Chapter 271

Chapter 271
‘You aren’t stupid after all. You can put the pieces together,’ Ivanna thought as she looked at the latter, but no one said anything, agreeing or refuting with Nadia’s words.
“Hahaha. I am not a fool! Dad has been saying that Aunt Abby was never pregnant that year. That you were in the hospital as my mother gave birth to me. I never believed her, but now that you said that. Everything makes sense. You knew the truth, and as my mom’s best friend. You could only help her. You swapped me, making me her child while you took her daughter, while no one was watching. That’s why we have never heard of Ivanna all these years. You had hidden her too well,” Nadia said, making everyone speechless, even Ivanna, who had just praised her a few minutes ago.
“You are stupid,” Ivanna said, thinking that she had judged the latter too quickly. Next time, she will wait to hear what the other party is saying before coming to a conclusion.
“Since you want to know, then I will tell you,” Ivanna said, making everyone turn to her.
“Ivanna,” Abby warned her.
“Mom, it has already reached this point. Instead of misunderstanding you, isn’t it better to tell her the truth? I can never tolerate anyone slandering my mother,” Ivanna said, making Abby speechless and Citrine jealous as she wondered when it would be her time for her daughters to protect her that way.
“I never grew up in the Barnes. In fact, we met on my eighteenth birthday,” Ivanna said, causing Nadia to stare at her in disbelief.
“It’s true. You can ask them. When they swapped, they swapped all the girl children who were born that day. You went to my family, Fiona. I just heard that she was here, mmh? She went with your parents, and I went with her parents. However, Fiona discovered her real identity and came back to live with her family. What do you think will happen to me, a fake heiress?” Ivanna asked, making Nadia lower her head.
She had always been afraid of this, but never thought that the person she had long been guarding had already gone through all that.
“I went through hell. When I met Mom, it was when I was looking for a banquet party. The family wasn’t celebrating my birthday; they were celebrating Fiona while revealing our real identities. The Barnes shop in our city was being renovated at that time, and some clothes had just arrived. When I walked into that shop, I had thought that it was cheap cause the shop didn’t have a name. She knew who I was. Apparently, she had been checking up on me, and one of the reasons why they were opening a branch there was because I was there. She felt guilty for the swap and wanted to see whether I was having a good life. The mother and daughter, Fiona and her mother, walked in and started mocking me. That’s why we met, she accepted me as her goddaughter, helped me to walk out of the Bakers' family,” Ivanna narrated.
“Nadia, between the three of us, you are the only one who has had a smooth life. Fiona suffered at the hands of your family. I suffered in her hands when she came back to her family, as she had believed that your parents were my parents, and I was the one who was supposed to suffer. Have you suffered? If you want to say yes, then it's because of your stupidity. You had everything, caring brothers, a mother who had always longed to be close to you, a father, and grandparents who pampered you endlessly,” Ivanna said.
“I never knew my real identity, you know. I was afraid that what if I go back, but they love their adopted daughter too much? When Floyd saw me, he had suspected my identity and started investigating it. I remember when he came to our place with the evidence of who my mother was, I panicked and refused it. He had been chased away and warned by my brothers, who hid the truth from me,” Ivanna said, making Nadia speechless.
She glanced at Floyd and thought that maybe he was interested in Ivanna cause she was his true fiancée and not her an imposter. She didn’t know whether to feel better that she had not lost to Ivanna. The man didn’t fall in love with Ivanna, but he was interested in her identity, just as the other men who had been interested in her cause of family.
However, when she started analyzing what Ivanna had said, she realized something and averted her gaze from Floyd and looked at Ivanna.
“Did you just know your identity?” she asked Ivanna, who shook her head.
“Your father started causing chaos at home, forcing your mother to call Mom. They started arguing on the call and accidentally revealed the truth of what happened back then. I overheard them, that’s how I knew the truth. I was initially angry, but recalling how much mom loved, cared and protected me, I eventually forgave her and moved on. However, I am not interested in getting close to her. She never cared about me, even sending someone to see how I am copying, since she gave me away, she should leave knowing that I am not her daughter,” Ivanna said the last words coldly, making Nadia pity her.
“Mother’s love for Ivana, she shifted them to you. That maternal love that she always showed you. She always thought that if she treated you well, her daughter was also being treated well,” Marcello told Nadia, while he inwardly hoped that his sisters would stop hating their mother so much.
“She did that for you, you know,” he said, turning to Ivanna, who rolled her eyes.
“I never said that she didn’t do it for me. She was afraid, I get it, but the same way she made sure that Nadia’s identity was revealed, wasn’t it the same way she would have made sure that my identity was made known? Also, after giving me away, the same way mom did, she at least often visited the city when she was in the country, wanting to see how I was doing. Didn’t she always watch me from afar when I was little cause she had been worried? Even if she was afraid that if she left, the Martinez would send someone to follow her, wouldn’t she have at least sent someone to look at me, take some pictures that she would be looking at, remembering her daughter, and knowing that she was okay?” Ivanna said coldly as she looked at the woman who had tears in her eyes, with her head lowered.
“The burns, the beatings, the humiliation, the bullies, everything was her fault!” Ivanna said, her tone full of hatred and anger that couldn’t be hid.
Nadia felt sorry for her, naïve and at the same time thinking of how lucky she had been. Nothing like that ever happened to her. She had been protected too well. All that protection was supposed to be someone else’s.
“I am sorry,” Citrine said, and Ivanna nodded her head, refusing to shed tears when she recalled her past.
“I know. I know. Anyways, you will pay for everything you do when you leave for Country F. If you sympathise with her and stop or even take her as your wife, then forget that you have another daughter,” she said, looking at her father coldly, who frowned.
“Is this how to speak to your father?” Mr Alessandro asked in a displeased tone.
“Dad, do you want to make her angry just as you did the last time? Do you think anyone would help you get her forgiveness?” Isley said, making her father glance at Ivanna, then shifted her gaze.
“Why did she have to include me? This had nothing to do with me, right?” he asked, making Isley shake her head.
“Your father?” Nadia asked as she felt that whatever was happening was too much for her to take in one day.
“Ivanna is my twin sister. I grew up with my father. I never knew who my mother was, and she never knew that she gave birth to twins. Someone had taken me away when she gave birth to me. She had then fainted, thus she never knew how many kids she had given birth to. The kid she found lying beside her, she thought that it was the kid she had given birth to before she fainted,” Isley said, making Nadia speechless.
“Are we living in a novel or a movie? Cause it really feels as if we are living in one,” she said, making the sisters nod in agreement, making their brothers speechless, wondering when the three of them came to an agreement and didn’t even fight.
The Martinez brothers glanced at each other, all seeing the same hope in their eyes and the faces that seemed to be inquiring, 'Can the three of them really live as sisters? Can we have all of them as our sisters?'