Chapter 4

“It doesn’t matter whether I trust in you or not.” I lowered my voice. “What matters most is that you don’t test Mary’s limits.

“She isn’t some sort of helpless country girl whom you think you can push around with no one backing her up.”

Fiona bit her lip as tears rolled down her cheeks.

“John, you make her sound terrifying.”

I thought to myself, ‘She really is terrifying.’

However, I kept that to myself.

“Just remember what I told you.”

The next afternoon, the birthday party began.

Fiona stood under the crystal chandeliers in an haute couture gown. She looked like a beautiful flower that had been carefully cultivated in a greenhouse from the day she was born.

Mary stood on the other side of the room in a long black dress. She pinned up her hair. She did not put on any jewelry. However, her cool, distant presence reminded me of a sheathed blade.

People glanced her way and whispered among themselves.

“So, that’s their biological daughter, huh?”

“She has a pretty good presence, but she’s awfully cold.”

“I heard she grew up in the countryside. Honestly, it’s impressive she turned out this well.”

I stood nearby with a glass of wine. My temples throbbed.

They had better pray that Mary hadn’t heard them.

Mary simply looked down at her phone.

She acted as though their whispers were nothing more than a passing breeze.

I, on the other hand, grew increasingly uneasy.

It was too quiet.

It was always this quiet right before the storm.

Halfway through the party, a commotion abruptly broke out at the side entrance to the ballroom.

Several unfamiliar men barged in.

The security guards moved in to stop them, but the man leading the group shoved one of the guards aside.

The bleached-blond leader pointed at Mary and shouted, “Mary Winsley, you think you can simply brush us off by hiding yourself among a rich family, huh?!

“When are you going to pay back the money you owe us from the countryside?”

Another man held up his phone. “Everyone, take a good look. The great Mary Winsley used to run with us, and now she’s pretending to be some sort of a rich young lady!”

A third man took out several printed screenshots of chat messages. “We know exactly what she was like back then!”

The guests erupted into an uproar.

Someone took a step back.

Others took out their phones and started recording.

Several cameras from the press section turned toward them as well.

Dad’s face turned livid.

Mom instinctively grabbed Fiona’s hand.

Fiona went pale as if she had been frightened, but she quickly stepped in front of Mom. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Mary, if you’re in trouble, you can always tell the family. Why did you have to let these people come and cause a scene at my birthday party?”

With just one sentence, she pinned the entire mess on Mary.

Every alarm in my head went off at once.

This was not some ordinary disruption.

They deliberately dragged Mary’s “country connections” into a high-society banquet. They turned the scandal into a spectacle that would spread through the entire social circle within minutes.

These people wanted the guests to record everything, the media to run with the story, and the Winsley family to lose any chance of quietly burying the incident.

Once that happened, more and more people would start digging into Mary’s past.

If anyone uncovered the orphanage connection, the black cars, or the scar-faced man, things would spiral completely out of control.

That idiotic Fiona thought she was ruining Mary’s reputation.

She had no idea she might actually be sending the entire family straight into the line of fire.

I immediately ordered the security guards to clear the room.

However, Mary raised her hand and stopped me.

Her hand was perfectly steady.

It was so steady that my heart sank.

She was finally going to spring her trap.