Epilogue

After wallowing in pain and emotional agony for days, the father and son made a desperate decision. They would seek Lucy out, leaving their six-year-old child to care for Stella. Maybe — just maybe — she would find it in her heart to forgive them and take them back.

They left for the city and spent a month moving from place to place, surviving on scraps and leftovers from trash cans and events. Hunger and exhaustion became their constant companions.

Finally, luck smiled on them one day when they spotted Lucy at one of her company headquarters. Seeing it as their only chance, they struggled fiercely against the security guards holding them back. Amidst the commotion, Lucy stepped out of her car. She noticed the two tattered, beggar-like men and felt a strange sense of familiarity.

She instructed the guards to let them through. The two desperate men ran forward and fell to their knees before her.

“Lucy… We have finally found you,” Marcus said hoarsely.

“Mom, we’ve been looking for you for so long,” Jaycee added.

Lucy and the people around them were stunned into silence. It was only then that Lucy finally recognized them.

“Marcus? Jaycee? Is that really you?” she asked, barely able to believe her eyes.

“Yes, it’s us,” Marcus replied.

Lucy instructed her guards to take them to a nearby hotel so they could wash up and change their clothes. She also asked them to bring the pair to a restaurant afterward, where she would meet them.

When Lucy arrived at the restaurant, she found Marcus and Jaycee wolfing down food so hungrily that people at other tables were staring. Oblivious to the glances, they kept eating. Lucy took the remaining seat at their table and ordered more dishes, her heart aching at how thin and starved they looked.

After they finished eating, they thanked her profusely. Lucy nodded and went straight to the point.

“Why were you looking for me?”

Marcus bowed his head in shame and narrated everything that had happened to them over the past few years. Jaycee also confessed how he and Stella had plotted together to frame her that fateful day. Afterward, both father and son dropped to their knees and begged for forgiveness.

Lucy sat in silence for a long time, staring at the people she had wasted her youth on — the same people who had nearly destroyed her life. She had imagined this moment many times, but now that it was here, it didn’t feel as satisfying as she had expected.

Not wanting to carry the weight of the past any longer, she forgave them and told them to stand up. She made it clear that she wanted nothing more to do with them, but out of pity, she handed Marcus a cheque for five hundred thousand dollars. Then she stood up and walked away, ignoring their desperate pleas.

---

That night, when Lucy returned home, her husband and children welcomed her with cheerful warmth. During dinner, she recounted the day’s events to Karl. She had met him six years ago during the exclusive fashion program. He was the one who approached her first, saying she looked familiar.

It was then that Lucy learned the shocking truth: Karl was Marcus’s older brother, the one who had broken his leg and fallen into a coma after the same accident that killed their father. Lucy had always assumed he was receiving treatment abroad, but the reality was far crueler.

Stella had stopped paying for his treatment. After he woke up and discovered he could no longer walk, she abandoned him in a foster home. Fortunately, a kind couple adopted him. With their love and dedicated rehabilitation, he eventually regained his ability to walk.

The two grew close during the program and gradually fell in love. Years later, they were now successful, happily married, and proud parents to adorable triplets.

“Do you have a hand in Marcus’s company downfall?” Lucy asked her husband. She found it hard to believe that a once-thriving empire could collapse so completely in just a few years.

“Ummm… maybe, maybe not,” Karl smirked.

“You didn’t,” Lucy gasped.

“Oh yes, I did.”

“Why? He’s your brother, remember?”

“Why?” Karl replied, peeling shrimp for her. “Because he deserves it after what he did to you. And no — he’s not my brother anymore. They abandoned me. We don’t even share the same surname now.”

Lucy nodded thoughtfully. In many ways, she and Karl were alike — both had been abandoned by the people who should have loved them most.

“My best friend Ashley is coming over tomorrow. I can’t wait to see her,” she said excitedly, pushing thoughts of the past aside.

“I can’t wait to finally meet her too. You’ve spoken so highly of her all these years.”

“Yes. She truly is the absolute best.”

---

Meanwhile, when Marcus and Jaycee finally returned to the mountain village, they received devastating news: Stella had passed away. Amidst their grief, Marcus got a call from the police station asking him to identify a body.

When he arrived, he found Clara lying pale and lifeless on a cold table.

“What happened to her?” he asked, voice trembling.

“She was found dead in a nightclub. She died of a drug overdose.”

The End.