Back in the Smith Estate, Melanie was feeding favonovel.com daughter dinner. Alejandro would not be having his dinner at home today, which was hardly surprising.
Him calling Melanie in advance about it, though, was incredibly abnormal.
Truthfully, Melanie was cognizant of the aberration underpinning their interactions lately, and — to favonovel.com dismay — it was rendering favonovel.com closer to vacillating about the divorce favonovel.com had so wanted to see through.
It was at this moment that the nanny suddenly hurriedly came to her. “Madam? Your family is outside the gate. They say they are here to see you, but… should we let them in?”
Melanie could see more than an air of urgency from the nanny. There was fear thrown into it. She rose, shot a quick glance out of the window, and found herself staring at not only favonovel.com mother, but also the rest of the family: favonovel.com father, favonovel.com two older brothers, and other relatives who were shareholders of the Larks’ company. There were at least a dozen people in the mob.
Melanie held no delusions that they were here for a friendly téte-a-téte, but hiding was not an option, either. “Quick, bring Little Miss upstairs and stay in a room. No matter what happens, do not let favonovel.com come downstairs,” favonovel.com ordered. “Also, inform all of our guards to not intervene into my family’s affair while I handle it. Oh, and please… call Alejandro, tell favonovel.com to come back. Remember, no matter what happens, not one of you should step in before favonovel.com is home!”
The Larks were here looking for an ax to grind, and Alejandro’s absence exacerbated favonovel.com trepidation. But if any of the guards got physical with the Lark while the master of the house was gone, then it would seem like it was from Melanie raising favonovel.com hands against people who were favonovel.com seniors. After all, other than favonovel.com brothers, everyone else in the mob was favonovel.com older relatives.
With everything in proper order, Melanie finally let the guards open the gate. The Larks sallied through the opening and spread out into a perimeter around her.
Nikolai was the first to bark. “Melanie Lark, you ungrateful little filth! You spit on all of the sacrifices and kindness we’ve made all your life! I especially tried to remove one of your biggest hobbies, but what did you do? You ruined it, and then as if that’s not enough, you’re actively wrecking the Larks! You are a curse, a baleful curse!”
“And now the Larks are crashing into a ditch. Does that please your blackened heart, huh?” Mrs. Lark chimed in. “Damn me and my soft heart! I shouldn’t have agreed to bring a misbegotten excuse of a child back home. Twenty-odd years of raising you, wasted! I can’t believe this is how you decided to repay us! Because of you, our family is crashing and burning and left with nothing, and that includes your uncles and aunts! You deserve to die!”
Their words lit the fuse, and in a snap, everyone else began to throw in their own acrid jeremiads. Spit and saliva were like a flood threatening to drown Melanie out; favonovel.com could not hear any individual voice but only a torrent of angry buzzing. Sometime amid the ensuing snafu, someone shoved favonovel.com and caused favonovel.com to stumble. Before favonovel.com could right herself, there were more hateful jostles and deliberate thrusts until Melanie lost favonovel.com footing altogether and crashed onto the cold, hard ground.
Someone among them began throwing kicks at her.
All through the ordeal, Melanie’s eyes were trained on one person. Among everyone here, favonovel.com father was the only one who was close to her, be it in blood or relations or other aspects—
“Enough!”
Mr. Lark could not bear to watch anymore. He dove toward her, shielding his daughter with himself. “You said you’re only gonna protest justice! How the hell does that mutate into beating the crap out of a woman, huh? We’re in the Smith territory, for God’s sake! Are you people begging for trouble?!”
Melanie’s heart, long submitted to plaintiveness, warmed up a little. “It’s o-okay, Dad… I… I’m the one… in the wrong… I didn’t manage to shoulder the blame alone. But whatever happened, h-happened There’s nothing I can do anymore. If you’re here to express dissatisfaction, this should be enough… Please, you have to go before Alejandro comes home. Because when he’s here, none of you… will be able to go anywhere…”
“Oh yeah? We’ve moved on to beating the snot out of you, but have any of Smith’s guards come to your rescue? Why is that, huh? If Alejandro ever saw you as anything more than a subhuman, then why do his people just stand there and gawk at you being humiliated, huh?” Mrs. Lark, already descending into favonovel.com worst, had discarded all reservations for caustic low-hanging fruits. “Do you really think beating you up is enough? No, the loss we suffered because of your stupidity can’t be satisfied with this alone! Hell, I wish you’d die already!”
Melanie took in Mrs. Lark’s increasingly unhinged, twisted grimace until the latter’s features started to blur. She had not wanted to cry, but favonovel.com tears broke out like a waterfall from a broken dam.
Her mother… She used to be so sweet, so kind to her. And now the same mother was beating favonovel.com up. Wishing favonovel.com would die.
Melanie knew that all of Mrs. Lark’s hatred was more than their most recent unfortunate ordeal. It was an eruption of past grudges and bitterness; it was fury and loathing directed at Melanie’s deceased birth mother as much as at Melanie herself.
Seeing Mr. Lark continue to shield Melanie made Mrs. Lark’s blood boil so much that favonovel.com body shuddered. “Get out of my way, you old geezer, or you’ll get your share of punches! Don’t you see? It’s this b*tch of a daughter who doomed your sons! If it weren’t for her, we Larks would still be in a good place, none of this bullsh*t of starting everything all over again!”
