Chapter 7
A single sentence was enough to make Hector turn ashen. He trembled as he slumped on the ground, his sunken eyes filled with despair and regret. He manically started tugging on his chapped lips, not even stopping when the blood started flowing.
I didn’t want to waste time on him anymore, so I turned to leave. I heard him say stubbornly, “It’s okay, Samantha. You’re my only family now. You don’t have to forgive me, but I’ll always watch over you. I’ll even die for you.”
He sounded as sure as he had when swearing to protect Jennifer, but I didn’t care anymore. I returned to my rented apartment and cleaned up.
The following day, I attended my best friend, Gwen Jones‘ wedding. She and I had been best friends since high school–she’d been the only one who wanted to have anything to do with me when Jennifer had brainwashed the rest of the class into isolating me.
It had only been two days since my return, but I’d heard from different people how Jennifer, Dad, and Lisa had ended up.
Dad had only married Mom because she was the only daughter of an affluent family—he wanted her inheritance. After Grandpa and Grandma had passed away, he’d started tormenting and oppressing Mom. When Hector was five, Mom was already severely depressed.
That was when Lisa and Jennifer had come into the picture. Since then, Dad stopped coming home. During holidays, Mom, Hector, and I would only receive mockery and insults from Dad and Lisa.
Mom stuck around for another five years for my and Hector’s sake. Then, on my 17th birthday, she jumped off a building after being taunted by Lisa.
Dad had claimed that Jennifer was sick and needed my bone marrow to survive. Mom had been left with no choice but to transfer all her assets to my name. She also told Dad he wouldn’t get a dime if I were to die.
That had pissed him off. The very next day, Hector and I were sent to the correctional facility. If not for me breaking out of there and threatening to call the police with evidence, he wouldn’t have stopped there.
Later, Dad learned he’d become sterile. Hector was his only son, so he stopped trying to get rid of him.
He wasn’t cut out for business, so he made countless losses over the years. That was why he wanted Mom’s inheritance.
He knew he couldn’t get rid of me, but the money would go to him, Lisa, and Jennifer once I married a man who loved Jennifer and had his child.
Jennifer wasn’t a saint, either. Dad and Lisa had sent her abroad in hopes that she could latch onto an affluent heir there. It was too bad she’d only ended up infertile after being played by one too many men.
