[4] What Happened?

The living room remained frozen in stunned silence after the slaps.

No one moved. No one even seemed to breathe.

Vanessa still sat on the floor exactly where she had fallen, her once elegant posture shattered as both hands clutched her burning cheeks.

Her entire body trembled faintly as she slowly lifted her head, her wide eyes locking onto Clara’s figure across the room.

But the emotion inside those eyes was not merely pain. It was disbelief, pure, stunned disbelief.

She stared at Clara as though she were looking at a stranger wearing the face of someone she thought she knew.

Clara Whitmore had just slapped her. Not once. Not twice. Four times. In front of everyone.

Vanessa’s lips parted slightly as if she wanted to speak, but no words came out. Her mind clearly had not caught up with what had just happened.

Nearby, the maids had instinctively gathered together in a nervous cluster, whispering among themselves in low voices while their eyes darted back and forth between Clara and Vanessa.

“Did… did Madam really hit Miss Carter…?” one whispered shakily.

“Four times…!” another gasped in disbelief.

“I’ve never seen Madam do something like that before…”

Their voices trembled with shock because everyone in the mansion knew the relationship between the two women.

Clara Whitmore and Vanessa Carter had always been inseparable, best friends, confidantes, practically sisters in the eyes of the household.

If anyone in this house had ever dared raise a hand against Vanessa, Clara would have been the first person to explode in fury. Yet now, she herself had done it.

Even the children looked confused and frightened. Lucas still stood slightly in front of his sisters, watching Clara carefully.

Emily nervously clutched the hem of her dress, her small shoulders trembling as she glanced between Vanessa and Clara, while little Sophie sniffled quietly beside them, her tiny fingers gripping Lucas’s sleeve as tears continued sliding down her cheeks.

The entire living room felt like a stage where everyone had suddenly forgotten their lines.

But Clara didn’t spare Vanessa another glance. Not even a single one. To her, Vanessa Carter was no longer the most important person in the room, not right now, not when something far more urgent demanded her attention.

Clara slowly turned her gaze away from the fallen woman and fixed her eyes on the butler instead.

Mr. Grayson stood stiffly in the center of the room, his normally composed posture now rigid with unease.

For years he had carried himself with quiet arrogance. As the head butler of the Lockwood mansion, he believed his authority within the household placed him above the other servants.

He was used to giving orders, used to being obeyed, used to acting as if he were the one truly in control of the mansion’s internal affairs.

But right now, the confidence he usually wore like armor had vanished completely, replaced by visible uncertainty.

Clara’s voice cut through the suffocating silence like a blade. “What right do you have to punish my kids?”

The words echoed through the room like thunder. "My kids." For a moment nobody moved. The maids’ mouths slowly fell open. Vanessa blinked in shock from where she still sat on the floor. Even Lucas and Emily lifted their heads slightly, disbelief flashing clearly across their young faces.

Because if there was one thing everyone in this mansion knew without question, it was that Clara hated being associated with the children.

She had made that painfully clear from the very beginning. She had forbidden them from calling her Mom. The word itself irritated her. The title of stepmother annoyed her even more.

Whenever someone used it in conversation, Clara’s expression would instantly turn cold. She had repeatedly told people that she married Jade Lockwood, not his children. She wanted their father. Not them.

Yet just now, in front of everyone, she had called them her kids.

The butler looked equally stunned. His mouth opened slightly as he struggled to process the question. “Madam… I...”

Clara cut him off sharply before he could continue. “And what exactly did they do?”

Her tone sounded calm, almost eerily calm, but the coldness beneath it made the air feel heavier.

The butler swallowed nervously. “I… well… they… they were…” He stammered helplessly, the words tumbling out in broken fragments that barely formed a sentence. “They were in the kitchen… and… they… well…”

Clara’s eyes narrowed slightly as her patience began to thin. “Speak properly! Weren't you shouting just a while ago?”

The butler opened his mouth again but still failed to produce a coherent explanation. “They… they were… well… sneaking in… and…”

Clara exhaled slowly, her patience finally snapping. Instead of continuing to listen to his useless rambling, she simply turned away from him.

Her gaze shifted toward the children instead. The moment her eyes landed on them, Lucas and Emily stiffened immediately. Their bodies reacted instinctively.

When Clara took one small step toward them, they stepped backward.

Clara stopped where she was, her chest tightening painfully as the realization struck her.

Of course, they would react like that. Why wouldn’t they? In her previous life, she had spent years teaching them one simple lesson: when Clara Lockwood walks toward you… stay far away.

Clara took another step and the kids moved back again. She lifted her hand slightly and pointed toward them.

“Don’t move.” She had meant to say it lightly, gently, but somehow it came out far sharper and more commanding than she intended.

The children flinched immediately. Emily grabbed Lucas’s sleeve tightly while little Sophie buried her face behind her brother’s arm.

Clara froze. For several seconds she simply stared at them before slowly pressing her fingers against her forehead in frustration.

"Great. Just fantastic. You scared them even more." She muttered.

Inside her mind, she mentally scolded herself. 'Good job, Clara. Mother of the year. You deserve that award.'

Taking a slow breath, she forced herself to calm down before lowering herself into a crouch so that she was at the children’s eye level.

The movement alone shocked everyone watching. Clara Lockwood… crouching?

Her voice softened noticeably. “What happened?”

The gentle tone startled the entire room. The maids stared at her as if they had just witnessed a ghost appear inside the mansion.

Vanessa’s eyes narrowed slightly from across the room. Something was ,wrong. Very wrong.

Clara ignored them all, her attention fixed entirely on the children in front of her as she tried to soften her expression as much as possible. “Tell me. What happened?”

But Lucas and Emily still lowered their heads, fear clinging to them like a shadow.

Clara’s gaze slowly shifted downward toward the smallest figure among them. Little Sophie. The five-year-old girl’s cheeks were still soaked with tears, her tiny nose red and runny while sticky trails streaked across her face. Her small shoulders shook with quiet hiccups.

Clara’s heart melted instantly. “Oh my God…” she murmured softly before holding out her arms. “Come here, sweetheart.”

Before anyone could process what was happening, Clara leaned forward, gently scooped Sophie into her arms, and stood up.

Soft gasps filled the room as Lucas and Emily stared in complete shock.

Clara carried the little girl to the couch and sat down before carefully placing Sophie on her lap.

The child stiffened immediately, clearly confused by the sudden closeness, but Clara simply lifted the edge of her dress and began wiping the tears and snot from Sophie's face with gentle movements. “There we go…” she murmured warmly. “That’s better.”

Clara gently stroked Sophie’s hair while the little girl’s crying slowly quieted into soft hiccups. “It’s okay,” Clara whispered. “No one is going to hurt you.” She rocked the child slowly in her arms, the motion soothing like a mother calming a frightened baby. “What happened, sweetheart?”

For a long moment, Sophie didn’t answer.

Clara simply continued stroking her hair patiently. “It’s alright,” she whispered again. “You can tell me.”

The entire living room seemed to hold its breath. No one dared interrupt the strange and unbelievable scene unfolding before them.

Clara Whitmore, the woman who used to avoid the children as if they carried a disease, was now holding the youngest one in her lap, gently comforting her, with a voice so warm it almost didn’t sound like her.

Sophie sniffled softly, her tiny fingers clutching the fabric of Clara’s dress like a lifeline. She hesitated, her lips trembling as if the words were difficult to push out.

But Clara didn’t rush her. She simply rubbed the girl’s back in slow circles, calm and patient, waiting.

Finally, Sophie's small voice emerged, weak and broken. “We… we didn’t eat… last night…”

The words struck Clara like a physical blow. Her entire body froze as her heart skipped violently in her chest. For a split second, she thought she had misheard.

Didn’t eat? Last night? That couldn’t be right. This was the Lockwood mansio,n, one of the richest households in the city, where the dining table overflowed with food every day and even the servants ate better than many ordinary families.

She might be the worst stepmother, but if there was one thing Clara never did, it was to starve the kids.

Yet the children of the house, the young master and the young misses, hadn’t eaten dinner?

Sophie sniffled again. “This morning… I was very hungry… so… brother Luc… and sister Emi… went to the kitchen… to get food for me…”

Lucas lowered his head further while Emily’s eyes filled with tears.

Clara noticed their reactions immediately and a dull ache spread through her chest all over again. Even after being treated so badly for so long, their first instinct had still been to take care of the youngest one.

Sophie’s trembling voice continued. “But… the uncle Grayson saw us…” Her small lips quivered. “He said we were stealing food…” Tears filled her eyes againain as she raised her tiny hands slightly, as if unconsciously trying to show what had happened. “He pinched us… and said… we were bad children…”

The moment the last word left her mouth, the dam broke completely.

Sophie burst into loud, heartbroken sobs, her small body shaking violently as her face pressed helplessly into Clara’s chest.

Clara’s entire body trembled as her arms tightened instinctively around the crying child.

Rage surged through her veins like molten lava while the image Sophie described replayed vividly in her mind: three hungry children sneaking quietly into the kitchen in the early morning, simply trying to find something, anything, to eat, only to be caught, accused, punished, pinched, and called thieves.

Her fingers curled tightly as guilt twisted violently in her stomach.

In her previous life she had ignored scenes like this countless times. Sometimes she had even participated in the cruelty, believing the servants’ lies and Vanessa’s manipulations, convincing herself that the children were troublemakers who deserved punishment, that they were burdens.

The memory made her feel sick.

What kind of monster had I been?

Clara forced herself to take a slow breath, steadying the storm raging inside her. She could explode later. Right now, the sobbing child in her arms mattered far more.