My Family Made a Group Chat Without Me, I Rose Above Them Chapter 08

My Family Made a Group Chat Without Me, I Rose Above Them Chapter 08

I stared at the photo and stood in the hallway for half a minute.

Then I deleted the message and blocked the number.

At the elevator, Ethan caught up with me and grabbed my wrist.

“Nora, wait!”

I yanked free.

“Let go.”

“Listen to me. The baby is…”

“Yours. It has nothing to do with me.”

He opened and closed his mouth without getting a word out. The elevator doors opened, and I stepped inside and pressed the button for the first floor.

He stood outside, holding the doorjamb. “My mother has been looking for you every day since you left. Her blood pressure got so high she ended up in the hospital.”

“Tell Sophie to take care of her.”

“Nora, don’t be like this. She’s pregnant. Don’t you…”

“Ethan.”

I looked at him. “You let the woman who killed my child carry another child for you, and now you’re telling me she’s pregnant so I should be understanding?”

The elevator doors slid shut.

The color drained from his face until all that remained were two stunned eyes.

That night, Marlene Hart was arrested in her hometown.

I was making pasta in my apartment when my attorney’s message came in.

It said the old child–abduction case against Marlene had been reopened. The evidence and witnesses were in place. The head nurse from back then had contacted the police and provided surveillance footage of Marlene switching the babies, along with the bank records showing the bribe she paid afterward.

There was an even more serious charge: she had allegedly instructed Sophie to destroy company property. She could face at least ten years in prison.

Marlene confessed to everything in the interrogation room.

She had deliberately switched the two babies while the nurses were changing shifts so her own

aughter could grow up in a wealthy family.

Once, Mom caught her in the act. Marlene fell to her knees and begged for mercy, promising, “I’ll

never bother your family again.”

In exchange, Nora was locked in a shed for three days, and scars were left across her back.

The day the police report reached me, I read the page three times.

Then I called Mom.

She answered immediately. “Nora! You finally called!”

“Marlene was arrested. Did you know?”

She paused for two seconds. “Yes. She confessed to what happened back then.”

“You saw her switch the babies with your own eyes and didn’t call the police. You didn’t even know I was locked in that shed for three days. Mom, do you know what those three days were like for me?”

Her muffled sobs came through the phone.

“I’m sorry, Nora… I kept thinking Sophie was innocent too. She had grown up in our home, and I couldn’t bear to send her away…”

“But you could bear to send me away?”

“I didn’t send you away! I thought once you came back, she’d leave, and then it would all be over…”

“She left? She left five years ago. You created that group chat the same day, and every person in this family hid it from me and treated me like an outsider for five years. You call that over?”

Only Mom’s sobs remained on the line.

“Mom, I don’t hate you. But I’m never coming back.”

I hung up.

A month later, Sophie received a thirty–month suspended sentence and three years of probation.

Because she was pregnant, she was allowed to remain out of custody.

Marlene was sentenced to eight years for child abduction and for concealing and laundering

criminal proceeds, with the two sentences combined.

On the day of the verdict, I was overseas leading a quarterly review meeting. My assistant slipped a note onto the table.

Ethan Brooks’s company has filed for bankruptcy and liquidation.”

I glanced at the note, set it on the table, and continued presenting the slide deck.

At the end of the year, I returned home to handle the transfer of some assets.

It was snowing when I walked out of the airport.

I stood by the arrivals exit trying to hail a cab when someone called from behind.

“Nora?”

I turned around.

Mom stood ten feet away, her hair completely white and her cheekbones sharp from weight loss.

She was carrying an insulated bag. The moment she saw me turn, she ran toward me, slipped on the

snow, and fell.

I went over and helped her up.

The insulated bag had fallen open. Inside was a container of food.

It was the dish I’d eaten throughout my childhood. She had finally remembered.

She clung to my hand, tears falling.

“Nora, will you eat one bite before you go? Just one.‘

Snow landed in her hair, flake after flake refusing to melt.

I crouched down, picked up the fork, and took a bite.

She watched me swallow. Her whole body shook.

“I’ll make it for you every day from now on, okay? Come home and live with me, please?”

I didn’t answer.

A black car was parked down the road. Its window rolled down, and my assistant nodded at me.

I stood, closed the insulated bag, and put it back in her hands.

“Mom, I have to go.”

She didn’t stop me.

I walked a few steps, then looked back. She was still crouched in the snow, holding the insulated, bag, completely still.

the plane took off, I looked down. The entire city was covered in white.

I leaned back and closed my eyes. The scar on the back of my head had stopped hurting long ago.

A message from Leo came through on my phone. I’d changed my number, but not my social–media

account.

There was only one sentence. He had written and deleted it again and again before finally sending it.

“Mom, I promise I’ll never call anyone else Mom again. Will you come back?”

I didn’t reply.

The clouds outside the window were thick. Sunlight slipped through a break in them and fell across

the armrest, warm.

I turned off my phone.

The plane flew west, and the snow fell farther and farther behind.