The Man Who Waited vs. The Man Who Wasted novel Chapter 193

"I hope you die alone!"

Adrian scoffed. "You don't need to worry about me. I have a son. You should be worried about yourself."

Jocelyn spat back, "Who knows who the real father of your 'so-called son' is?"

Audrey flinched violently, taking a frantic step forward. "Jocelyn! You have gone too far!"

Adrian immediately pulled Audrey behind him, shielding her. "I wasn't going to tell you yet, but I already had Todd send Leo's blood sample to the lab for a paternity test. The results should be ready any day now."

"I'll make sure you see the report with your own eyes, and prove once and for all that Leo is a Lowell!"

Audrey's fingers dug viciously into Adrian's jacket. The color drained entirely from her face. She hadn't expected this...

"Adrian... what did you say?"

Adrian instantly realized his mistake. He scrambled to reassure her. "Audrey, please don't take it the wrong way. She wouldn't stop screaming about Leo not being mine, so I just wanted to get the test to shut her up."

"I don't doubt you for a second. Please don't overthink this."

Tears spilled freely down Audrey's face. "Why didn't you talk to me first? You should have asked me! Doing it behind my back... how am I supposed to not overthink it?"

"Audrey..." Adrian panicked. "Please don't cry. It's really not what you think. I would never question if Leo was my flesh and blood."

To prove it, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight embrace, completely ignoring Jocelyn standing right in front of him.

Her father was lying in a freezing coffin just feet away.

And Adrian was coddling his mistress.

Jocelyn's eyes darted around the room, desperate for a weapon. Her gaze locked onto a heavy porcelain vase filled with fake flowers resting on a nearby table.

She lunged for it. But just as her fingers brushed the porcelain, a firm hand wrapped around her wrist, stopping her.

Liam Bancroft, dressed in a sharp black suit, his face grim and terrifyingly composed, stepped in front of her. "Let me handle this."

The second the words left his mouth, Liam spun and delivered a brutal roundhouse kick squarely to the center of Adrian's back.

"You absolute fool. You idiot."

If she had just walked away from Adrian sooner, none of this would have happened. She killed her father. She had turned her entire existence into a pathetic joke.

Jocelyn pressed her bruised cheek against the cold glass of the casket, desperately trying to warm it with her own body heat.

Beaten and bleeding, Adrian grabbed Audrey and dragged her out of the funeral home, thoroughly humiliated.

To the untrained eye, it might have looked like Jocelyn won the fight.

But Jocelyn knew the truth. She had lost everything.

Scalding tears slipped from her eyes, dripping onto the glass panel.

They say losing a loved one isn't a violent thunderstorm; it's a relentless, suffocating dampness that seeps into your bones for the rest of your life. There were too many unsaid words, too many broken promises. How was she supposed to carry this weight?

Through her blurred, tear-filled vision, Jocelyn saw a familiar silhouette slowly approach and stop quietly beside her, his brow furrowed in deep concern.