Chapter 230 Severing Ties

Chapter 230 Severing Ties

Sloane's POV

"Jones, it's true!" Brandon walked forward shakily on his crutches. Tears streaming down his aged face, he handed the expedited DNA test report to Jones, pointing at the conclusion with a trembling voice, "This is scientific proof! She really is your child! Our baby didn't die, she grew up safe and sound!"

"Ba... baby..."

Jones stared hard at that report, then stared hard at my face.

She suddenly seemed to go crazy, breaking free from Edward's grip. Ignoring the freshly stitched wound on her wrist, she pulled me tightly into her arms.

"Baby... my baby!" She finally cried out loud, a heart-wrenching wail as if trying to cry out all the despair of these twenty-plus years.

She buried her face in the crook of my neck, her hands gripping my back so tightly it felt like she wanted to merge me into her bones and blood, afraid that if she let go even slightly, I would disappear again.

"I'm here, Mom, I'm here." I hugged back her thin, bony body, tears flowing freely.

Jones and I held each other tightly. In this hospital room filled with the smell of disinfectant, we had crossed twenty years of time and conspiracy to finally find each other again.

Just as the atmosphere in the room was both mournful and tender, the door was pushed open from outside.

Jared strode in carrying the cold air of late autumn. His deep black eyes churned with a chilling hostility, and he held a thick stack of documents in his hand.

Seeing my swollen red eyes, the coldness in his eyes instantly turned to heartache.

He walked to my side, his large palm gently stroking my back, silently giving me strength.

"I've found out everything." Jared raised his head, his gaze sweeping over Brandon and Edward, his voice as cold as ice, "What happened back then wasn't an accident at all."

The air in the room instantly froze. Edward shot to his feet, a deadly killing intent bursting from his gray-blue eyes: "Who did it?"

Jared threw the documents in his hand onto the table with a "smack," his lips curling into an extremely mocking cold smile, "It was Isabelle."

Hearing that name, my whole body shook, a chill running straight up my spine to the top of my head.

"Isabelle was always jealous of Jones." Jared coldly stated the investigation results, each word like a sharp knife, cutting open that outrageous conspiracy from years ago. "She was jealous of everything she had, so on the second night after Jones gave birth to Sloane, Isabelle bribed a hospital nurse to deliberately cut off the backup power on that floor. Taking advantage of the chaos, she had someone take you from the baby bed and abandon you directly at the most remote slum orphanage in New York."

"That evil woman!" Brandon shook all over with rage, his crutch pounding loudly on the floor. "The Brandon family treated her well, and she dared to do something so vicious!"

"The more ironic part comes next." Jared's eyes were mocking as he continued, "Not long after Isabelle abandoned Sloane, she gave birth to an eldest daughter herself. But a few years later, during a street riot, her eldest daughter accidentally got lost. Coincidentally, her eldest daughter was later sent to the same orphanage where Sloane was."

I froze, a blurry figure from my orphanage days suddenly flashing through my mind.

There really was a new girl back then whose features somewhat resembled Isabelle's.

"But that girl had a hard fate." Jared looked at me, his tone softening slightly. "Not long after she entered the orphanage, she died young from a high fever that wasn't treated in time."

"Later, Isabelle frantically followed the clues to that orphanage, wanting to find her own flesh and blood, but she was too late. Her daughter had already turned into a handful of ashes." Jared laughed coldly, revealing the most absurd truth. "She saw Sloane at the orphanage. Perhaps because Sloane was around the same age as her daughter, or perhaps to cover up her mistake of losing her daughter, she actually went along with it and took you home as her eldest daughter."

My hands and feet turned ice cold, my stomach churning.

So that's how it was!

No wonder after she adopted me, she never gave me even a shred of maternal love. No wonder she either beat or scolded me, even using me without guilt as Keira's walking blood bank and a bargaining chip for profit.

Because deep down she knew I wasn't her daughter at all. I was just a tool to cover up her mistake, the flesh and blood of the person she once envied!

"I'm going to kill her!" Edward was furious to the extreme. He suddenly pulled out the gun at his waist and turned to rush out. "I'm going to cut that evil woman into a thousand pieces!"

"Mr. Thorne, don't be in such a hurry to dirty your hands." Jared stopped him. He turned to the last page of the documents, the mockery in his eyes almost overflowing. "About Isabelle, there's an even more interesting discovery. This is a shocking scandal that could make all of New York high society laugh."

Jared paused, his gaze sharp as a knife. "Keira isn't Arthur's biological daughter at all."

I jerked my head up, looking at him in disbelief.

"Isabelle had an affair with a man named William back then. Keira is her illegitimate daughter with William." Jared coldly spoke this name.

William?!

The moment I heard that name, my pupils contracted violently. Buried memories were instantly awakened.

Back then, as a key member of the medical team, I went to a remote town hit by a tornado to provide medical aid.

There, I encountered unprovoked malicious harassment from local villagers, supplies were stolen, and I even nearly faced life-threatening danger.

Later it was discovered that the mastermind who incited the villagers to cause trouble was a local thug named William.

So that William was actually Isabelle's lover, Keira's biological father!

None of this was a coincidence.

From the abandonment twenty years ago to the deliberate revenge in the tornado town, Isabelle and that man had been hiding in the shadows like venomous snakes, watching me closely, trying to completely destroy me.

The moment the truth came to light, the air in the hospital room seemed to completely freeze.

After hearing Jared's investigation results, Brandon shook all over with rage, his face ashen.

He never imagined that the daughter he had raised for so many years was actually a venomous snake in human skin.

"Bastard... absolutely despicable!" Brandon's crutch struck the floor heavily, tears streaming down his face, his eyes full of pain and resolve. "The Brandon family absolutely does not have such a heartless daughter!"

The next day, Brandon swiftly held a press conference. In front of all the New York media, he publicly announced the complete severing of the father-daughter relationship with Isabelle, and mobilized a top legal team to forcibly reclaim all the Brandon family assets and shares under her name.