Chapter 316: The Naked Truth and Shadows of Inheritance

Flashback: 23 Years Ago

Author’s POV

Meredreth’s gaze froze entirely in place, and the color drained from her face in sweeping astonishment and a real terror that shocked her limbs, stripping her of the ability to speak for seconds. She took a heavy step backward to shield herself against the wall and said in a trembling, broken voice: "What... what the hell are you saying? What are you talking about?"

Violet tilted her head with biting, cold sarcasm, and crossed her arms confidently over her chest as she advanced toward her with slow, measured, and threatening steps, saying in a voice as sharp as a blade that cut off all avenues of denial: "Don’t play the role of the gentle, innocent lamb with me now, Meredreth... you know very well and for certainty that I know about all your filth, and I know that you fucked Morgan in my absence and behind my back."

Meredreth’s face instantly congested with blood from the excess of shame and rage, and the look in her eyes tightened with deep-seated hatred and malice as she tried by all means to conceal her confusion and scandal. She turned her face away from her irritably and said with sharpness and a shout: "And what is it to you, you arrogant woman? I am free, and neither you nor anyone else has any business in what I do with my body and my life!"

Violet took another decisive step to face her completely, cutting off her breath, and narrowed the pupils of her eyes with a deadly, dry cruelty, saying in a hiss: "But the baseness did not stop there; rather, you told him under the sheets that you were me, Meredreth! You exploited our resemblance and deluded him into thinking you were Violet! And also, from the excess of your despicableness, you told him in my name that you charge money for fucking, just to distort my image before him!"

The earth truly shook beneath Meredreth’s feet because of this shocking confrontation, and confusion and dread appeared clearly in the trembling of her dry lips and the retreat of her trembling palms backward. However, she soon ground her teeth with a raging, brutal emotion and shouted in oppression, tears filling her eyes: "Yes, I did that! I did it to take revenge on you, you selfish, cursed woman! Because due to your presence and because of you, my entire life was ruined and crushed in this house!"

Violet raised her eyebrow with a provocative, nerve-wracking coldness, and did not budge an inch from her place; instead, she asked with deadly calmness and steadfastness: "Am I truly the reason for the destruction of your life and your misery, Meredreth?! Or are you throwing your failure onto my shoulders as usual?"

Meredreth brought her fists down against the sides of her body with intense malice, and her shoulders shook violently as she screamed with the pain of long years and deep complexes from childhood: "Yes, you! Because of my mother and father’s preference for you always in everything... because of your intelligence, I lived my whole life a miserable and marginalized life like a shadow in this cursed house!"

Violet turned toward the mirror with utter indifference and detachment toward her words, adjusting the strands of her hair with balanced, cold movements. Then she turned her entire body toward her and darted a look at her filled with disgust and contempt, saying in a biting tone: "The truth that you refuse to see is that you are a failure by your very nature... because you are stupid and act without a mind! This is the real reason behind your misery and loss, so do not place the blame and the complexes on others, my dear."

Meredreth flew into a raging fury, thrust her torso forward, her eyes launching sparks of hatred as she cursed with blind malice: "You are a conceited, cursed whore!"

A cold, terrifying smile of victory sketched on Violet’s lips, and she fixed her piercing, sharp gaze into the eyes of her twin sister, saying with a confidence, glory, and pride that crushed Meredreth: "At least I am not engaged to another man... I did not betray my fiancé while he was couched behind bars in prison with a stranger, falling cheaply for his love and his body."

Meredreth’s tongue was completely tied because of the exposure, her body stiffened, and she found neither a movement nor a single word to defend herself, while her gaze met and dropped to the floor in helplessness and fear of scandal. Violet continued to press and take her down without mercy, stepping toward her with deliberate pride: "And I know very well through my intelligence that you have indeed fallen madly in love with Morgan... and what increased your malice and evil against me is that, despite the fact that you resemble me exactly in the features of the form and face, he could not, with his mind and heart, love you or even see you, Meredreth... rather, he loved only me, alone, and madly."

Meredreth could not bear to hear these harsh words that ruthlessly ripped apart her pride and femininity; she screamed with madness and hysteria and went with the entire weight of her body toward her sister to spring upon her with her nails, aiming to distort her face.

But what Meredreth did not know or calculate for was that Violet was not just an ordinary or weak girl who could be underestimated or struck with such ease. In the blink of an eye and with a single lightning-fast, agile, and highly rapid movement, Violet evaded her hysterical attack, gripped Meredreth’s wrist with extreme tightness and muscle, and twisted it violently behind her back with brute force, forcing Meredreth to bend downward in sharp pain as she let out a muffled groan and a scream from the hurt.

Violet bent coldly over her lowered head, and whispered in a stern, cold voice, very close to her earlobe like the hissing of snakes: "Do you believe with this small mind of yours that you can actually strike me or dare against me, Meredreth?"

Meredreth tried to twist with helplessness and weakness between her strong hands, and shouted as she tried with effort to raise her head and her oppression: "I will not raise your bastard children! I will not do that for your sake!"

Violet tightened the pressure with greater cruelty on her twisted arm behind her back until she almost broke her bones, and ground out with a firm vow and a terrifying tone of threat: "Just try to object by a single letter, Meredreth... just try, and you will see with your own eyes how I will go immediately and inform your husband, Stewart, of all the filth and betrayal you committed with Morgan when he was in the depths of prison."

In that second, Meredreth felt a shiver of real dread and fear coursing like poison through her entire limbs, and her body stiffened with a genuine fear that paralyzed her movement; her husband, Stewart, knew absolutely nothing about that cursed black past, and if he learned of the matter, he would certainly divorce her with scandal and cast her out of his life and family without mercy. She swallowed her saliva dryly, her throat congested, and said in a trembling, crying voice, tight with defeat: "You cursed, whorish snake... "

Violet relaxed her pressing grip with extreme slowness, and pushed her broken sister away from her with lightness and disdain, saying with a decisive, stern command: "On this basis and agreement, my dear sister... you will raise my children and care for them without raising a single sound or objection. Is that understood?"

She released her arm entirely and with carelessness, so Meredreth retreated with staggered steps while massaging her shoulder and arm in severe pain, the look in her eyes overflowing with malice and flying evil. Then she turned quickly and left the room, stomping her feet against the floor in burning nervousness and oppression.

As usual, and according to her cold plan, Violet packed her clothing bags in complete calmness and traveled secretly to distance herself from sight, heading toward her grandmother’s house couched in that rural, remote village isolated from the world. The long months of her pregnancy passed with heaviness, depression, and a deadly silence, until the decisive, crucial day of labor and birth arrived on that cold night.

The sharp, fierce pain of labor and contractions invaded Violet’s body, so she gripped with the fingers of her hand with brute force onto the wood and fabric of the mattress while panting violently and screaming in pain, until she finally gave birth, with the assistance of her grandmother, to a small, fragile, weak baby girl. The infant possessed smooth brown hair, a white skin as pure as spotless milk, and bright, intelligent green eyes; she was indeed an exact, identical replica of Violet’s features in a staggering and highly suspicious manner.

The grandmother gasped in astonishment and a sweeping joy that washed away her fatigue, and lifted the small baby girl with hands trembling from the impact, saying with emotion: "Oh my God, Violet... look at her, she is exactly like you, as if she were you in your childhood!"