Their Cruelest Joke Cost Them Everything Chapter 02

Their Cruelest Joke Cost Them Everything Chapter 02 It Was Always My Fault
Celeste’s POV: The rain did not stop all night. No one came for me after I escaped the warehouse. I waited beside the road until it was obvious they would not, then walked all the way to the estate through the storm. Dawn had broken by the time I opened the sitting room door. The banquet had only recently ended. Servants cleared plates and glasses while Father read the newspaper. Mother sat with Bianca over warm milk, as if the night had been entirely ordinary. Water streamed from my clothes. Mud covered me, and the strip of cloth around the gash in my arm had turned dark with blood. Not one of them stood when I entered. Bianca laughed first. “Why are you only getting back now? I was teasing you to see whether you could make it home by yourself. I never expected you to turn it into such a disaster.” My throat felt scraped raw. “Why did nobody come to pick me up?” She blinked, apparently baffled that I would ask. “The warehouse is close, and you know the way. Besides, we had a house full of guests. We could hardly abandon everyone because of you.” Father lowered his paper and gave my injuries a cursory glance. “Bianca played a harmless joke, yet you stayed out all night and gave the guests something to gossip about. Now you walk in looking like a victim. Who exactly are you trying to blame?” Mother pulled Bianca closer, irritation sharpening her voice. “She is young and sometimes goes too far, but she never means any harm. You are her older sister. Why must you make an issue of everything she does?” The same excuse. Again. When I was fifteen, Bianca lured me into the underground wine cellar and locked me inside. I spent the entire night there before breaking a window to escape, slicing both hands open on the glass. She had hidden behind the stairs to watch. When I fell, bleeding, she laughed and called it a joke. Father punished me for the broken window instead of punishing her. Mother held Bianca, who claimed my wounds had frightened her, and made me apologize for being angry over a prank. At nineteen, Father put me in charge of my first independent cargo handoff. Only the family’s senior members knew the time and berth number. Yet when my crew arrived, the buyers had vanished and unknown vehicles were circling nearby. It took me three days to prove Bianca had read my notes and deliberately passed the location to a rival family. She insisted she had only wanted to scare me and see how I handled a crisis. She had not expected the rivals to send anyone. Father ignored the leak. Instead, he accused me of mishandling confidential information and publicly removed me from the dock operations. Mother ordered everyone to bury the incident because the truth might put Bianca in danger. There had been too many incidents like those to count. Every time, Bianca called it a joke. Every time, my parents chose her. Her mistakes were forgiven because she was young and naive. My injuries proved I was incompetent and petty. I used to tell myself Father’s severity meant he respected my ability, and Mother’s favoritism came from believing fragile Bianca needed more care. But last night they knew I was stranded. They knew my tracker was dead. Not one of them tried to find me. “Why are you still standing there?” Father raised the paper again. “Go upstairs and make yourself presentable. Do not upset the entire household over something so minor.” Mother stroked Bianca’s hand. “You did nothing wrong, sweetheart. Your sister will be reasonable once she calms down.” For once, I did not argue. I went upstairs, locked my bedroom, and took an unregistered phone from the false back of my closet. When the call connected, I stared at the family portrait beside my bed and lowered my voice. “I need you to investigate something.”