The Wicked Wife's Dark History Keeps Coming Back To Haunt Her - Chapter 50
With eyes devoid of any emotion, as if the feelings were obliterated, Nina was convinced of something.
There was something between Ian and him that she didn’t know. Something significant. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be suppressing his emotions and saying such things, as if he had anticipated this moment.
As he turned to leave, Nina called out to his back.
“If I’ve crossed a line you’ve set, I apologize.”
“…”
“But, Duke, Ian is only ten years old. He might be waiting for you, so please consider this seriously, even if just a little.”
She didn’t know what was making him hesitate, but she knew the feeling of standing alone amidst children holding their parents’ hands, laughing. It was lonely, desolate, and sometimes even shameful.
Nina hoped his choice wouldn’t hurt Ian’s feelings, smiling bitterly.
***
A voice echoed as if trapped in a damp cave.
‘…Uncle.’
Ash looked around for the owner of the voice.
A small boy, not even reaching his waist, sat expressionless on the bed. Black hair, gray eyes.
Ian, who looked just like his half-brother Joshua.
Ian, with empty eyes as if he had lost his soul, asked,
‘Uncle, is it true?’
Knowing he couldn’t deceive Ian with lies, Ash struggled to move his lips.
‘…Yes.’
Ash knelt slowly before Ian, lowering his head. And he confessed.
‘My mother will never leave the annex for the rest of her life.’
Not even in death, she would never come out.
“…”
Ash opened his heavy eyelids. The day he had confined his mother, who had poisoned his half-brother, and asked Ian for forgiveness. The anguish and guilt he felt that day surged back in his dream, making his eyes burn and his heart ache.
Sighing deeply, he rubbed his face and gazed out the window with a tired look. His head throbbed from the conversation earlier, and he had fallen asleep while taking a short rest. The sun was already setting.
Ash chuckled hollowly. His mother had secretly fed his half-brother a terrible poison for a long time, making him a paraplegic, and eventually taking his life. He discovered this only after his half-brother’s funeral, right after inheriting the title.
‘You wouldn’t have inherited the family if it weren’t for me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Anyway, there’s something like that. Son, you don’t need to know.’
But he couldn’t ignore the ominous words, and after a secret investigation, he learned that his half-brother’s death was not from illness. His mother was behind it.
‘You have done something a human should never do. From now on, you will never step out of the annex. Not even in death.’
Ash confined his mother to the annex the day he discovered everything. But he hadn’t anticipated something.
‘Ash, do you know what I went through to enter this family…!’
‘I am the lady of this house—it’s only right that my son should be the head! How can that woman’s son inherit the family!’
‘There was no choice. They were preparing to kick you out of the family. You didn’t think he really considered you his brother, did you, son?’
‘Everything I did was for you!’
Ian had heard all this.
Ash felt suffocated. His mother’s greed, disguised as care for him. Her endless avarice. Because of it, he lost his cherished brother, and Ian lost his father, grandmother, and uncle.
That day, Ash knelt before Ian.
With no lies to hide the truth, all he could do was await the judgment of a victim sacrificed to his mother’s greed.
The tragedy Ian had experienced was beyond forgiveness.
