They Wanted Her, I Gave Her Everything, Now He’s Begging for Me Back Chapter 07

They Wanted Her, I Gave Her Everything, Now He’s Begging for Me Back Chapter 07

They didn’t want to believe it at first.

Then they tore through every record, every phone log, every bank statement. And the truth left

them gutted.

The coma had been a lie. All of it.

Reese never wanted to go to school. She was lazy. Rebellious. So she paid off her lead

physician to fabricate the entire condition.

When Edward and Eleanor were away, she ran wild-partying, spending, living it up.

The second the doctor tipped her off that her parents were coming, she raced back to that

hospital bed. Hooked herself up and played the tragedy.

The doctor restricted visits to ten minutes max, enforced a glass barrier-all for her “health,”

of course.

The massive medical bills Edward and Eleanor paid monthly? They landed straight in the

doctor’s pocket.

And Reese’s. Their private slush fund for vacations, designer bags, and hotel rooms.

Once she turned eighteen, she didn’t even bother hiding it. She got involved with the doctor

directly.

Then she saw me nearing graduation and heard Edward and Eleanor planning to give me ten

percent of the company’s controlling shares.

That’s when it hit her. They weren’t joking about grooming me as the heir to the domestic

branch.

She couldn’t fake illness anymore, so she staged the miracle awakening.

The tearful awakening. Then she set out to strip me of everything.

Every lie she’d told came crashing into the light.

Including the necklace. That whole performance. The tears. The accusations. All

manufactured. All calculated.

She’d schemed for months to drive me out, and she’d pulled it off.

Then her arrogance became her undoing.

Holden broke off the engagement immediately.

Edward’s rage nearly put him on the floor. Eleanor collapsed onto the sofa, staring at nothing.

Hollow.

Gideon’s fury was ice-cold. He locked her in a strict boarding school in Vermont.

Reformation. Discipline.

After the dust settled, the guilt hit all four of them like a tidal wave. Drowned them

completely.

Holden signed over his assets. Edward and Eleanor planned to leave me everything. Gideon

prepared to hand over the overseas branch.

They were about to reach out, find me, and make amends.

Then Reese started threatening suicide. Multiple attempts. Couldn’t handle the boarding

school.

Family blood still meant something, apparently, so they pulled her out. Warned her to behave.

She stayed quiet for a bit.

It didn’t last.

A month ago, she showed up with a stack of photos-fake, doctored.

Me supposedly running wild.

She laid them out for Edward, Eleanor, and Gideon, actual tears streaming this time.

Performance-grade.

“I’ve been so worried about Sage this whole time. I know you all miss her. So I hired someone to watch over her, keep her safe. But I never thought she’d do things like this.”

“If this gets out? She’ll have no future in the family business. Honestly, how could she even show her face?”

She expected outrage, disgust, a cleanup operation to erase me as the family stain.

She looked up.

Three faces staring back. Burning.

Her lie went up in flames. And she was the stain that got erased.

Because Gideon had been having me quietly watched since the day I left. He knew

everything. Every library visit. Every shift at my part-time job. Nine-to-nine. Work and study.

Nothing else.

Everyone in that room knew it except Reese.

She’d walked straight into her own trap. Idiot.

Turned out she’d never learned to earn a dime. After they cut her off, the doctor was her only

lifeline.

That didn’t last. The Caldwells sued him.

Medical fraud. Malpractice. The works.

He went to prison. Assets seized.

Reese had nowhere to go. Drifted. Wandered. No one knew where she ended up.

And the Caldwells? Holden? They’d been watching me the whole time. Quietly. From a

distance.

Holden tried to reach out multiple times, apologies ready. Property transfer documents in

hand.

Every time, Gideon blocked him.

That’s when Holden’s voice curdled with resentment.

“He wouldn’t let any of us come near you. Said you wouldn’t want it.”

“But we did this. We owe you a real apology. In person. Face-to-face. We need to tell you we’ll

make it right. We have to talk this through-”

I cut him off with a hand.

Looked at him. Cold. Empty.

“He was right. I don’t want it.”

“You want to apologize? Beg for forgiveness? Go say it to Sage Caldwell’s death certificate.”

Holden’s face went rigid.

I shifted my gaze past him.

The Caldwells were walking toward me-slow steps, heavy.

Gideon looked pale, drained, exhaustion dragging at every feature.

“Sage. Is there really no way back from this?”

Edward and Eleanor had aged a decade, red-rimmed eyes, trembling hands.

“We were wrong. So wrong. We favored her. Blinded ourselves. It’s all our fault, Sage. Come

home. Punish us however you want when you get there.”

“Just come home with us. Please.”

I’d dreamed of words like these once.

Nights I’d wake up with my pillow soaked, not even remembering I’d cried.

That ache doesn’t live here anymore.

I’d already said goodbye to the past.

Now it was time to say goodbye to the people.

My gaze swept past them, not landing on a single face.

“Step aside. I need to register for classes.”

There was a new road ahead of me.

The past stays in the past. The people too.

If they wanted to drown in guilt, suffer, stay trapped forever.

That was their choice.