Chapter 87 Forgiveness? Never
Staring at Russell, the so-called head of the family, the celebrated chairman of Jenson Group, Tilda looked at him with nothing but contempt.
“What’s the matter, Russell? Have you gone deaf? I said, if you want me to drop the lawsuit, then get on your knees and apologize.”
Russell didn’t get that? Fine. Tilda repeated it. Because saying it out loud—God, it felt good. She could say it a hundred times if she wanted. There was nothing sweeter than watching Russell grovel at her feet.
Looking at him bowing his head now brought the past crashing back—back to her third year after returning to the Jensons.
Kyla had framed her. She had ended up scalding her own hand with hot water, screaming in pain. Tilda hadn’t even touched the kettle! She stood there stunned when it happened. She snapped out of it and tried to check on Kyla’s burn. However, Russell was the first to come running, and he shoved her hard.
It was so sudden that she nearly cracked her skull on the sharp corner of the dining table. Her instincts saved her temple from being split open, but her forehead wasn’t so lucky. A deep gash burst open, blood pouring into her eyes. The dizziness knocked her off balance.
Russell didn’t give a damn. He scooped Kyla up in his arms like a princess and stormed out. He even spat out a threat, “If anything happens to Kyla, Tilda, I’ll make you wish you were dead!”
The whole family rushed in. They all crowded around Kyla, comforting her, finding medicine, treating her like treasure. And every pair of eyes that turned on Tilda—cold, venomous, furious. Not one of them saw her blood-soaked face, her wobbling steps, the huge wound on her forehead that nobody even bothered to cover with a bandage. They forced her to kneel and apologize to Kyla.
That day, half-conscious from blood loss, freezing cold, Tilda had fought back, argued, shown every scrap of evidence that she wasn’t the one who did it. Even Kyla put on her fake kindness, claiming it was her own fault, that Tilda wasn’t to blame. Russell had refused to hear it. He had insisted that Tilda had deliberately scalded Kyla. He had claimed that Kyla was too merciful and too soft-hearted, pretending to shield her. He had kicked Tilda in the knees, ignored her wounds and screams, and dragged her down by the hair to force her head against the ground in front of Kyla. Over and over, her forehead had been smashed into the floor until fresh blood ran.
The memory had never faded. “Bone-chilling” didn’t even begin to capture that feeling. It was like she was about to be dragged straight into hell.
If anyone else had treated her like that, she would have kicked them across the room before they got near. But the one who brutalized her that day had been her own father—the man she had once craved the most, respected the most, and longed to get close to. Her so-called mother and all seven brothers had stood behind Kyla, watching, sneering, saying she deserved it, insisting that hurting Kyla deserved punishment.
The cruelest joke of all had come at the end. When she finally blacked out from the blows, it had been Kyla herself who had jumped out, crying and pleading, pretending to stop Russell. Without that fake intervention, Tilda would have ended up in the ICU with brain damage. That day, Russell had not been simply angry. He had been ready to kill her. To him, wiping out a “jealous, disgraceful waste of a daughter” was the only way to keep the so-called peace of the Jenson family.
She had no idea how long she had been unconscious. When she finally woke, she was lying on the ice-cold floor. The blood on her forehead had already dried into clumps. Her hair was matted and tangled across her face. There had been no family waiting, not even a helper willing to help her up. Everyone in that house knew that her place ranked lower than Kyla’s pampered Persian cat. She was spite and envy wrapped in the body of a so-called sister. And she was nothing more than the family punching bag—beaten down, bullied, and left to die.
Dragging herself up, she had taken the medicine box and staggered into the empty bathroom. In the mirror, half-blind with dizziness from a concussion, she had patched her own face. Her tears had been cold by then, just like her heart.
Now, staring at Russell kneeling before her, the memory surged back and sent a manic, intoxicating rush of vengeance blazing in her eyes.
“Tilda, this isn’t what we agreed on! You’re making a fool out of me!”
Moments ago, Russell had been groveling. Now, hearing her words, fury rolled off him in waves, the full pressure of a powerful patriarch’s presence flooding the room. His hawk-like eyes locked on her with murderous intent, as if carving her into a thousand pieces might not be enough. That glare could break weaker souls apart on sight.
“That was then, Russell. Things have changed. Looks like Mrs. Jenson didn’t have the guts to tell you. At the airport, she came at me like a rabid dog and sank her teeth into me. I told her right then and there—I’ll never drop this lawsuit. And my forgiveness? You’ll never have it.”