The Stray Cat I Fed Warned Me About My Two Faced Best Friend Chapter 07

The Stray Cat I Fed Warned Me About My Two Faced Best Friend Chapter 07

“Someone needs to pay for that baby!”

Dad had a cut on his forehead, while two neighbors held Mom upright as she trembled uncontrollably.

The moment she saw me, she stumbled into my arms.

“Natalie… what happened? Vanessa…”

I steadied her and looked at the wreckage around us. Strangely, I had never felt calmer.

“Mom, it’s okay. I’ll take care of it.”

After settling my parents at a neighbor’s house, I returned to the restaurant and forced myself to think.

Derek was probably feeding the outrage online so he could pressure my parents into paying him.

The fetus had severe abnormalities, and Vanessa had known it. She had chosen the cruelest possible way to escape Derek while trying to extort a large settlement from my family.

She knew my parents were softhearted. When they were falsely accused, their first instinct would be to prove their innocence, not strike back.

Sure enough, Mom called early the next morning.

“Natalie, the restaurant’s security cameras are down.”

I wasn’t surprised.

Vanessa had eaten at our restaurant for years. She knew the layout almost as well as we did.

She had planned everything in advance, including deleting the footage that could clear us.

What she hadn’t planned for was that I was no longer the Natalie she’d destroyed in my last life.

“Don’t panic, Mom. I have another way.”

That afternoon, I met with an attorney and had the footage from the brooch camera forensically authenticated.

After watching it, he adjusted his glasses.

“Ms. Parker, this is useful, but it doesn’t show who placed the takeout bag in your shoulder bag. It only proves Vanessa denied being pregnant and got out of the car once before dinner.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s why it won’t be my main evidence.”

He looked puzzled. “Then what are you planning?”

“I’m going after Derek first.”

“Derek?”

“He organized the attack on my parents’ restaurant.” I opened my photo gallery and handed him the phone. “Look.”

The pictures showed Derek outside his apartment building with a man in a floral shirt. Both were holding stacks of cash.

“He hired fifteen people to vandalize the restaurant,” I said. “Two hundred dollars each. One of them hadn’t been paid in full, turned on Derek, and sold me the group-chat screenshots, payment records, and voice messages.”

I scrolled through the screenshots.

“Derek thought he could stir up public anger, send people to destroy the restaurant, then force my parents into a settlement. He planned every step.”

I looked up.

“He also left evidence at every step.”

We filed a civil suit against Derek and turned all the evidence over to the police.

Three days later, Derek was served.

He called me almost immediately.

“You’re suing me? You killed my son, and you still have the nerve to come after me? Smashing that place was nothing. By the time I’m done, your whole family will be driven out of the Southside.”

Several weeks later, Derek appeared in court wearing the same wrinkled jacket.

He sat at the defense table and smirked at me.

“Your Honor!”

He rose, his voice thick with fake grief.

“This woman was jealous because my wife was pregnant with a boy. She took Vanessa out, ordered the hottest food on the menu, and poisoned her. My son died, and my wife ended up in the hospital.”

He pointed at me.

“So what if I went after her parents’ restaurant? They deserved it.”

Someone in the gallery clapped before the judge ordered everyone to remain silent.

My attorney handed a flash drive to the court deputy.

“Your Honor, this contains messages, payment records, and a sworn statement from one of the people Derek Reed hired to vandalize Parker’s Seafood Boil.”