Chapter 28 A Get Lost Fee
Taisia's POV
I threw myself at the iron gate, pressing my scarred arms against the cold metal door, crying hysterically into the intercom. "Dad, please save me! The company is really going under, I don't know what to do anymore! Selena... she's trying to destroy our whole family!"
"We can't help with these things. Jonathan has made it very clear - the Hart family doesn't welcome you."
"Why? You said you cared about me! You said I was your daughter!"
I was shaking all over with anxiety, frantically tearing at my clothes to expose more skin reddened by dry branches, trying to make them see how "miserable" I looked. "Look how pitiful I am now. If you don't help me, I'll really die!"
"We were blind. We treated you like a daughter, but behind our backs you called us country bumpkins. Taisia, the Hart family can't raise an ungrateful thing like you."
My heart sank to rock bottom in an instant.
The wounds I'd deliberately inflicted seemed to start burning with pain, but this pain was nothing compared to the despair of being completely rejected.
"No... that's not it... I just lost my head for a moment..." I stammered incoherently, trying to show my injuries again, only to find my arms trembling uncontrollably.
"I really know I was wrong. Please, for the sake of all these injuries I've suffered, forgive me one more time?"
"Enough." This time it was Mrs. Hart's voice, carrying deep disappointment and finality that I failed to detect, without a trace of sympathy.
"I'll give you some money. I don't want to see you again. Leave. And... don't come back anymore."
"No! Mom!"
A crackling sound came through the intercom, then the line went completely dead.
I collapsed to the ground, all my strength drained away.
The wounds I'd deliberately created now seemed painfully obvious - instead of earning me sympathy, they'd become proof of my pathetic state.
It was over.
Everything was over.
I don't know how I made it back to my car.
I drove to the Myrdal company building.
I couldn't believe my ears.
Myrdal's lawyer, the man who always bowed and scraped to me, was now using a cold, business-like tone to inform me. "Miss Kateson, based on the terrible impact you and your family have currently caused to the Cater Group, Mr. Carter has decided to unilaterally terminate your engagement. This is the official termination letter, please sign for it."
"No... this is impossible!" I screamed, knocking the documents out of his hands. "Where's Myrdal? I need to see Myrdal! He couldn't do this to me!"
Like a madwoman, I stormed into Myrdal's office.
I couldn't lose him! I couldn't!
When I burst into his office, he was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows on a phone call. Seeing me, he just frowned, said "hold on" to whoever was on the line, then hung up.
"Myrdal!" I rushed toward him crying, but he actually stepped aside, dodging me.
"What are you doing here?" His voice was cold as ice.
"Why? Why terminate the engagement?" I cried my heart out. "Didn't we agree? You said you loved me! You said you'd give up even Selena for me!"
"Love you?"
He looked like he'd heard the funniest joke of the century. He stared straight at me, his gaze sweeping me from head to toe.
I knew that look too well - he was disgusted by me.
"Taisia, look at yourself in the mirror. Your father's company is about to go bankrupt, you've been kicked out by the Harts, what do you have left now? What value do you still have to me?"
His words were like knives, stabbing deep into my heart.
"No... it's not like that..." I shook my head, stammering. "Once we get married, the Cater family will help us, right? Everything will get better!"
"Help you?" He laughed coldly. "Fill that bottomless pit? Taisia, I'm not an idiot. You and your family are a sinking ship right now. Why would I drown with you?"
"I... I still have money! My parents gave me money! A lot of money! If you marry me, it'll all be yours!"
He looked at me, his eyes flickering for a moment, but quickly returning to their cold state.
"That little bit of money, what's it good for? Enough to pay the bank interest, or the penalty for the North Star project?" He walked up to me, grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. "Your greatest value was being Miss Kateson. Now, that identity is worthless. So you're worthless too."
He released my face and pressed the intercom on his desk.
"Security, escort this lady out. From now on, don't let her set foot in this building again."
"No! Myrdal! You can't do this to me!" I screamed hysterically, struggling, but two burly security guards had already grabbed me from both sides.
They dragged me mercilessly out of the office, past all the employees' strange looks, and finally, like a bag of trash, threw me onto the cold marble floor at the company entrance.
People around me pointed and whispered, their eyes full of mockery and contempt.
I was finished.
Completely finished.
I lay on the ground, looking at my pathetic reflection, my heart filled with nothing but endless hatred.
Selena... my adoptive parents... Myrdal...
All of you bullied me!
I won't let this go! I absolutely won't!
I got up from the ground and wiped away my tears.
I still had somewhere to go.
I still had my biological parents! The Katesons! They wouldn't abandon me!
I immediately hailed a taxi and gave the address I once knew so well.
When I rushed through the Kateson family's front door, I was stunned by what I saw.
The living room was a mess, lots of furniture had been sealed with official notices, servants were packing things up, and my mother - that woman who was always so elegant and proper - was sitting on the sofa, staring blankly into space.
"Mom!" I rushed over and knelt at her feet.
Seeing me seemed to snap her back to reality. She grabbed my arm. "You still have the nerve to come back! This is all your fault! You ruined us!"
"It wasn't me! It was Selena! She ruined us!" I cried out.
"Enough!" My father came down from upstairs, his hair mostly white, his face full of exhaustion and anger. "How did the Kateson family raise such an idiot! I told you to leak information to reporters, and what happened? You exposed all our family's dirty laundry! Now the company's finished! The family's finished! Are you satisfied?"
"I..." His yelling left me speechless.
How could they blame me? It was all that bitch Selena!
"Get out! Get out of here!" My mother pushed me away hysterically. "We don't have a daughter like you!"
"No! You can't kick me out!" I clung desperately to her legs. "You're my parents! You have to take care of me! Myrdal doesn't want me anymore, I have nowhere to go!"
Suddenly I remembered something. From my crumpled Hermès bag, I pulled out a check.
It was what the butler Peter had shoved into my hands when I was dragged out of the Hart family gate.