When Love Turned into Betrayal

Chapter 9: Victoria's Poison

Chapter 9: Victoria's Poison

She was right. Of course she was right. But some part of me, the part that still remembered loving him, wanted to respond. Wanted to believe we could fix this.

That part was an i***t.

"Okay," I said. "What's next?"

Harper consulted her phone. "Bank. Then we go back to the apartment with movers and get your stuff out while he's at work."

"He might not be at work."

"Then we bring Miguel and some very large men who get paid to move heavy furniture." She squeezed my shoulder. "You're not doing this alone. You're never doing this alone."

The elevator reached the lobby. We stepped out into the afternoon sun, and I felt something shift. Something that felt almost like hope.

Marcus Hale was going to destroy Ethan.

And I was going to let him.

Maybe Harper was right. Maybe I really could win this.

I just had to be strong enough to see it through.

The call came while I was at the bank, sitting across from a financial advisor who kept giving me pitying looks.

Victoria.

I stared at her name on the screen, my finger hovering over the decline button.

"Don't answer it," Harper said from beside me. She was filling out paperwork for my new account, all business. "Marcus said no contact with anyone involved."

"Victoria wasn't there that night," I said. "She didn't..."

"She's Layla's mother. She's involved." Harper didn't look up from the forms. "Block her too."

But I couldn't. Something made me answer. Maybe I needed to hear her voice. Maybe I needed her to tell me this was all some horrible misunderstanding. Maybe I was still hoping for the mother figure she'd never really been.

"Hello?"

"Violet." Victoria's voice was smooth, cultured. The voice she used at charity galas and country club brunches. "Thank God. I've been trying to reach you for two days."

"I've been busy," I said flatly.

"I'm sure you have been." A pause. "I wanted to talk to you. About what happened. About Layla."

The financial advisor was pretending not to listen, but I could see her eyes flickering toward me. Harper had stopped writing, her jaw tight.

"There's nothing to talk about," I said.

"Violet, please. Can we at least meet? Have coffee? I think if we could just sit down face to face..."

"Why?" The word came out harsher than I intended. "So you can defend what your daughter did? Make excuses for her?"

"I'm not making excuses." But her tone suggested otherwise. "I just think... these things happen, sweetheart. Marriages are complicated. Sometimes people drift apart and..."

"Don't." I stood up, needing to move. Harper's hand reached for mine but I pulled away. "Don't you dare minimize this. She didn't just happen to drift into bed with my husband. She made a choice. They both did."

"I know you're hurt..."

"Hurt?" I laughed, and the sound made the financial advisor flinch. "You think I'm hurt? Victoria, I found them together. In my home. On my couch. This isn't about being hurt. This is about betrayal."

Silence on the other end. Then, quieter, "I know."

Something in those two words made my blood run cold.

"What do you mean, you know?"

Another pause. Longer this time. "I think we should have this conversation in person."

"No." My voice was shaking now. "No, you're going to tell me right now. What do you mean, you know?"

Harper was standing now too, phone out, probably texting Marcus. But I couldn't focus on her. All I could hear was Victoria's breathing on the other end of the line.

"Victoria. Tell me."

"She came to me," Victoria said finally. "About a year ago. Told me she had... feelings for Ethan. Asked me what she should do."

The room tilted. "A year ago."

"Yes."

"And what did you tell her?"

"I told her..." Victoria hesitated. "I told her that sometimes we can't help who we fall in love with."

"You encouraged her." The words came out flat. Dead. "You knew she wanted my husband and you encouraged her."

"I didn't encourage anything. I simply said that if she had feelings, she should be honest about them."

"Be honest?" I was yelling now. The financial advisor had definitely abandoned any pretense of not listening. "She should be honest? How about being honest with me? How about telling her to back the hell off my husband?"

"Violet, you're being dramatic..."

"Don't." The word cracked like a whip. "Don't you dare tell me I'm being dramatic. Your daughter has been sleeping with my husband for God knows how long, and you knew. You knew and you did nothing."

"I did what I thought was best," Victoria said, and now there was steel in her voice. The polite mask slipping. "For my daughter."

"Your daughter." I laughed again, bitter and broken. "Not for me. Never for me. Even though your husband, my father, asked you to look after me when he died."

"Your father." And there it was. The venom she'd been hiding for seventeen years. "Your father who loved you more than he ever loved Layla. Who gave you everything. The trust fund. The company shares. His time, his attention, his love. While my daughter got scraps."

"That's not my fault."

"Isn't it?" Victoria's voice was cold now. Cruel. "You were his precious firstborn. His perfect little princess. Layla never stood a chance. She was always second best. Always the afterthought. Do you have any idea what that does to a child?"

"So this is my fault?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Layla sleeping with my husband is my fault because Dad loved me?"

"I'm not saying it's your fault. I'm saying I understand why she did it." Victoria exhaled. "You have everything, Violet. You always have. The career. The money. The perfect marriage. Or what you thought was perfect. Can you really blame Layla for wanting a piece of that?"

"Yes!" The word exploded out of me. "Yes, I can blame her! She's my sister!"

"Stepsister," Victoria corrected. Sharp. Deliberate. "She's your stepsister. You share no blood. You're not really family."

The words landed like physical blows. Harper grabbed my arm, steady me.

"Is that what you told her?" I asked quietly. "That we're not really family? That it doesn't count?"

"I told her to follow her heart."

"You told her to steal my husband."

"I told her," Victoria said, each word precise, "that she deserved to be happy. That she deserved to have something good for once in her life. That she shouldn't always have to live in your shadow."

"By destroying me."

"By choosing herself." Victoria's tone shifted. Softer now. Almost gentle. "Violet, I know you can't see it now, but this is probably for the best. Ethan clearly wasn't happy. Neither were you, if you're being honest. Maybe this is the universe's way of..."

"Stop." I couldn't listen anymore. "Just stop."

"I'm trying to help you see..."

"You're not trying to help me. You never have." The truth of it settled over me like a weight. "You've resented me from the day you married my father. And now you're using this, using Layla, to finally put me in my place."

"That's not..."

"It is." I was crying now, hot angry tears. "You coached her. You knew what was happening and you let it happen. Maybe you even helped plan it. Because this wasn't just about Layla wanting Ethan. This was about taking something from me. About proving that I'm not untouchable."

Silence. Then, so quiet I almost missed it, "You're not."

The admission hung in the air between us.

"I want you to know something," I said, my voice steady despite the tears. "When I'm done destroying Ethan, when I've taken everything he values, every asset, every share, every penny? I'm coming for you too."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a promise." I wiped my face. "Dad left you comfortable. Secure. But he also left provisions in his will. Stipulations about how you treat me. How you honor his memory. I've never invoked them before because I wanted to believe we were family. But we're not, are we? You just said so yourself."

Victoria's breathing changed. "Violet, you wouldn't..."

"Watch me." I hung up.

My hands were shaking so badly I dropped the phone. Harper caught it, set it on the table, and pulled me into a hug.

"She knew," I whispered against her shoulder. "She knew for a year and she encouraged it."

"I know. I heard." Harper's voice was tight with rage. "That absolute bitch."

The financial advisor cleared her throat. "Should I... give you two a moment?"

"No." I pulled back, wiped my face. "No, I'm fine. Let's finish this."

But I wasn't fine. I was the opposite of fine. Because Victoria's words had confirmed what I'd been afraid to believe.

This wasn't just about Layla wanting Ethan. This wasn't just about an affair.

This was calculated. Planned. Orchestrated by a woman who'd spent seventeen years smiling at me while quietly poisoning her daughter against me.

Harper's phone buzzed. She looked at it, frowned. "Marcus wants us to come back to his office. Now."

"Why?"

"He didn't say. Just said it's urgent."

We finished at the bank in record time, my new accounts set up with only my name on them. My inheritance, my salary, everything that was mine now locked away where Ethan couldn't touch it.

Small victory. But a victory nonetheless.

In the Uber back to Marcus's office, Harper squeezed my hand.

"What Victoria said, about your dad's will. Did he really leave provisions?"

"Yes." I stared out the window at the city rushing past. "Provisions that say if Victoria ever acts against my interests, she forfeits certain benefits. A monthly allowance. Access to the house in the Hamptons. Some investments."

"You could actually take that from her?"

"If I can prove she deliberately helped Layla hurt me? Yes." I looked at Harper. "And I can prove it. That phone call? I recorded it."

Harper's eyes widened. "You sneaky genius."

"Marcus said document everything." I pulled out my phone, showed her the recording app. "So I am."

"Victoria's going to lose her mind when she finds out."

"Good." I put the phone away. "Let her. I'm done protecting people who want to hurt me."

The Uber pulled up to Marcus's building. We rode the elevator in silence, but my mind was racing.