The Hidden Empress Stripping Her Secrets After Divorce novel Chapter 117

Lyra jolted almost imperceptibly at those words. She immediately dropped her head, a demure flush spreading across her cheeks (whether genuine or not, no one could tell). Her fingers nervously twisted the hem of her oversized shirt as she sniffled softly. "Penelope... please, don't say that... I chose to stay and take care of him last night. I don't blame him for what happened... He really doesn't owe me anything..." She spoke the words of a martyr, but her pathetic, long-suffering posture—like a woman swallowing an ocean of injustice—was infinitely more powerful than any direct demand.

Hearing this, Penelope was overcome with sympathy for Lyra and sheer fury toward her son. She glared at Christian. "Do you hear her, Christian?! Look how understanding she is! After everything, she's still putting you first! And look at you! Are you even a man? Lyra is a perfectly respectable woman who suffered endlessly for you, raised Leo completely on her own, and now you've practically ravaged her... How can you just stand there like a statue? The Lancaster family does not raise irresponsible, heartless cowards who treat women like disposable trash!"

"Mom!" Christian roared, a vein pulsing wildly at his temple. Looking at his mother demanding he "take responsibility" as if it were a forgone conclusion, and staring at Lyra's perfectly tragic performance, the suffocating rage inside him flared into an absolute inferno. Take responsibility? How? Marry her? Over one blurred, chaotic night of passion that had likely been orchestrated from the start?

He wouldn't deny that seeing the dark bruises on Lyra's skin and imagining how brutal he must have been filled him with guilt. But feeling guilty was lightyears away from "having to marry her." And more importantly, those photos were wedged into his brain like a splinter of glass. Evelyn... the drug... Was any of this actually a coincidence?

"It's not that simple!" Christian snapped, his voice thick with suppressed rage and sheer impatience. "My head is a mess right now, and I need time to figure this out! The photos, last night—everything needs to be investigated! Now is not the time to demand commitments!"

"Investigated? What the hell is there to investigate?!" Penelope flared up, refusing to let him wiggle out of this. "The photos prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Evelyn orchestrated this! That vile woman is trying to destroy you! As for last night... you're a grown man, and you did what you did! Lyra is a fragile woman; it's not like she could force herself onto you! Let me make this perfectly clear, Christian. If you refuse to face the music and do wrong by Lyra and Leo, I swear to you, neither I, nor your father, nor your late grandfather will ever forgive you!"

Cyrus, still standing silently in the corner, watched the explosive argument unfold, his frown deepening by the second. His gaze drifted from Penelope practically holding a shotgun to her son's head, to Lyra weeping pitifully, and finally to Christian's suffocating frustration. Lastly, his eyes subtly shifted back to Lyra's bone-white knuckles gripping the shirt, and the incredibly fast, deliberate flutter of her eyelashes behind her downcast gaze.

The sense of sheer wrongness settling in Cyrus's gut grew stronger. Lyra's reactions were... too perfect. So textbook it felt like a thoroughly rehearsed scene. And Christian's resistance went far beyond simple guilt or confusion—there was a profound, fundamental rejection echoing underneath his words. As for those photos... the timing and the blatant target they painted were incredibly convenient. He lowered his eyes, completely burying his suspicions deep down. It was not his place to speak.

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