More Rewards<b>? </b>


    “I get it. We made a mistake. We shouldn’t have taken Lily without informing you. But isn’t Scarlett being too much to call us kidnappers? Lily is our granddaughter, after all.”


    James’s words hit me like ice water. The casual dismissal in his tone, the way he says it like I’m some hysterical woman overreacting to nothing.


    I stop dead in my tracks, my hand tightening around Lily’s small fingers.


    “Too much?” I turn around slowly, and something in my voice makes Dorian step closer to me. “You think I’m being too much?”


    “Sweetheart, we understand you’re upset-” ir starts, but I cut her off with augh that sounds nothing like me.


    “Upset? No, ir. Upset is when someone cancels dinner ns. This?” I gesture between us, my voice rising. “This is what happens when people I trusted betray me in the worst possible way.”


    “We didn’t betray you,” James says, his tone getting defensive. “We love Lily. We’re her grandparents, and we have every right to spend time with her.”


    “Rights?” The word tastes bitter on my tongue. “What rights? What legal document gives you rights to my daughter?”


    “She’s our blood-”


    “She’s MY blood!” The words explode out of me. “She came from my body. I carried her for nine months. I gave birth to her alone while you were busy ying happy family with Virginia!”


    Lily tugs at my hand, her little face scrunched with confusion and worry. “Mama, why are you


    mad?”


    I kneel down, forcing my <i>voice </i>to soften. “It’s okay, baby. Mama’s just… talking to Grammy and Grandpa about grown–up things.”


    But when I stand back up, the fury returns full force.


    “You want to know what rights you have?” I step closer to them, my voice deadly quiet. “None. Zero, Because I cut ties with this family a long time ago, and nothing–nothing–has changed that.”


    < Chapter 45


    ir’s face crumples. “Scarlett, please. We raised you. We loved you-”


    More Rewards >


    “You threw me away the second you found your real daughter.” Each word cuts through the air like a de. “You chose her over me. You gave her my room, my inheritance, my ce in this family. So don’t you dare stand there and talk to me about love and rights and family happiness.”


    “That’s not fair-”


    “Fair?” Iugh again, the sound hollow and broken. “Was it fair when you told me Virginia deserved everything that was supposed to be mine? Was it fair when you defended Jasper for abandoning your pregnant daughter on a highway? Was it fair when you made me feel like a stranger in the only home I’d ever known?”


    The silence stretches between us, heavy and suffocating. Even Lily has gone quiet, sensing the darkness in the air.


    “We made mistakes,” James says finally. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t love you. It doesn’t mean we don’t have the right to love our granddaughter.”


    “Your granddaughter?” I shake my head, something cold and final settling in my chest. “She’s not your granddaughter. She’s nothing to you. Just like I was nothing to you the moment Virginia walked through that door.”


    “Scarlett-”


    “No.” I cut ir off with a sharp gesture. “I’m done. Done pretending we’re family when you made it clear years ago that we’re not. Done letting you hurt me. And I’ll be damned if I let you hurt my daughter the way you hurt me.”


    I turn toward the door again, pulling Lily with me. “Come on, baby. We’re leaving.”


    “Mama, can <i>we </ie back tomorrow?” Lily asks, looking over her shoulder at James and


    ir. “I want <i>to </i>show Grammy my new drawing.”


    The innocent question feels like a knife to the heart. Because she doesn’t understand. She can’t understand that the people showering her with love and attention will throw her away the second someone betteres along.


    Just like they did <i>to </i>me.


    “No, sweetheart. We won’t being back.”


    “But why-”


    “Scarlett, you can’t keep her from us forever.” James’s voice stops me at the door. “She needs


    < Chapter 45


    her family. She deserves to know her grandparents.”


    I whip around onest time, and the look on my face makes both of them flinch.


    More Rewards <b>> </b>


    “Stop being hypocrites,” I spit. “You don’t get to abandon me and then im rights to my child. You don’t get to call yourselves her family when you proved family means nothing to


    you.”


    “That’s enough.”


    The deep, familiar voice from behind me makes my blood freeze.


    I turn slowly, my heart hammering against my ribs, and there he is.


    Jasper.


    Standing in the doorway like he owns the ce, his dark eyes taking in the scene. Taking in me, Dorian, my parents.


    Taking in Lily.


    His gaze locks on her small face, her dark hair, those eyes that mirror his own. I watch as understanding dawns across his features, as the pieces click into ce.


    “Granddaughter?” His voice is barely a whisper, but it cuts through the tension like thunder.


    No.


    No, no, no.


    This can’t be happening. Not now. Not like this.


    Lily looks up at him with curious eyes, and my world starts crumbling around me. <fn5e62> Discover more novels at Find1Novel</fn5e62>


    “Lily,” Jasper breathes, and the way he says her name–like a prayer, an impossibilitying true–makes my knees nearly give out.


    He knows.


    After four years of hiding, of careful nning, of protecting her from the truth.


    He knows she’s his daughter.


    Violet Moon


    ”


    #Vote#!


    ”