Five Years Wasted Now They Beg Her Back novel Chapter 448

“It’s been twenty-eight years.”

Lottie Grant looked at the complete pendant, a complex light flashing in her eyes. “It’s finally whole.”

“Why?” Grace stared at Lottie. “If you’re my sister, if you were alive, why did Mom never say anything? Since you were alive, why did you never look for me? Why… was I left alone in that hell?”

Her voice was losing control.

She was demanding answers.

Questioning fate, and questioning this glamorous sister before her.

Why?

Why did one of them, with the exact same face, have to struggle for survival in the mud—drained of blood, abused, and humiliated—while the other got to paint in the sun, living so freely and stylishly?

Lottie fell silent.

“Grace.”

Lottie reached out, wanting to take her hand, but Grace instinctively pulled away.

Lottie’s hand froze in mid-air. She withdrew it with a bitter smile.

“I was taken to Valeria right after I was born.”

Lottie began to speak slowly, her voice sounding distant. “When Mom gave birth to us, it was at a private clinic. She already knew what kind of man Alistair Hart was, and she knew that a viper’s nest like the Hart family would devour people.”

“When she was four months pregnant, she found out she was having twins through an ultrasound.”

Grace’s fingers tightened around her coffee cup, her knuckles turning white.

“Mom was afraid the Hart family wouldn’t tolerate two daughters, and she was even more afraid that… both children would be destroyed by them.”

Lottie took a deep breath. “So, she made a decision.”

“She contacted her best friend in Valeria, who became my adoptive mother, Claire Grant.”

“On the day of the delivery, she bribed the doctor and only let Alistair Hart see you. I, on the other hand, was taken away that very night by Mrs. Grant, who forged a birth certificate and made me a child of the Grant family.”

Grace’s breathing grew ragged.

“Why me?”

Her eyes were red as she spoke, her voice trembling. “Why was I the one left behind? Why wasn't I the one sent away?”

“It means that in your genes, you inherited that special trait from the Helix Line—one that is easier to track and also more likely to manifest as talent,” Lottie explained, looking at her. “Mom believed that in an environment like the Hart family, an ordinary child might be raised to be useless, but a gifted child… might be able to fight her way out.”

“I was the ordinary one.” Lottie pointed to herself. “Apart from painting, I’m clueless about numbers and technology. If I had been the one to stay, I probably would have been dead at Sabrina’s hands long ago.”

“Mom used you as bait.”

Lottie’s words were brutal, but they were the truth. “She left you in the Hart family to attract all the fire, all the malice. Because she bet on your ability to survive.”

“And I… was her backup plan.”

“If one day you couldn’t survive in the Hart family, or if the Hart family was completely destroyed, I was to be the clean, untouched seed to carry on her bloodline.”

Hearing these words, Grace felt a chill run through her entire body.

Was this a mother’s love?

It was too rational.

So rational it was almost cruel.

“Then what does that make me?” Grace let out a bitter laugh as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Just a shield? A sacrifice?”