Three Chances for the Amnesiac Don Chapter 07

Three Chances for the Amnesiac Don Chapter 07

## Phineas’s POV

But it was too late.

When Madre Lancaster and I reached the crash site, all that remained was a charred metal husk.

“The vehicle suffered catastrophic fire damage and a secondary explosion. Madre Wren likely carbonized in the blast or plunged into the East River. Survival odds are statistically zero.”

“Don Wren, please accept my condolences. We recovered this from the scene.”

The bodyguard held out a tiny fire-charged relic into my palm.

It was the Wren family Madre pendant. The one I forced Cordelia to wear.

A searing, blinding agony pierced my skull. The world spun sideways, and I crumpled to the ground.

Upon regaining consciousness, I deployed every resource at the Wren family’s disposal to search for Cordelia.

I stood motionless on the riverbank of the East River, watching the dive crews comb the turbid, dark currents.

Hour upon hour passed, and each time they surfaced, they shook their heads in hopeless defeat.

“Apologies, Don Wren. No trace of Madre Wren.”

“The current is strong. We believe she may have… Please prepare yourself.”

Leo’s words barely sank in through the fog of my agony.

The throbbing pain in my head grew unbearable. Darkness closed over my eyes, and fractured pieces of long-lost memories crashed over me.

I saw Cordelia screaming at me when she caught me cheating. “Why did you betray me?”

I saw Seraphina sneak my phone and bait Cordelia to a construction site, where she left her to bleed to death.

I recalled the night Cordelia cut her wrists, pushing me into signing the divorce papers against my will.

I relived the car crash, and the raw terror of watching Cordelia face death right before my eyes.

Nightmare after nightmare washed over me.

In my sleep, I wept tears of regret.

When I blinked awake to the cold, antiseptic hospital ceiling, the full truth crashed down on me.

This wasn’t a nightmare.

This was the shattered remains of my life with Cordelia.

“Don Wren! You’re awake! Thank God.”

Seraphina burst into the room the instant she learned my memory had returned, throwing herself into my arms and breaking down in sobs.

“You have no clue what I suffered while you were trapped under that witch’s spell.”

“I feared she would manipulate you into taking her back.”

“And our baby… our poor baby…”

Tears streamed freely down her cheeks. “Your own mother killed our baby! You have to press charges against her!”

She put on an over-the-top display of weeping, rattling off a string of alleged wrongs she claimed my mother and I had perpetrated.

A cold, hollow laugh escaped my lips.

“Enough, Seraphina. Drop the act.”

“You’re the one who tampered with Cordelia’s car, weren’t you?”

Seraphina stiffened completely. Her tears froze mid-fall on her eyelashes, her face draining pale with sheer panic.

“What are you on about, Phineas? Are you still delirious from your injuries? It was nothing but an accident. I’ll fetch the doctor at once.”

I grabbed her wrist, tightening my grip.

“I remember absolutely everything now.”

“I was behind the wheel of Cordelia’s car that day of the crash.”

“You tampered with its brakes long beforehand, didn’t you? The exact same brake failure, the very same vehicle. You simply never anticipated I would be the one riding inside it.”

I remembered the impact. The searing pain of my ribs shattering.

I could not bring myself to picture Cordelia trapped inside that blazing wreck, suffering all alone.

“No, that isn’t how it happened…” Seraphina stammered, straining to yank her wrist out of my grasp.

She could not twist free from my iron grip.

“Even if I’m not her birth mother, I always thought of Cordelia as my sister.”

“How could I ever hurt her?”

A voice came from the doorway.

“Is that so?”

Madre Lancaster stepped inside, holding a file.

“Then kindly explain these documents Leo and I managed to dig up.”