LOGINValeria's POVA bitter laugh escaped her."Eren is a horrible man and we will never be able to tell how his mind works. The investigator found out that Eren cut off all connection with his mistress and I'm just speculating but I think he tried to harm her because she fled to a small town in Rhode Island and laid low for a couple of years."I listened silently."She got married there, had a bunch of kids and is divorced now."There wasn't even a trace of sympathy in her voice anymore."I like to think karma visited her because her husband was abusive and they had a bad divorce."She looked directly at me."I also believe Isis does not have a relationship with her because they've not been in contact since Isis left the town when she was sixteen."I rubbed my temples slowly."Wow."The word escaped me before I could stop it."That's... a lot to take in."Terra nodded knowingly."It took me a month to fully accept," she uttered. "But I had to come to terms with everything because if I all
Valeria's POVIt wouldn't have been an exaggeration to say that my world exploded for the second time in the span of an hour.I had thought learning the truth about my mother had already shattered every foundation my life had been built upon, but apparently fate wasn't done with me yet.The words themselves were simple enough. There was nothing complicated about them. Yet as they echoed over and over inside my head, they became impossible to comprehend.They simply refused to fit into the reality I'd known my entire life.I stared blankly at my mother, convinced that I must have misheard her."What did you just say?"Terra looked at me sadly, as though she already knew how devastating it would be to repeat those words."Isis is Eren's illegitimate daughter and your half sister."For several long seconds, I could only blink at her.My brain simply stopped functioning."I—But—"The words wouldn't come.I shook my head over and over, trying to reject the absurdity of what I'd just heard.
Valeria’s POV“I'm so sorry for everything you had to go through,” I whispered brokenly, my voice barely recognizable even to my own ears. “This whole time I thought you'd abandoned me and Dad but… but you were actually… in hell.”My chest tightened so painfully it felt like something sharp had lodged itself between my ribs. I could barely breathe around the horror clawing its way through me. Every image from that file kept flashing through my mind over and over again. The restraints. The burns. The bruises. The reports documenting her suffering so clinically, as though she wasn't a human being but some failed experiment trapped inside a cage.I stared at the woman in front of me, at my mother, and suddenly all I could see was twenty-five years of unimaginable pain.“Why would Dad do that to you?” I asked shakily. “I thought he loved you. What kind of person does that to anyone? He ruined your life and he's been lying to me this whole time.”Fresh tears spilled down my cheeks despite
Valeria’s POVTerra looked exhausted as she sat across from me. The tears staining her face made her appear older somehow, more fragile than the terrifying ghost I had built up in my mind over the last twenty-six years. “Our picture perfect family image was much more important to him than my mental health and my feelings,” she resumed quietly. “He tried to gaslight me into staying, talking about how a broken home would severely affect you growing up but I told him you growing up and finding out he cheated would be far worse because of how much you idolized him.”I swallowed hard.The way she said idolized hit too close to home because it was true. Growing up, I had worshipped my father completely. In my eyes, Eren Daelmont could do no wrong. He was powerful, intelligent, protective and endlessly devoted to me after Terra disappeared.Everything I believed about love and safety had been built around him.Terra uttered, her voice trembling slightly.“He quickly switched to manipulation
Valeria’s POVThe words felt unreal at first. They hovered in the air between us like something poisonous, something too twisted and absurd for my brain to fully process. But no matter how badly I wanted to dismiss Terra as a liar or a lunatic, I couldn’t deny what I had seen with my own eyes.Those scars definitely weren’t fake.The memory of them flashed through my mind again and my stomach twisted violently. The burn marks. The raised flesh. The ugly, uneven patches spread across her skin like evidence of prolonged torture. No amount of makeup or theatrics could fabricate something that horrific.I hated that part of me softened at the sight.I hated that despite everything, despite twenty-six years of resentment and abandonment and grief, there was still a part of me that reacted instinctively to her pain.Forcing down the voice in my head that reminded me I couldn’t trust her, I let out a slow breath and moved away from the door, lowering myself back into the chair.“ You have 5
Valeria's POV “Don’t pretend like you suddenly care for me,” I cut in sharply, my patience snapping. “What is this really about, Terra?”The name slipped out with intention.I saw it hit her immediately. Her eyes widened ever so slightly, the faintest crack in her composure. Good. She didn’t deserve to be called anything else. She wasn’t my mother. Not anymore.“Valeria, please just—”“This is about money, isn’t it?” I interrupted again, my tone laced with biting sarcasm. “Going by your appearance, you’re in desperate need of some cash. Wherever the hell you’ve been didn’t favor you, huh? You couldn’t show your face to Dad so you came to me because you still think I’m that helpless little kid who couldn’t live without her Mom.”“No, sweetheart. You’ve got it all wrong. Please just listen to me for a second—”“Stop it!” I snapped, my voice rising. “Stop with the emotional blackmail, it won’t work on me. I’ve already lost all respect for you, don’t make me lose my humanity as well. If
Luka's POVI knew this was probably a bad idea, but I couldn't help myself. I needed to see Elliot. It had been a while since our park visit and the custody hearing felt like it happened a century ago. I missed my son and that was the simple truth of it.The problem was showing up at the Daelmont m
Valeria's POV We sat there sipping our drinks and talking about nothing in particular. My father asked Elliot about school, about his friends, about what he liked to do for fun. Elliot answered enthusiastically, telling him all about his best friend Marcus who lived next door and how they liked to
Valeria's POVI quickly clicked the phone off and stabbed it into my purse, my heart beating twice as fast.My stomach dropped instantly. The piece of sea bass I'd just put in my mouth went down the wrong chute and suddenly I couldn't breathe.I started choking and coughing, but it didn't dislodge
Valeria's POVThe car pulled up in front of a building that looked more like a palace than a restaurant. A burgundy awning stretched from the entrance to the curb with the restaurant's name embroidered in elegant gold script, Le Bernardin. "Wow!" Elliot exclaimed, pressing his face against the car







