All Chapters of Discarded by My Family, I Proved Them Wrong: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The living room of the residence was lit by a single standing lamp with a pale yellow glow, leaving the corners of the room in shadow.Leovan stood in the middle of it, his coat still dripping rainwater onto the wooden floor. His hair was disheveled, his eyes red, and his hands, the skin torn open across the knuckles, were clenched at his sides. He had not sat down, though Marta had invited him twice.Footsteps sounded from the hallway. Sean appeared in the doorway in a wrinkled shirt, his face expressionless, and closed the hallway door behind him with one slow motion."Young Master Dominique," he greeted coldly. "You've come a long way.""Where is Valena?" There was no pleasantry in Leovan's voice. He took one step forward. "I saw her at the door earlier. I know she's inside. I want to see her.""No."That single word fell like an iron door swinging shut.Leovan's jaw tightened. "Dr. Weiss, I didn't come here to argue...""Then we agree." Sean walked past him and stopped by the wind

**Chapter 44**Morning came later than usual.The first light slipped through the gap in the curtains in pale streaks that fell across the white blanket, and through the thin mist still clinging to the windowpane, Lake Machrie Terrai Aveneu looked like a painting not yet dry. Sean opened his eyes slowly, and only when his awareness had fully returned did he feel something unfamiliar at his waist.A hand.That small, warm hand was curled around his side, as though all night long he had been the only thing to hold on to in the middle of dark water. Sean did not move. His breath caught, and for several seconds he only stared at the ceiling, listening to the soft, even breathing of the girl beside him. Valena was still asleep, her face pressed into the pillow, strands of hair fallen across part of her cheek, as peaceful as someone who was finally no longer dreaming of nightmares.His eyes drifted toward the window. The mist still lay over the lake, hiding the far shore, and his gaze swept

"Doctor, that's..."Valena's sentence hung in the air, trembling amid the wind that stirred the daisy petals. Her fingers, which had been twirling a single stem, now stiffened, and every trace of color left her face in a single breath."It's all right," Sean said quietly. "Don't look over there."He did not turn again toward the figure at the far end of the meadow. He only looked at Valena, shifting his body slightly so that his shoulder blocked her line of sight, and in an instant the world between them narrowed to a single blanket, a stretch of white flowers, and two pairs of eyes locked together."Let's simply enjoy today," he continued, his voice calm as lake water in the morning. "I'll take you around. You owe no explanation to anyone here."Valena bit her lip. Her eyes were glistening, and she seemed about to say something, but no words managed to come out.Sean leaned closer, slowly, until the distance between them was no more than a hand's breadth. His breath was warm against

Elara, how did you know where I am?The message was sent just like that, with no greeting, with no extra punctuation.Leovan stared at his phone screen, waiting. One minute. Five minutes. The "sent" mark changed to "read," but the reply he hoped for never came. The inn room was so quiet that he could hear the hum of the air conditioner and the ticking of the clock in the corner.He drew a long breath and tried to think clearly. No one knew he was in this city, except the private investigator he had hired and Dr. Weiss. His ticket record was not something just anyone could see. So how had his sister found out, so quickly, so smoothly, without a sound?His thoughts spun, yet his memory kept returning to other things. Sean's cold sentences in the tea house. *The price you must pay for that rainy night.* Valena's face in the daisy field, smiling for someone else, and that man's touch on his sister, careful, unhesitating, as if he had done it a thousand times.Leovan closed his eyes. Somet

The cafeteria on the ground floor of Aethelgrad Central Station was never truly empty, and that was exactly why Elara had chosen it.People came and went with suitcases and paper bags, workers sipped coffee while staring up at the train schedule board, and no one paid any attention to a girl sitting alone in the farthest corner. Elara had arrived first. She had picked a table with its back against the wall, from where she could watch the entire room without anyone being able to see her face. Her heavy coat covered her to the knees, a pair of tall boots encased her legs, and on her face, a pair of dark sunglasses left only a faint cold glint behind the black lenses.The cup of coffee before her had long since gone cold. She had not touched it.The clock on the wall pointed to exactly two in the afternoon when a man appeared at the entrance. He stopped, scanned the room nervously, then walked hesitantly down the rows of tables until he finally reached the corner where Elara sat."Good a