Plot Twist, The 'Dead' Ex is Thriving

Chapter 18

The footsteps sounded familiar.

Strangely, I felt calm.

The steps halted behind me, and Vincent Montgomery's voice trembled with cautious hope.

"Lauren... is that you?"

I didn't turn around, keeping my eyes lowered on my phone.

He moved in front of me, staring as if in a daze, then took a step closer. "Lauren, I know it's you."

I lifted my gaze, feigning confusion. "Sir, are you talking to me?"

Nearly two years had passed. My long hair was gone, now cut into a shoulder-length bob.

My style had changed completely—clothes, makeup, even the way I carried myself.

Vincent's eyes reddened faintly. "Lauren, I know you're still angry. Emily deceived me back then. That's why I... hurt you."

"But I regret it. I swear, I've learned my lesson."

Emily's schemes hadn't been clever—just cheap and obvious.

Yet both Vincent and Daniel Harrison had believed her without hesitation.

Time and again, I'd tried to mend things, only for Vincent to retaliate with even harsher cruelty.

The man I loved and my own brother had grown more biased toward Emily with each passing day.

Her mother, Sophia Carter, was the mistress who'd destroyed my mother's marriage.

To me, Emily and her mother had always been outsiders. The real wounds came from Vincent and Daniel—the two people who mattered most.

One was my childhood sweetheart. The other, my flesh and blood.

Yet they'd wielded their knives without mercy, stabbing straight for my heart.

Over and over, until I was left riddled with scars.

Now, nearly two years later, those wounds had healed—leaving behind only marks.

The pain was gone. And the ones who'd hurt me?

They no longer stirred a single ripple in my heart.