Chapter 877: Chapter 876
Eunice couldn’t believe her eyes, and in a fit of rage, she hurled the mug from the side table next to the couch right at Serena’s face.
It wasn’t the same coffee table that Kenneth had flipped over earlier. This mug had been resting on a small, oval side table by the arm of the sofa.
The mug hit Serena square in the cheek, the lukewarm coffee burning her already injured chin, splashing all over her face and clothes, leaving her a total mess.
But by now, Serena was petrified, her spirit practically shattered.
Eunice got up and marched over to her, slapping her across the face repeatedly, "You think you can mess with my Rose and get away with it? The Collins have been too kind to you!"
Serena, trembling with fear, managed a weak, "Auntie."
With a snarl, Eunice kicked her hard, as if this ungrateful girl had no right to call her "auntie".
Serena fell back into the shattered glass, and though her winter clothes were thick, her palms and the back of her hands were cut and bleeding, shaking from the pain.
The video continued to play in the background.
The gathering crowd started to uncover the hidden truths behind the fire incident.
It wasn’t Martha who had cunningly switched the babies; she had just taken advantage of the situation.
Seeing her own daughter being taken to the Collins’, she schemed to work her way into their household.
But the real mastermind behind the fire was someone else!
Martha knew who it was but refused to spill the beans, only hinting that the person was very powerful.
Who could it be?
Who would want to harm their precious daughter?
Who wished them dead?
As Martha was about to carve letters into Rosemary’s face, Serena didn’t intercede for Rosemary. Instead,she demanded Rosemary beg her, kneel, and knock her head on the ground ten times, admitting it was a mistake to return to this family.
Louisa, watching all this, was seething with anger and snatched up a footstool nearby, hurling it at Serena.
Serena was terrified out of her wits; she had never seen her mother so furious before!
The video ended there, but there were two more messages in the chat, sent from Romeo’s phone by Rosemary.
[Dad, my phone’s broken, so I’m using Romeo’s to check in. I’m safe with him and not hurt, don’t worry about me.]
[Erik and Martha are Serena’s biological parents. The next few pages are DNA tests proving they’re a family. Don’t let Erik escape; he’s probably part of Doom, too, and can’t be unlinked from these events.]
Upon reading this, Kenneth immediately commanded, "Someone fetch Erik Lott for me!"
His orders were promptly acknowledged.
"Hold on," Bard stood up and said, "If he’s one of Doom’s, the regular guards won’t be able to handle him. I’ll go."
Eunice gave him a look and warned, "Be careful."
Bard nodded and passed by Serena without so much as a glance.
To him, she might as well have been a ghost, a complete stranger.
Serena was left feeling like she was teetering on the edge of an abyss.
Louisa, tears streaming down her face in fury, approached her and said bitterly, "So it turns out your real parents are still alive."
"I had no idea they were my biological parents." Serena’s voice trembled, her face drained of color as tears streamed down her cheeks. "I only found out just now."
To make matters worse, her birth mother had died that very day, having fallen from the eighteenth floor.
Louisa was livid with rage. "Your mother brought a gang to kidnap my daughter, they pulled her hair, whipped her, slapped her twice. Today, I’m going to get justice for my girl."
"Mom." Serena was petrified.
Before she could beg for mercy, Louisa raised her hand and struck Serena with a series of harsh slaps.
Serena’s face swelled from the blows, a trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth. Just then, Edith approached with a rolling pin in hand.
"Ma’am, we didn’t have a whip, but this should do."
The rolling pin, typically used by chefs to roll out dough, now found a different use.
Serena was both angry and desperate, never having imagined Edith would kick her when she was down, fetching a rolling pin from the kitchen.
The rolling pin was solid wood, as if they wished her dead.
Louisa, unable to find anything else suitable, seized the rolling pin with fierce determination and struck hard.
Serena instinctively raised her hands to protect herself, but the blow from the wooden rolling pin was so painful that it drained the color from her face.
"You watched Rose get kidnapped, threatened, humiliated. You didn’t plead for her once. Instead, you reminded your mother to be careful of Rose wearing a wire or a hidden camera. Fearing any slip-ups."
Louisa lashed out at Serena, "You traitorous, heartless wretch."
Serena collapsed onto the glass shards, her palms and the backs of her hands pierced by countless pieces. Pain coursed through her body, causing her to tremble, nearly fainting from the shock.
"Did you think that without Rose here, you could take her place? With Rose gone, you could be the darling Miss Collins again? Did you think without Rose, your engagement to Romeo could just carry on?"
"I never thought that."
As soon as Serena spoke, Louisa swung the rolling pin again, landing another punishing blow.
The rolling pin struck her shoulder, and Serena’s body went limp from the pain, a sharp sensation overwhelming her senses, making her gasp for air, realizing any further struggle was futile.
Louisa was consumed by fury, her voice cracking, "If it wasn’t for Rose’s own wit, that vile woman would’ve disfigured her, chopped off her hands and feet, pushed her off the building. She even said she
wanted to grind Rose’s flesh and flush her down the drain. Absolutely monstrous and appalling!"
Perhaps too enraged and disappointed in Serena, tears streamed down Louisa’s face, a mix of sorrow and anger.
How could she have raised such a monster.
For eighteen years, she was blind, treating this monster like the jewel of her life.
Serena was terrified, tears flowing like a fountain, crawling over the glass shards to clutch at Louisa’s pant leg, pleading desperately.
"Mom, I was wrong. I was momentarily blinded, and I don’t dare ask for your forgiveness. Just please don’t harm yourself over someone like me. It’s not worth it."
Louisa’s fury was like a thunderous storm, "Stop with your false displays of remorse in front of me."
Serena sobbed miserably, "Mom, I truly realize my mistake now."
Louisa looked at her with cold disdain, "When you video called your mother, seeing all her henchmen,you weren’t surprised at all. That means you’ve known for a long time that she was with Doom, yet you kept it from us, complicit in her crimes. Tell me, what exactly was she and Erik plotting by infiltrating the Collins family for all these years?!"
Louisa couldn’t believe they were there just to be with their biological daughter.
There had to be another agenda.
Over the past eighteen years, the Collins family had weathered many storms, perhaps orchestrated by those two.