Ashes of Beauty, Her Fiancé Lit the Fire

Chapter 9

"It's all your fault! Why did you lock Lily in that room? She was already burned so badly, fire is her biggest fear! How could she possibly set another fire? Give her back to me! Give my daughter back!"

Jack stood there like a hollow shell, numb, letting himself be pushed and struck, his body unmoving.

A few people rushed over to stop her, but Mom's cries of anguish only grew louder before she finally collapsed from the emotional strain.

Jack slowly lifted his head, his eyes locking on the raging inferno not far off.

It was as if everything finally clicked into place.

Ever since I was rescued from that fire, I'd been plagued by panic attacks at the mere sight of even the smallest flame from a lighter.

How could I, of all people, set another fire?

How could I, terrified of fire, have placed so many gasoline barrels in my room?

Just then, a firefighter approached, handing him a dirty voice recorder. "Mr. Thompson, we found this in your wife's room. It was on the bedside table. It seems she might have left you a message in her final moments. Maybe you should listen to it."

Jack grabbed the recorder, repeatedly thanking the firefighter.

He pressed play, his hands shaking as the recording began.

Immediately, all strength drained from his body.

It was a recording of his and Mom's conversation outside the operating room, along with the talk they'd had by my hospital door about giving me psychiatric drugs and letting reporters tear apart my dignity at Coco's celebration.

The final part was the sound of Coco in my room before I died, setting the fire, taunting me, and framing me for it.

Jack gripped the recorder tightly, his heart twisting painfully in his chest.

So Lily had known everything all along.

While enduring excruciating burns that tore her skin open, she had suffered a thousand wounds to her heart at Jack's hands.

That calmness, that facade of grace, wasn't because she had learned to forgive, it was because her heart had been completely shattered.

This was the woman he had loved for over a decade, the one he had promised to never leave.

Twice, he had pushed her into a sea of flames. How much pain and despair had she endured?

What had he done to her?

In an instant, Jack's body seemed to break under the weight of his guilt. He collapsed, clutching his chest in agony, curled up as if he could escape the crushing weight of the truth.

As night fell, the fire was finally subdued.

The air hung heavy with the stench of charred remains.

Firefighters sifted through the ruins of the villa, only to return with a single, incongruous item: a diamond ring.

An assistant hurried over with a thick stack of investigation materials, his steps faltering. "Mr. Thompson, you might want to brace yourself for this."

Before Jack could take the documents, Mom, who had arrived unnoticed, snatched them from his hands.

After all these years, the full truth of how I had been tormented by Coco, along with the secrets she'd kept hidden for so long, were finally laid bare.

Coco's birth parents were human traffickers, killed in a car crash while trying to evade capture.

She had recognized the officer who arrested her parents, my dad, and staged a scene, pretending to be a victim of trafficking. My father couldn't stand by and let her suffer, so he adopted her.

But she was a viper waiting to strike. While Dad was undercover, she deliberately exposed him as a police officer, causing him to be gunned down by criminals. And then she cried, turning everything around and accusing me of being vain and of using her to show off our police officer father.

Mom had never said it, but deep down, she had always resented me for it.

When she was battling leukemia, I secretly gave blood and donated bone marrow without telling her. Meanwhile, Coco ran off with the compensation money my dad had earned with his life.

Then, when she found out Mom had recovered and I was going to marry Jack, the CEO of Thompson Corporation, she returned home, claiming she had depression and didn't want to burden us.

That's when the accidents started.

When no one was watching, I was pushed down the stairs.

In the middle of the night, my wrist was suddenly slashed open with a sharp pair of scissors.

A vase came crashing down from above, nearly killing me.

All these years, I had no idea.