She Used Me for a Dare… Now I Own Her Mother - Chapter 315: THE MONSTER
Chapter 315: THE MONSTER
”What have they done to my sweet daughter?” Vivienne said, her voice dropping to something that sounded almost like mourning.
“The girl who used to bring me flowers from the garden. Who used to sit in my office and ask me about quarterly reports because she wanted to understand. Who had her mother’s intelligence but her father’s kindness.”
She took a step closer, and this time her approach wasn’t predatory.
It was maternal.
“Where is she, Jennifer? Where did that girl go?”
”She grew up,” Jennifer snapped, her jaw tightening as her defenses slammed back into place.
She took a step back, putting distance between herself and that terrifying gentleness.
”She woke up, Mother. She went from a naive child chasing approval to a woman who sees the world for what it is. She learned that kindness is just a gap in the armor where the knife goes in. She learned that sentiment is a liability that gets you killed.”
Jennifer’s eyes burned with a mixture of tears and venom.
”She learned that the people closest to you… the ones who are supposed to protect you… are usually the ones holding the sharpest blades. She learned that there are women who give birth, but who are too selfish to ever be called ’mothers’ at all.”
She pointed a shaking finger at Vivienne, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
”And do you know the best part? She learned all of that from watching you.”
Vivienne didn’t flinch at the insult. She didn’t gasp. She simply looked at Jennifer with a heavy, ancient sadness.
She looked past the anger, past the shouting, and saw the tragedy underneath. She saw how far her daughter had fallen… not because she was weak, but because she had been broken by the very family she was trying to save.
”Hah…” Vivienne breathed out, the sound sharp and humorless.
She shook her head slowly.
”I told you, didn’t I? I told you that this life… this business… it isn’t child’s play. It isn’t a game where the rules are fair and the best man wins.”
Vivienne looked up, her eyes locking onto Jennifer’s.
”It is a battlefield, Jennifer. It is a slaughterhouse. It is a place where morality rots, where blood turns to water, and where children are turned into pawns to be pitted against their own creators.”
She took a step closer, her expression hardening.
”Look at you,” Vivienne whispered, her voice laced with a chilling mix of pity and disdain. “You stand there, chests puffed out, thinking you are speaking your own truth. Thinking you are finally standing up to the ’wicked queen’.”
Vivienne leaned in, her eyes searching Jennifer’s face.
”But you aren’t speaking, are you? I can hear Cassandra’s voice in every word coming out of your mouth. I can taste her poison on your breath.”
“She poisoned you,” Vivienne said quietly, the realization settling over her features like a shroud.
She stepped closer, her eyes searching Jennifer’s defiant face with a mix of pity and disdain.
“She turned you against your own blood. She told you I didn’t want your happiness. She told you I was the enemy of your future, that I was jealous of your light… and you didn’t even question it. You didn’t ask for proof. You just drank it down.”
Vivienne’s voice dropped to a whisper, cold and sharp.
”You believed it because it flattered you. You wore her manipulation like a crown, never realizing it was actually a leash.”
Vivienne’s eyes searched Jennifer’s face, looking for some spark of recognition, some hint of the daughter she remembered.
Silence.
Jennifer stood frozen, her mind reeling.
Vivienne reached out… not to smooth a lapel or pick invisible lint this time, but to touch Jennifer’s face. Her hand was warm against her daughter’s cheek, her thumb brushing away a tear Jennifer hadn’t realized had fallen.
“You came here to save me,” Vivienne whispered. “But darling, I’m not the one who needs saving.”
She let her hand drop.
“You are.”
Jennifer jerked back as though burned, her walls slamming back up.
“I don’t need saving,” she hissed. “I need you to stop being selfish and come HOME. I need you to fix this mess before Richard Blackwood destroys us all. I need you to…
”To marry him?”
Vivienne’s voice was calm. Clinical. It stopped Jennifer’s shouting dead in its tracks.
”Is that the solution Cassandra gave you?”
Vivienne asked, tilting her head. “That I must sacrifice myself? Or, barring that… that you must be the martyr? That you must warm Richard’s bed to keep the stock price afloat?”
”It’s called doing your duty!” Jennifer shouted. “It’s called making the hard choice!”
”Duty,” Vivienne repeated, the word tasting like bile in her mouth.
She turned away, walking back toward the window. Her reflection ghosted in the dark glass, overlapping with the night outside.
”Tell me, Jennifer. When Cassandra convinced you that this merger was the only way to save the family… did she mention that she was the one who created the crisis in the first place?”
The air in the room seemed to vanish.
Jennifer froze. “What?”
Vivienne turned back, her silhouette framed by the darkness.
”Did she tell you that she wanted this panic? That she needed the family desperate enough to agree to a deal that would put her niece… you… under Richard Blackwood’s thumb and out of her way?”
”You’re lying,” Jennifer breathed, though her voice lacked conviction. “Uncle Reginald showed me the numbers. The debt calls… the deadline…”
”The deadline,” Vivienne scoffed. “Let me ask you something. The text message that sent you panicked into the night… who did it come from?”
Jennifer blinked. “It… it was from the firm. An automated alert.”
”From an unknown number,” Vivienne corrected sharply. “And Reginald? The man who supposedly has his finger on the pulse? Why didn’t he call you? Why didn’t he know where I was?”
She stepped closer, her eyes boring into Jennifer’s.
”Who sent you that text, Jennifer?”
Jennifer’s hands began to shake. Her mind raced, trying to find solid ground, but the foundation Cassandra had built was turning to sand.
”I… I don’t…”
”You don’t know,” Vivienne finished ruthlessly.
“Because you didn’t ask. You just believed. You believed Cassandra when she told you I was a coward. You believed her when she told you that you were the only ’adult’ capable of handling the truth.”
Vivienne moved into the light, her face hard, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous register.
”And now you are standing in my bedroom, screaming at your mother, because she convinced you that I am the enemy.”
”Stop it,” Jennifer whispered, backing away.
”You are obsessing over who is in my bathroom,” Vivienne said, gesturing vaguely at the closed door. “You are screaming about ’boy toys’ and ’secrets’ because you are desperate to find a villain you can defeat.”
She reached out and took Jennifer’s chin, her grip firm, forcing her daughter to meet her eyes.
”But I am not the villain, Jennifer. And Richard Blackwood is not the monster. He is just a businessman.”
Vivienne’s eyes flashed.
”The monster is the woman sitting in your office, drinking your coffee, waiting for you to sign away your birthright.”
