saved Nick."
Annie turned sharply toward Maya, her gaze cutting like a blade.
"If I didn’t know better," she said coldly, "I would think you were Laurie yourself."
For a brief mont, fear flashed across Maya’s face. Her pupils trembled before she quickly composed herself, forcing a calm expression.
"Maybe you’re just missing your daughter too much," Maya replied lightly. "That’s why you’re confusing with her."
Then she turned to Nick, her voice softening deliberately.
"You can check the investigation records. They clearly state that Laurie saved you, not Jules."
Nick hesitated.
He rembered the investigation well. The official report had indeed concluded that Laurie was the one who rescued him.
His heart, however, had always whispered Jules’s na. But the riverbank had been secluded, with only two witnesses present at the ti.
He had questioned those two witnesses himself.
Both had insisted it was Laurie.
As doubt churned inside him, Annie’s calm voice cut through his thoughts.
"From what I know," she said evenly, "Laurie had a habit of bribing people."
Nick looked at her in shock.
"If you dig deep enough," Annie continued, "you’ll find that those so-called witnesses were nothing more than paid mouths."
Nick’s face turned ghostly pale. "How can you be so certain?" he asked hoarsely.
Annie didn’t look at him. Instead, her gaze rested squarely on Maya. "I read the diary."
The words struck like thunder.
"In that diary," Annie went on, "there were countless details. How Laurie... constantly pushed Jules into the shadows. How Jules was the one who saved Nick, yet Laurie took credit for it."
Maya’s breath hitched.
"She sold the necklace Nick gave to his savior," Annie continued, her voice cold and precise.
"With that money, she bribed the two witnesses. And because Laurie had seen the necklace up close while Jules never had the chance, she could describe every pattern, every detail."
Annie turned her gaze back to Nick. "That’s why you believed her."
Maya’s carefully built world began to crack.
"You’re lying," Maya snapped, glaring at Annie. "You’ve clearly started favoring Jules. Either that, or you’re hoping Jules will take care of you in your old age. You don’t care about justice anymore, you’re biased."
Nick didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at Maya.
Instead, he took out his phone with trembling fingers and dialed a number.
"Do a deep investigation," he ordered quietly. "I want everything. Two hours."
Maya rushed toward him, panic seeping into her voice.
"Nick, don’t listen to her! She’s lying!"
Nick said nothing.
Ti crawled by painfully. Maya continued talking, pleading, arguing, spinning excuses, but Nick stood silent, his expression growing darker by the minute.
Finally, his phone rang. He answered.
As the words poured from the other end, his face turned ashen.
The truth unraveled rcilessly.
It had been Jules who saved him. Every single fra-up Laurie had orchestrated was exposed. Even Laurie’s supposed death, her fake death, was uncovered.
Nick stood up abruptly, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"How is this possible?" he demanded hoarsely. "If Laurie was alive all this ti... then why didn’t she co forward when Jules was being tortured?"
Even as he spoke, the answers ford on their own, twisting his gut with revulsion.
Maya stood frozen.
Annie watched her with undisguised disdain, her gaze cold and resolute as the last illusion shattered.
Does he still not understand the truth, or was he just acting?
Still, Annie hadn’t fully processed the truth.
When she thought about how she herself had once blindly believed every word Maya spoke, a bitter realization settled in her chest. In that sense, she and Nick truly had been standing on the sa sinking boat.
With that thought, her gaze shifted back to Maya, who now looked visibly uneasy, her fingers curling and uncurling at her sides, her eyes flickering as if afraid that the last layer of her secret was about to be torn away.
Internally, Annie almost laughed.
’So you’re scared now,’ she thought coldly. ’Good.’
From the mont Annie realized just how terribly wrong she had been, sothing inside her changed completely. It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen her daughter’s pain before.
The truth was far uglier, she had seen it and chosen to ignore it, because she believed Jules deserved every bit of it.
Now, knowing how much Jules had truly suffered, Annie felt nothing but disgust toward herself.
’I was an incompetent mother.’
If she couldn’t turn back ti, then she would at least do sothing aningful now.
She would earn Jules’s forgiveness, no matter how long it took. And to do that... Laurie... no, Maya... would have to pay for every single thing she had done.
anwhile, Maya felt Annie’s gaze lingering on her like a blade pressed against her skin.
She lowered her eyes, hiding the panic surging inside her heart. If before she had rely suspected Annie’s change was due to the diary, now that suspicion had grown heavier, darker.
’She knows sothing,’ Maya thought. ’She definitely knows sothing.’
Annie’s earlier words echoed in her mind... If I didn’t know better, I would think you were Laurie yourself.
A chill ran down Maya’s spine.
’Did she find out?’
The possibility made her palms sweat. For reasons she couldn’t fully piece together, Annie had discovered the truth, or at least part of it, and now she was watching her, waiting.
Maya’s mind raced.
’If that’s the case... then I need to change my plan.’
She glanced briefly at Nick, then back at Annie. No matter what, she couldn’t let Jules co back.
Jules had already lost everything once. It would be far better if she continued hiding like before, disappearing quietly from everyone’s sight.
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