Chapter 113 Qiana's Past

Chapter 113 Qiana's Past

Several parties were investigating, but the two people who had tailed Ophelia left no trace behind. Whoever was pulling the strings was hiding very well.

The investigation hit a dead end. Ophelia thought it over carefully but still couldn't figure out where Qiana's hatred toward her came from. To get to the bottom of it, she decided to visit the psychiatric facility herself and confront Qiana directly.

In the high-security ward of the psychiatric facility, the once-glamorous Qiana was now strapped tightly to her bed, unable to move.

In just a few days, she had become gaunt and hollow-faced, her skin a sickly yellow. She was a picture of madness and misery, with none of her former elegance left.

When she saw Ophelia, Qiana's dull eyes snapped wide open. They turned red almost instantly, and she thrashed wildly against her restraints, the bed scraping and screeching against the floor.

"Ophelia, you bitch! How dare you come here to gloat! I'm going to kill you!"

The attending physician rushed over to give her a sedative, then turned to Ophelia with an apologetic look. "Ms. Ophelia Jones, I'm so sorry about this. Ms. Qiana Jones is extremely unstable and highly aggressive. We really had no choice but to restrain her."

Ophelia wasn't fazed by Qiana's outburst at all. "I understand. Thank you for everything. Could you all step out? I'd like a few minutes alone with Aunt Qiana."

"Please be careful. Call us immediately if anything happens." The medical staff repeated their warning several times before quickly leaving the room.

Ophelia walked slowly to the bedside, looked Qiana over, then shook her head with a cold smile. "Aunt Qiana, I wonder if you even know what you look like right now."

She reached into her bag, pulled out a compact mirror, and held it up in front of Qiana. The face staring back was sunken and hollow, with wild, unhinged eyes. Even Qiana herself was frightened by what she saw.

Qiana jerked her head away, her whole body trembling. "That's not me! Ophelia, what do you want? You came here just to laugh at me, didn't you?!"

"No," Ophelia leaned in, eyes sharp as a blade. "Aunt Qiana, I'm your niece. Since coming back to the Jones family, I've never once gone out of my way to bother you. So why do you hate me so much? Why would you go so far as to try to destroy me?"

Qiana couldn't hold her gaze and turned away. "You know exactly why. Don't play innocent with me."

"I really don't. I can almost understand Emily's hatred, but yours makes no sense to me."

Qiana broke down. "How can you even say that! Ever since you showed up, Emily became invisible in this family. Liam and Cynthia only have eyes for you now. Emily is the one who grew up in this family. Why should you get to walk in and take everything away from her?!"

"If you'd never shown up, Emily and I would still be living well. How did things end up like this? Ophelia, you ruined our lives!"

Ophelia laughed coldly at the twisted logic. "That's ridiculous. Emily was never a real part of the Jones family to begin with. She enjoyed over a decade of everything this family had to offer, and that still wasn't enough? She wanted to take my place too?"

"Who says she's not part of this family? Emily is a Jones!"

Ophelia's expression hardened. "Last night someone followed me and I nearly got run over. Were those people connected to you?"

Qiana didn't deny it. Instead, she burst into wild laughter. "What a shame they didn't finish the job! Ophelia, you've made plenty of enemies. Watch your back. And I'm warning you — give back everything that rightfully belongs to Emily, or I swear I'll come after you even if it kills me!"

Something about Qiana's words struck Ophelia as odd.

Qiana was locked up in a psychiatric facility, stripped of her freedom, barely holding herself together. Yet she hadn't said a single word about her own miserable situation. All she cared about was Emily. That went way beyond ordinary affection. Something wasn't adding up.

Seeing Qiana grow increasingly unhinged, Ophelia said nothing more. She filed away every unanswered question and walked out of the ward.

Back at Emerald Lake Estates, Ophelia found Cynthia and asked calmly, "Mom, I've been wondering — you were close to your due date back then. Why did you travel all the way to Majestic City?"

Cynthia let out a long sigh at the mention of that buried memory. "It was all because of Qiana. She was still in college at the time. She'd been secretly dating a guy from Majestic City, and on top of that, she got pregnant. She also asked your father to find that man a well-paying, respectable job. When the family said no, she ran off with him and cut off all contact with us."

"I always treated her like my own sister. I was so worried about her that I made the trip to Majestic City with your father, even though I was heavily pregnant, just to talk her into coming home. I never expected to get into a car accident the moment we arrived. I went into labor right there on the spot."

Years of guilt came pouring out, and tears ran down Cynthia's face. "Ophelia, I'm so sorry. If I hadn't insisted on going to find Qiana, none of it would have happened. You wouldn't have been lost to us, and you wouldn't have had to go through all of that."

Ophelia quickly moved to comfort her mother. Once Cynthia had calmed down, she pressed on. "Mom, do you know how far along Aunt Qiana was when she told the family she was pregnant?"

Cynthia shook her head gently. "She never said. When she heard about our accident, she felt terrible about it and came home without a fight. All she told us was that she'd ended the pregnancy and broken up with the guy. The whole thing had already caused so much trouble for the family, and no one wanted to dig into it any further. We just moved on."

"And over the years — has Aunt Qiana always been especially close to Emily?"

"Yes," Cynthia nodded with a sigh. "Qiana always said she never had a daughter of her own, so she loved Emily like one. She covered for Emily whenever she did something wrong, and gave her everything she ever wanted. The two of them were unusually close."

With that, all the pieces started to connect. Ophelia felt like she was closing in on the truth. "I see. Thanks, Mom. Get some rest."

Back in her room, Ophelia called Black Cat. "Anything new on Qiana?"

"Boss, I dug into Qiana pretty thoroughly. Nothing too unusual, but there is one thing — she dated a guy in college, and his hometown is in the same city as the hospital where you were born."

"Find him. Bring him to the base. I want to meet him myself," Ophelia said.

"Yes, boss!"

Meanwhile, Geraldo had just wrapped up an intense pursuit operation and was getting ready to hand things off before heading back to Astoria.

But the moment he stepped out of the rest area, his direct supervisor stopped him.

"Geraldo, we've locked onto a high-risk suspect who's already fled back into Astoria. Since you're heading back anyway, I'm putting you in charge of tracking him down."