To Love a Shadow, To Be the Sun novel Chapter 119

She wanted nothing more than to drive a knife straight into Elara's heart.

But Elara just wrinkled her nose in distaste.

"Can't you smell that reek coming off you?"

Lina blinked, confused. "I showered."

Elara gave her a thin, icy smile. "It's a rank, rotten smell. Your mother must be used to it by now."

Lina's eyes flashed with anger. "My mother is your elder. Have you no manners?"

Elara's voice remained calm, almost bored. "I'm about to divorce Brian—she's nothing to me. And you, a mistake made because someone couldn't keep their belt buckled, really think you've got the right to talk to me?"

Lina had never realized just how venomous Elara's tongue could be.

"I've been with Brian for ten years. I was his long before you came along. If anyone's the homewrecker here, it's you. Maybe you should save all that nasty talk for yourself."

"Ten years, and you still don't know what it means to be legitimate? Looks like your mother only taught you how to take shortcuts."

As she spoke, Elara grabbed the stool by her dressing table and hurled it at Lina.

Lina dodged, but the stool smashed through the window with a crash.

The noise startled Brian.

He walked in to find Elara pinning Lina's arms to the table and slapping her twice, hard.

"Brian—!"

Lina burst into tears the moment she saw him.

Brian's face was expressionless as he looked at Elara. "Already bounced back from your sickbed, I see."

Elara let go of Lina, glancing at her own hand with a look of disgust.

"You just had to bring her here to provoke me. Isn't this what you wanted?"

Brian shot Lina a look, signaling her to leave.

She wiped her tears and headed for the door.

"Wait," Elara said coldly.

Lina hesitated, voice trembling. "What do you want now?"

Elara's smile was razor-sharp. "I'd rather give my old clothes to the dog as rags than let someone like you touch them. Take it off."

Tears welled up in Lina's eyes again.

This wasn't theater—Elara's words really cut that deep.

"I'll change right away."

Elara glanced at the spot on the desk where a stack of papers lay scattered—sure enough, one page was missing.

Not bad, Lina. Even while getting slapped around you're scheming.

Brian returned to his study, where Lina was waiting.

"Brian, I found this in her room."

She handed him a sheet of paper. It was a rough map of the estate, with several spots marked.

"She picked a fight and broke the window on purpose. She wants to use that window to escape in the middle of the night when no one's around."

Brian didn't react.

At that moment, Yves Caldwell entered.

"Mr. Vincent, there's a problem."

Brian turned to him.

Yves came closer, voice low. "This morning, a blogger posted a video questioning ‘Where's Mrs. Vincent?' and it shot up the trending list in under an hour. Luckily, I caught it fast, but—"

"But what?" Brian's eyes narrowed.

"But as fast as we take them down, more keep popping up. I've got someone working on it around the clock. When Mrs. Vincent caused that scene at your anniversary gala, rumors started, but no videos got out, so we could still control it. Now that the internet's openly buzzing about your marriage, it's going to be tough to explain to the board and our clients."