Page 50 of Overdosed: Her Dark Side
“My parents treated me poorly, Melanie,” she sobbed. “They wished to have a son instead. They mistreated me my whole life and saw me only as a means to jump the ladder of society by marrying me off to someone influential. And I… I fell in love with my chauffeur.”
Sounds familiar.
“When they found out about that, they told me that I was useless trash that would disgrace our family. So, I married the man they had chosen for me who treated me like trash my whole life, too.” She burst out in tears. “I stayed by his side because I let them all make me believe that I was worthless.”
I felt that. Too hard. “I’m sorry.” I let out a heavy breath.
“I left your father, Melanie.” She wiped the tears from under her eyes. Suddenly, she seemed empowered.
I couldn’t hide my surprise. I scanned her face carefully, searching for confirmation that it wasn’t a joke.
“I left him months ago and have been searching for you. I have hired a detective. I wanted to find you. All this time…”
“What happened that you finally made that step?”
“I…” She hesitated as if the words were too heavy to speak. “I found out the truth about what happened in the past.” Her gaze became dark.
“What do you mean?” My brows furrowed.
“Dedrick…” She was trembling. “He raped Rose.”
She fell to her knees, desperately crying, covering her face with her hands. I rushed to her, pulling her in an embrace. I didn’t know what to say. I was shocked. My father was a monster. The worst kind. I was disgusted that his blood ran through my veins.
“But it wasn’t the worst part,” my mother choked the words out of her.
“What do you mean?” The hair stood on my skin. Was there anything worse than abusing a woman like that? A woman who was happily married, a woman who had a son. A wife and a mother.
“Rose didn’t overdose.” My mother sobbed so hard I could hardly understand her.
“What do you mean she didn’t? Then what happened?” I cupped my mother’s face in my hands and looked into her eyes. They seemed so numb and deadly.
“Dedrick, he couldn’t stand her rejection, the fact she was expecting Karl’s second baby, that she was happy with him.”
“And?” I insisted, my hands shaking and cold chills sweeping through my body.
“He couldn’t stand she wasn’t his. He didn’t want any other man to have her, especially not Karl, his rival.”
“So? What did he do? What happened, Mom?”
“He forced her to take the pills. He killed her.”
A cold chill ran down my spine.
“That’s one more reason for me to kill that piece of shit,” Karl’s deadly hiss rumbled from behind.
I turned to face the door where he was standing, dressed all in black, exactly in the same manner as Anders who stood beside his side, arming himself with a weapon.
I stood up, staring at Karl. His eyes blazed with lethal darkness.
“Why didn’t you kill him all these years ago?”
Karl’s brow twitched slightly as if with surprise. I couldn’t blame him. I couldn’t believe I actually asked this question out loud myself.
“Rose left me a letter,” his voice trembled. “Explaining she had an affair with Dedrick and carrying his child.”
My eyes narrowed.
“Deep down, I’ve always known it couldn’t be the truth. We loved each other.” His eyes filled with so much pain. “I knew Rose wouldn’t have done that, but I suppose, I wanted to know for sure. To know the truth.” He secured the gun in his belt underneath the black jacket. “A son of an old friend of mine, Sergio Suarez, contacted me and thanks to his help, my soldiers were able to track Shane.”
