Signed, Sealed, Scandalous

Chapter 23

Ethan Kingsley flung a stack of documents at her face, his voice icy with fury.

"Explain these two car accidents. I want a reasonable answer."

"Why was the same driver responsible for hitting us and your mother? Back then, he suddenly vanished overseas, so why did he reappear just to target your mother again? You knew him all along, didn't you?"

The thought of how long they'd been deceived, how they'd treated Lily Wilson with kindness, made his rage unbearable. His grip tightened around her wrist.

The sharp edges of the papers left red marks on her skin.

Instantly, Lily's eyes welled up with tears, her voice trembling as she shook her head.

"No, I didn't! Ethan, what are you talking about? I don't understand!"

She turned desperately to Liam Kingsley.

"Liam, please, explain to him! Someone must have poisoned him against me!"

Her voice cracked with feigned innocence.

"Ethan, who told you these lies? My mother and I were just servants, how could we possibly orchestrate something like this?"

A calculated pause. Then, with practiced victimhood:

"Was it Sophia? She's always hated me… Of course she'd say things to turn you against me."

Her gaze darted between them, searching for weakness, yet she couldn't bring herself to look at the damning evidence scattered on the floor.

Liam's usually warm eyes had turned glacial, a flicker of hatred surfacing as he stared at her.

"Drop the act. You don't get to drag Sophia into this." His voice was lethally calm.

"You and your mother paid that drunk driver to hit us, then played the hero by 'saving' us. You knew you wouldn't die. And we were fools to believe you, to never dig deeper."

A humorless smile.

"But evidence doesn't disappear. If your mother hadn't panicked and staged another 'accident,' we might've taken longer to uncover the truth."

His hand closed around her throat, fingers tightening with deliberate slowness, yet the veins in his arm stood taut with suppressed violence.

Lily choked, her face purpling as she clawed at his grip.

Liam leaned in, his whisper venomous.

"Don't worry, Lily. After all the pain you caused Sophia? You'll suffer every bit of it, tenfold."

It was only when Lily's struggles grew feeble that Ethan spoke.

"Enough. Don't kill her yet."

With a scoff, Liam released her, only to hurl a scalding pot of soup across her body.

A scream tore from Lily's throat as the boiling liquid seared her skin. She writhed on the floor, curling into herself like a scorched shrimp, desperate for relief against the cold tiles.

Liam watched impassively.

"This is too much for you? Imagine what Sophia endured, silently, for years."

Ethan's jaw clenched at the mention of Sophia. His chest ached.

They'd spoiled her since childhood. Yet after Lily entered their lives, how much had she quietly suffered?

And every wound, they had delivered it.

Guilt crashed over him like a tidal wave. He despised his past naivety, how he'd blinded himself with gratitude for a "rescue" that was nothing but a staged lie.

Liam felt the same self-loathing.

An award-winning actor, a observer of human nature, yet he'd fallen for Lily's laughably crude schemes.

Only now, with clarity, did he see his own staggering stupidity.