A Bomb
“Mom, where are you going?” Alison asked.
"Do you know who my first love was? Do you know the only man who has been in my life until now? Matthew?” Daphne asked calmly.
Matthew's heart trembled. He gazed at her silently.
Her first love had been Maxim, but he had torn them apart. The only man in Daphne's life was Matthew, as she had borne him two daughters.
"Let's go, Daphne." Maxim extended his hand.
Alison suddenly realized that Stephanie, Isabella, and Cassandra were merely substitutes for her mother.
"Ha! Maxim, you still pine for her day and night. But what about me? Where do I fit in?" Cassandra ground out through clenched teeth.
"When we were together, I made it clear. Daphne is the only woman I love. I never deceived you. Yet you've tormented us all these years." Maxim turned to Cassandra.
Cassandra's body swayed slightly.
She'd always believed that she could win his heart. But after their final meal together, she saw Daphne get into his car. That very day, she learned that they were planning to elope to escape Matthew.
Her hatred for him boiled over. She faked her son's illness, luring Matthew to visit the child. As he stepped inside the house, she knocked him unconscious with a sedative. Then, she rushed to his car and incapacitated Daphne with pre-prepared tools. She dragged both to the basement, a place known only to her and Maxim.
For twenty years, she delivered food every few days—just enough to keep them alive. She forced them to gaze at each other daily through reinforced glass, being in agony.
However, one day the caretaker, Yana, spotted her. She killed Yana and framed Stephen for the crime.
"Are you just going to stand by and watch your woman leave with Maxim?" Cassandra said to Matthew.
"Cassandra MacDonald, you scoundrel! Only now do I realize you are the most poisonous one," Matthew said.
"Have you lost your mind? Matthew?" Cassandra was bewildered. "Why are you spouting this nonsense?"
"It's you who made me push my daughters onto a painful road." Matthew blurted out, leaving others stunned.
Cassandra froze.
"Matthew, you promised to send me abroad! You can't go back on your word!" She stared at him, utterly panicked.
Alison was shocked.
He has known I'm his daughter all along.
But how could this man be my father?
"No, I don't want you as my father!" She repeatedly backed away.
"Let's go. I don't want to see them anymore.” Daphne held Maxim tightly in one hand and reached out to her daughter with the other. "Alison, come with Mommy."
Just as Alison placed her hand in her mother's palm and felt that long-lost warmth, Jack appeared. He had overheard the entire conversation outside the glass door
"Aunt Cassandra, please tell me—who was that masked man who took Sophia away on the day of my wedding to Aimée?" he asked.
“Ha! Jack, you're not entirely stupid. That was my doing." Cassandra sneered. "Aimée, huh? She was merely a pawn in my and Matthew's revenge plan. I had someone take Sophia away to force Alison to dance to Aimée's tune. I also leaked information to let the Polar Bear Alliance get close to Amy. She was truly hard-hearted, even killing her own child.”
"But Matthew deceived me in the end. If he had told me earlier that he knew the truth, I'd never have brought him to meet Daphne," she continued, a cunning look came into her face.
Matthew instantly noticed that.
"Run, Daphne! Run!" he whispered, shoving Alison beside him.
Both women moved toward the door while he grabbed Cassandra in his arms.
There was a bomb in her hand!