Chapter 47 The Beginning of Chaos

Chapter 47 The Beginning of Chaos
Saint

I refused to believe it. I swear, I tried not to. I wanted to disbelieve every single word that had just come out of that woman’s mouth.

But the look on Mrs. Hale’s face, that unfiltered, exhausted, and ‘finally free’ look kept replaying in my head like a broken film reel.

I couldn't wrap my head around how she'd succeeded in hiding the resemblance in plain sight for decades.

Sin, on the other hand, looked ready to explode.

Thank God he wasn’t the one driving, or we’d have plunged the sports car straight into a ditch.

I swerved hard to the right, my knuckles white on the steering wheel as I fought to keep the car steady.

“She lied to us,” Sin muttered under his breath, his fists clenched so tightly on his thighs that the veins stood out like ropes. “All our lives.”

Like I said, thank God I was the one driving. Imagine if Sin was the one on the wheels?

“Perhaps it’s a test,” I said, even though the words sounded ridiculous. “Mother loves tests.”

Sin let out a hollow, bitter laugh that sent a chill down my spine.

“We called her our mother for twenty-nine years,” he said. “Twenty-nine damn years.”

I doubted he even realized it, but he’d just cracked the phone in his other hand. The screen was spiderwebbing under the pressure of his grip.

“Father needs to explain what the fuck is going on,” Sin continued. “I want to know exactly how Mrs. Hale is our mother. We treated her like shit for years. We let Mother harass her, torture her with… My God, I can’t believe this is happening.”

He dragged a hand down his face, breathing hard.

“She wasn’t even trying to fight back,” he said, almost to himself. “Father must explain. Or else…”

“Damn right,” I cut in smoothly. “He’s going to drop every single detail. Or I’m dropping the fucking Rivers name.”

For a moment, we didn't speak. Between the both of us, I was closer to ‘our mother’, probably because Sin was sent abroad to study.

He stared out the window, his jaw working like he was chewing on glass. A shadow crossed his face, letting me know he was trying to contain his feelings.

I kept my eyes on the road, but my mind was racing.

Mrs. Hale, our real mother, had been right under our noses the entire time.

The woman who had quietly cared for us, protected us in small ways, endured years of subtle cruelty from the woman we had called “Mother.”

And we had let it happen. Hell, we had participated in it. The guilt was already eating me alive.

Sin’s voice broke the silence again, quieter this time, but no less dangerous.

“If she’s really our mother… then the woman who raised us is nothing but a thief.”

I nodded once, my grip tightening on the wheel until it creaked.

“And if that’s true,” I said, “then everything we thought we knew about this family is a lie.”

“I think we’re forgetting something very important,” Sin said after a long minute of heavy silence.

I kept my eyes on the road, my knuckles still white on the steering wheel. They looked so white they looked like they belonged to a vampire.

“What’s that?”

“Serena.”

The single word hit me like a punch to the chest. Serena. Our love. Our weakness.

Sin continued. “She was the one who figured out our mother might be the enemy all along. If we leave her there… they’ll hurt her.”

The idea of Serena suffering because of us, because of our family’s twisted secrets sent a wave of pure rage through me.

My foot pressed harder on the gas. Without another word, I yanked the wheel hard, making a sharp, illegal U-turn that sent the sports car screeching across the asphalt.

Our tires smoked like crazy, but that wasn't a problem right now.

Horns blared behind us, I didn’t even care.

Sin, gratefully, didn’t even flinch.

He just stared straight ahead, his fists still clenched on his thighs.

“We’re going back,” I said slowly.

Sin nodded once decisively.

“We should never have left her.” He muttered, feeling guilty.

The car accelerated, eating up the distance back to the estate.

Every second felt too long, and every mile marker mocked us. Because while we had been driving away, trying to process the bomb that had just been dropped on our lives, Serena was still in that house.

Alone, and with the woman who had stolen our real mother’s place. With the woman who had poisoned our father.

On top of those things, with Lara, who wanted her gone.

My grip on the wheel tightened until the leather creaked. Okay, that had never happened before. I had to cool down before I ripped the thing off

“If they laid a single finger on her while we were gone…” I didn’t finish the sentence.

I didn’t need to. Sin’s low growl from the passenger seat said he was thinking the exact same thing.

We had spent years letting our so-called mother control us, because protecting the family's image and preventing a media scandal from happening was always our duty.

We had spent years believing the lies. That was about to change.

I doubted I’d gunned the engine harder in my entire life.

The second the car screeched to a halt in front of the estate, Sin was already throwing the door open and bolting out.

I was right behind him, my long legs eating up the distance quickly.

My heart was pounding like a war drum in my chest. It was nearly loud enough to drown out everything else.

The house felt wrong the moment we stepped inside. It was too quiet and too still, which wasn't supposed to be so.

Sin and I split up without a word, years of twin instinct kicking in.

I took the east wing, yelling Serena’s name as I checked every room and corridor.

“Serena!”

My voice echoed back at me, mocking me.

Sin searched the west wing, his heavier footsteps thundering through the halls.

We both arrived at the grand landing at the same time, breathing hard.

One look at his face and I knew. The same dread I felt was mirrored in his eyes, it was dark, wild, and barely contained.

There was no one home.

Serena was gone. Mrs. Hale was gone. The woman we'd called our mother for years was gone, too.

The entire house felt abandoned, like the walls themselves had swallowed every living soul and spat out only silence.

Sin’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, his knuckles still raw from earlier when he ruined his phone by merely squeezing his hand around it.

“Where the fuck is she?” he growled.

I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know. And that terrified me more than anything.

It didn’t make any sense. We had left her here, thinking she’d be safe for a few hours while we dealt with our father.

And now the fucking house was empty.