The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 229

Chapter 207: At The Gate

Bella POV

I was on my second coffee and a conference call with the international office when Lena appeared in the doorway. She had the look she always gave me when something needed my attention but wasn’t an

emergency yet.

I held up one finger as she waited.

I finished the call in three minutes, faster than scheduled, and looked at her. “What?”

“Mrs. Hart is at the front gate,” Lena said. “She has been there for about eight minutes. She is being loud.”

I put my coffee down. “How loud?”

“The neighbors across the street have their lights on.”

I checked the time. It was 8:47 AM. Tom was at school, Caleb was in his study and Grace was with Nadia in the nursery, which was on the other side of the house and wouldn’t catch the noise. I stood up.

“Leave her at the gate,” I said. “I’ll go out.”

“Bella”

“She is not coming inside,” I said. “Leave her at the gate.”

I heard Margaret before I saw her.

“sitting in that cell because of her, because of what she did! And nobody is saying a word about what she has put this family through!”

She stood at the front gate in a cream coat. Her face was flushed and her hair was messy. Her usual neat composure was completely gone. Two of Lena’s security guards stood near her, not touching her, just staying close.

She saw me coming down the path and her voice grew louder.

“There she is,” she said. The bitterness in her voice was so strong it sounded almost like grief. “There is the woman who destroyed my family. Look at you. Walking out of your beautiful house”

“Margaret,” I said.

“My daughter is in prison.” Her voice cracked slightly, then she tightened up. “My daughter is in prison and you are standing there in your”

“Your daughter kidnapped my five-year-old son and put him through harsh conditions,” I said, stopping a few feet from the gate and looking at her.

“When Tom went missing, I didn’t see you. When he was in that warehouse, I didn’t get a call. When I was standing in an empty building at six in the morning trying to find my child, you were nowhere.” I paused then continued. “So do not come to my gate and talk to me about what Jade is going through.”

“She is my child”

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<Chapter 202 The Gate

Claim

“And Tom is mine.” I said. “And you helped her. You sat with her and you gave her ammunition. You sent me a text telling me you knew things about my past because you thought it would hurt me.” I held her gaze. “How much did you give her, Margaret? How much of what you knew did you hand over to her in those visits?”

Margaret’s hands tightened on the gate lock. “I don’t know what you are

“The visitor logs are court documents now,” I said. “I am going to ask you something, and I want you to answer me honestly for the first time in your life.”

I let a second pass.

“Tell me the truth about who I am. About Elaine. About where I came from. Say it out loud, at my gate, to my face.”

The color left Margaret’s face.

The security team stood very silent. Somewhere down the street, a car drove past but the sound felt very far away.

“I don’t” she started.

“Say it,” I said quietly. “You’ve been holding it for years. Jade is in prison, Richard has nothing left, and there is nobody left to protect. Just say it.”

Her jaw moved as her hands on the gate lock loosened slightly, as if something inside her had finally broken.

“You were my sister’s child,” Margaret said. “Elaine’s not mine.”

“And my father?”

“A man she met in Geneva, he was French. She never told me his name. I don’t”

“You knew enough to take money from her estate,” I said. “You knew enough to register me as yours. What else did you know?”

“I knew she loved him,” Margaret said but her voice went thin and uncertain.”I knew she wrote to him and he never came back, then she got sick and she made me promise.” Her eyes were wet, Jt was the most alarming thing I had ever seen on her face. “She made me promise I’d keep you. That I’d make sure you were” She stopped.

“That you’d make sure I was what?” I asked.

Margaret looked at me and for the first time in years, she looked at me without her usual cold distance.

What lay underneath was complicated, ugly, and very human. She was a woman who had looked at her dead sister’s daughter every day, feeling nothing warm.

“She wanted you to know you were loved,” Margaret said quietly.

“I didn’t know that,” I said. “I didn’t know any of that because you never told me.” I looked at her for a long moment. “Elaine tried to tell me herself. She left a letter with a law firm before she died. She did her part but you didn’t do yours.”

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< Chapter 207 The Gate

Margaret closed her eyes briefly.”

Claim

“I’m not going to sue you,” I said. “You’re not worth the time, and Tom doesn’t need another court case in

his life.” I took a step back. “But I need you to hear this clearly, you are not welcome here. Not at this gate, not near my children, not in any capacity. Whatever you and Elaine were to each other, whatever complicated thing you’ve been carrying-that is yours to manage. Not mine.”

I turned and walked back up the path.

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