Love in the Eye of the Storm

Chapter 9

Chelsea's eyes flared with fury as she clutched her cheek. "What gives you the right to hit me? No wonder Alexander's sick of you. If I were him, I'd be done with you, too. You're nothing but a bitter, dying woman."

I slapped her again, harder this time. "Daniel saved your life, Chelsea! He died for you!"

"Did I ask him to?" she spat back, her voice venomous. "I never wanted him to play the hero. Stop trying to guilt me over something I didn't ask for."

My body shook with rage. "How could you? How could you do this to him?"

"I'm about to marry Alexander," Chelsea said, her tone sharp and dismissive. "This house is going to be mine. And I'm not about to live in a place haunted by dead people. It's bad luck."

I slapped her a third time, putting everything I had left into it. "The only bad luck here is you, Chelsea!"

Her phone rang then, and she answered it on speaker. It was Alexander.

"Alex..." she whimpered, tears streaming down her face. "It's M-Madeline. She's being cruel to me, hitting me over and over just because I planted some peach trees. You told me I could."

I heard his voice, cold and detached. "Chelsea, don't cry. I told you, you can plant whatever you want. Don't worry about anyone else."

My fists clenched, the anger surging inside me. His words stung like poison. As if this house, this life, belonged to him alone, like I'd never been by his side through the hardest times.

Tears blurred my vision as I bent down and picked up what was left of Daniel, holding it tightly in my arms.

"Alexander," I choked out, my voice breaking. "Your precious Chelsea... she dug up my brother's grave."

"She won't end up well! And I will never forgive you!" I wanted to scream at him, to make him understand the depth of what she had done. But Chelsea had already hung up.

As I clutched the box, memories flooded back, of that awful day ten years ago when Daniel was killed, crushed under a fallen chandelier, his body broken beyond recognition. Tears rolled down my face, unstoppable.

Once, I had desperately wanted this house, because Daniel and Buddy were buried at the foot of the hill behind it. That yard, that hill, had felt like my home, my sanctuary. But to Alexander, it was just another asset he had bought. Now, he had Chelsea here, likely even promising her that this place would be their future. The house was tainted. It wasn't mine anymore.

But that didn't mean I had no home.

As long as I had Daniel, I had a place to belong.

"Daniel, I'm taking you home."

I clutched the box tighter, my steps stiff and heavy as I passed through the back door, then the front. I wasn't coming back here. I'd die next to my brother, not in Alexander's house.

"Madeline..." Mrs. Adams and the housemaids looked at me with deep concern, but there was something in my eyes, something resolute, that made them fall silent. I was leaving, and nothing they said could change that.

But as I stepped outside, the weight of the question hit me: Where would I take Daniel now?

And then it came to me, the orphanage.

The kids there had always adored me, and Miss Martha, the head of the orphanage, who'd never married, had loved me like her own daughter. The Morning Star Orphanage had always been a second home to me and Daniel. That's where we belonged.

I was moving slower than I wanted to, each step heavier than the last. It took me over an hour just to walk from the hill to the front gate. By the time I stepped outside, a swarm of reporters was already rushing toward me, blocking my path.

"Madeline, is it true that you assaulted Chelsea out of jealousy?"

"As a woman of wealth, do you think you're above the law?"

"Chelsea is young and innocent. How could you subject her to such mistreatment?"