The Flower That Grew from Ashes novel Chapter 110

The existence of the whip wasn't exactly a secret among Cresthaven's elite.

Annelise had only seen it once, tucked away in the Lehman family's dim, windowless shrine. She had been accompanying Lizzie to pray when she spotted the black whip coiled perfectly on a rosewood tray, resting on the corner of the altar like a hibernating viper.

Back then, she had innocently asked Harriet what it was.

Harriet had simply turned pale, shaken her head, and told her not to ask questions.

She hadn't understood its purpose then.

But now, she was about to witness it firsthand.

Everyone in the room fully expected that the strike—fueled by a mother's endless humiliation and rage—would brutally land on Clarissa, who was sobbing uncontrollably on the floor.

Lizzie's hand was firmly on the buckle.

A sharp click echoed from the metal clasp under her trembling fingers.

It sounded horrifyingly loud in the dead-silent hall.

But a second later, she froze.

She didn't unsheathe the whip.

Instead, she violently spun around. Her bloodshot, manic eyes locked onto Annelise, who had been sitting quietly in her chair the entire time.

"This is all your fault!"

Lizzie let out a psychotic screech and lunged at Annelise like an enraged animal.

"You're a curse! You're a jinx!"

Her voice was shrill and deformed by sheer madness.

"Ever since you joined our family, we haven't had a single day of peace! Elias's accident was entirely your fault!"

"You barren failure! You were just jealous Clarissa could give us a grandson! That's why you whispered your little lies to Elias to make him ruin today!"

"I'll kill you, you bitch!"

In Lizzie's entirely shattered and deranged mind, the culprits weren't the cheating son and the lying bride.

It was Annelise.

The surrounding guests gasped in horror, scrambling backward to avoid the deranged matriarch's path of destruction.

A few men close to the family looked as though they might intervene, but the second they stepped forward, Lizzie's feral glare forced them back.

The entire hall was paralyzed by this sudden, barbaric escalation of violence.

It was an absurd, archaic nightmare playing out in real-time.

Lizzie closed the distance to Annelise.

She had abandoned the whip, having snatched a heavy crystal ashtray from the head table instead.

She raised it high above her head, the veins in her arms bulging, and slammed it down with every ounce of her strength onto Annelise's shoulder and back.

The first hit.

A sickening, heavy thud.

Annelise didn't even have time to scream before the sheer force knocked her to the floor.

The glass slipped from her hand, shattering into pieces across the marble.

The sharp edges of the crystal sliced her bare arm, drawing immediate beads of blood.

The second hit.

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