Rowena clutched at her displaced chin, unable to form words, only sharp, terrified squeals spilling from her throat. “Ah! Ah!”
Leonel stood rooted in place, shock washing over him. He had never imagined that the meek, compliant daughter he remembered was capable of such ruthless force. The violence unsettled him. Yet deep down, something inside him felt oddly satisfied. That slap had been purifying, as if it scorched away years of suffocating regret. Good. A daughter with this kind of backbone would never be trampled again.
Gia, however, was trembling with fury. She jabbed a finger toward Adah, her voice breaking with outrage. “You horrible girl! That is your younger sister. How could you lay hands on her?”
Adah reached into her purse and calmly pulled out a sanitizing wipe. She wiped her palm with deliberate care, as though scrubbing away something repulsive. “Compared to your plotting to kill your own granddaughter,” she said softly, her tone chilling, “I’d say I showed remarkable restraint.”
Gia froze, the words lodging in her throat.
Westley, who fancied himself an expert on women, could instantly recognize surgical alterations. One glance was enough for him to know Adah’s beauty was untouched, entirely natural. The realization that the woman he had been eyeing with undisguised lust moments earlier was his own niece twisted his desire into something ugly and furious.
Westley glared at Adah and spat, “So you were never ugly at all. You just played the unattractive bumpkin to deceive everyone. What is this, some disgusting performance? You have no respect for this family! You’re exactly like that useless mother of yours—”
He didn’t get to finish. A heavy glass flew across the room and smashed straight into his mouth. Teeth skidded across the floor as blood burst from his lips, splattering the marble beneath him.
When Adah had slapped Rowena earlier, everyone had been stunned into silence, their outrage only fueling a collective urge to retaliate.
Yet, after witnessing the way Adah thrashed Westley, far more ruthlessly than she had Rowena, the shock had quickly morphed into fear. Even Gia, normally brash and commanding, turned ghostly pale with fright. Nobody could have foreseen Adah unleashing such force.
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Sally had been brilliant and single-handedly pulled the Norris family back from financial disaster. Despite everything Gia put her through, Sally had always answered with patience and grace.
The family had simply assumed Sally’s daughter would also be gentle, easy to push around. Instead, Adah was proving herself to be a hundred times more formidable than her mother. Rowena and Kimberly were too scared to even shed a tear, while Gia simply sat there, frozen and speechless.
Westley lay curled up on the floor, shaking from pain. He raised a trembling finger at Adah, his voice quivering. “You’re nothing but a rude hillbilly with no upbringing!”
Adah looked him over, a faint, chilling smile tugging at her lips. “You insulted my mother, so I responded in kind. What’s wrong with that? But if you think I went too easy on you, I don’t mind making my point a little more… substantial.” She spoke with a glint in her eyes, her gaze turning razor-sharp.
A wave of shudders wracked Westley as he dove for cover behind Gia, sobbing, “Mom, just look at her! I’m supposed to be the head of this family, but she hit me, and in front of everyone, no less! If you let her get away with this, she’ll destroy us all!”
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