Kneel and beg

“Shut up! How dare you speak to your father like that!”

“Father? Do you even deserve that title?”

Emily Carter lifted her head just as a dark object flew toward her.

She raised her arm to block it, but she was a second too slow.

The crystal ashtray smashed hard against her forehead.

A sharp pain exploded in her skull, turning her vision black.

Warm liquid slowly slid down her face, and thick blood covered her left eye.

“When your mother took you away all those years ago, I told her I wouldn’t give her a single cent!” Richard Carter her dad sneered coldly. “Back then she had the guts to walk out of this house. It’s only been ten years—where did all that pride go? Now that you can’t survive anymore, you come crawling back asking for money?”

Standing before him was his own biological daughter.

Yet there was not a trace of pity in his eyes.

“No… it wasn’t my mother who came to ask for money,” Emily said quietly.

“It was me.”

“I came to beg you.”

“She didn’t send you?” Richard’s voice dripped with disdain. “Does she even have the nerve to show her face in front of me?”

Emily opened her mouth to argue.

But in the end, she swallowed the words.

“Mr. Carter… if my mother doesn’t get surgery immediately, she will die. For Grandpa’s sake… please save her.” Emily’s voice softened.

Her pride and stubbornness disappeared.

She needed money.

Even if it meant kneeling and begging for it.

As long as her mother could live, she didn’t care about anything else.

“You want money?” Richard scoffed. “Forget five hundred thousand dollars. I’d give one million if I felt like it.”

“Tell your mother to come here personally. Let her kneel in front of me and beg.”

Emily clenched her fists secretly, her nails digging into her palms.

“I’m begging you,” she said hoarsely. “The five hundred thousand dollars will be a loan. I’ll repay you with interest.”

Her head lowered again.

Her voice was rough, her lips cracked and dry.

The metallic taste of blood lingered on her tongue.

She had waited outside the Carter family’s Upper East Side mansion all day.

Not a single drop of water had passed her lips.

She never expected this would be the result.

“If she refuses to come,” Richard said coldly, “then when she dies, I’ll send a coffin. Consider it the last courtesy between former spouses.”

He gave Emily a disgusted glance before walking past her and leaving.

The sound of a car engine starting echoed through the driveway.

Emily’s body trembled.

From the second floor, a figure stood at the top of the luxurious spiral staircase.

She had been watching the entire scene unfold.

Olivia Carter her step sister looked at Emily’s miserable state with unconcealed excitement.

Back then, when Olivia had stood nervously outside the Carter family’s mansion in Manhattan, she had been cursed and humiliated.

At that time, Emily had been a proud little princess.

Olivia would never forget the sight.

Emily had worn a beautiful white princess dress, glowing like someone from a fairy tale.

And Olivia?

The illegitimate daughter of a mistress.

Coming to the Carter family door had been the most humiliating moment of her life.

She had felt like a rat crossing the street, hated by everyone.

But now…

The tables had turned.

She had become the elegant jewel of the Carter family.

The daughter of the richest businessman in New York City.

Meanwhile, Emily and her mother had fallen into such misery.

If anyone was to blame, Olivia thought smugly, it was Emily’s mother.

Why insist on divorce back then?

If she had just endured it, things would be different.

In this world, what man doesn’t cheat?

Luckily, Emily’s mother had left.

Otherwise Olivia could never have become Miss Carter openly.

And her mother would never have become Mrs. Carter.

With a smug smile, Olivia walked down the stairs.

“Emily, look what you’ve done,” she mocked. “You made my father furious.”

“How shameless can you be? Back then your mother insisted on leaving the Carter family, cutting all ties with my father. She even made you change your last name to hers.”

“And now you still have the nerve to come back to the Carter mansion asking for money?”

Olivia Carter walked over to Emily and looked at her with naked contempt.

“Aren’t you and your mother supposed to be so proud?” Olivia sneered. “Why are you shamelessly crawling back to beg your father now? Half a million dollars in one breath—do you really think your mother’s worthless life is worth that much?”

Smack!

Emily used all her strength to slap Olivia across the face.

Olivia wasn’t prepared at all. She stumbled backward and crashed into the glass coffee table. A streak of blood instantly appeared at the corner of her mouth.

“Emily! How dare you hit me!”

“You’ve gone insane! Emily, you crazy girl!” Victoria, who had been sitting comfortably on the sofa, rushed forward and helped Olivia up with a distressed look.

When she saw the blood on Olivia’s lips, her expression turned furious.

“How dare you hit someone!”

Emily looked at her coldly.

“Did I hit someone?” she said sharply. “Are you even human?”

Victoria’s face instantly darkened.

Emily secretly clenched her fists, swallowing all the curses she wanted to spit back, and stared coldly at the mother and daughter.

Victoria was wearing a luxury silk nightgown from a famous designer brand. Even the pair of slippers on her feet cost nearly three thousand dollars.

The dress Olivia was wearing was a limited-edition designer piece from this season, worth over ten thousand dollars. Even the jeweled hair clip on her head cost almost fifteen thousand.

Weren’t this mother and daughter the ones who always claimed they didn’t care about wealth or luxury?

Only that scumbag Richard Carter would believe such nonsense.

Was it really true that in this world, good people never lived long while evil people thrived?

Richard had cheated during his marriage, and Victoria had shamelessly brought her child to the door.

Was Emily’s mother wrong for divorcing him?

“Emily,” Victoria suddenly spoke with a faint smile, “I met your father first. But your grandfather insisted that your father marry your mother.”

“So tell me… who exactly stole whose man?”

Her lips curled slightly as she continued in a soft, almost innocent tone.

“I never wanted your father to divorce your mother. I never cared about any status either. Olivia only wanted to see her father. Is that wrong?”

“She never tried to compete with you. Back then, it was your mother who insisted on taking you away from the Carter family.”

Emily’s eyes turned icy.

“You never thought about it?” she asked coldly.

“Dad isn’t here anymore. You can stop pretending with those disgusting hypocritical faces.”

Victoria simply smiled—the calm, confident smile of a winner.

“Emily, your mother was too stubborn. She humiliated your father in front of the entire New York elite. Even now, he still hates her.”

“That’s why he refuses to give you a single cent.”

Emily forced herself to suppress the raging anger inside her.

If she didn’t desperately need that money to save her mother’s life, she would have torn the fake smiles off Victoria and Olivia’s faces long ago.

Why had her mother humiliated Richard?

It was clearly these two shameless women who had forced their way into the family and pressured her mother into divorce.

And now they dared to smear her mother’s name.

Absolutely shameless.

“However…” Victoria suddenly changed her tone.

“Aunt Victoria does have a way to help you get the five hundred thousand dollars.”

Emily immediately looked up.

“What way?”

Victoria slowly spoke.

“Your grandfather once had a very close friend. They were like brothers who had shared life-and-death experiences.”

“Back when they were young, they made a marriage agreement between their families.”

“Your grandfather even mentioned it shortly before he passed away.”

“But that friend disappeared for many years, and we couldn’t find him.”

“Recently, however, he suddenly contacted the Carter family again. He wants us to honor that old marriage agreement.”

Victoria shrugged casually.

“Although their family isn’t particularly wealthy—just an ordinary upper-middle-class family—I think the marriage isn’t bad.”

“After all, every woman has to get married eventually.”

Emily’s heart sank instantly.

“You mean… you want me to marry him?” she asked slowly.

She had already guessed what this mother and daughter were plotting.

And she had a terrible feeling that an even deeper trap was waiting for her.