The Stolen Life- My Mother Gave My Fiancé to Her Favorite Student novel Chapter 10

Once, Margaret had loomed over me like a heavy, suffocating tower–cold, unyielding, and stifling.

But age had softened her. She’d learned to play the victim, desperate to mend what was left of our bond.

She begged me through tears to speak to my father, to plead with him to overlook her foolish, reckless deeds

from years ago, for the sake of the love they’d once shared.

After all, she claimed, if she hadn’t suffered through all that hardship, he never would have had a daughter as accomplished as me.

My father didn’t put me in an uncomfortable position.

He simply had Margaret sent back to Willowbrook, cutting off all contact so she could no longer harass me,

and left me in peace to heal.

He always said that adult grudges should never come at the cost of a child’s happiness.

He owed me far too much, and he intended to make it right with actions, not words.

Three years later.

I finally stood on my own two feet again.

My courses as a visiting student at Havenswood University had also come to a successful end.

My father offered me a position at one of the family’s subsidiaries to gain experience.

He told me that the Voss heirs were not limited to my two younger brothers.

If I had the skill and drive, I could reach the very top too.

But my ambitions were never that grand.

The world was vast and wide.

I wanted to spend part of my life building a career, and the rest wandering to every corner of the globe, helping those in need.

My two younger brothers, who hated doing their homework, groaned in protest.

“Why didn’t you take Dad’s place sooner? He and Aunt Catherine are so tough on us, we can’t catch a break.”

I was in Turkey, assisting refugees who had survived a devastating earthquake, when my phone rang.

It was Jax.

His voice was ragged, worn thin with exhaustion and despair.

“Elara. Is that you? I’ve been looking for you for so long… Where are you? Are you safe?”

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I glanced at the busy crowd of aid workers nearby and replied coolly, “I’m busy. Just say what you need to say.”

“I know I was wrong, Elara. I’m so sorry.”

Jax’s voice dropped suddenly, thick with forced sobs.

“I was an idiot. I was blind. I never should have betrayed you for Lila, or taken Margaret’s side and said those cruel things to hurt you.”

“I’ve regretted it every single day. I cut ties with Lila years ago. You’re the only one who’s ever mattered to me.”

After Margaret returned to Willowbrook, she’d fallen apart.

She drifted through life in a daze, nearly unhinged.

Lila was thrilled at first.

Even a ruined man has a few scraps to his name.

Pressured by her parents, who wanted her to secure jobs in the city for her two younger brothers, Lila planned to move them into Margaret’s house.

She laid on the sweet talk thick, gushing about how kind Margaret had been, taking her in during high school and giving her a better life.

Once, those empty compliments had worked on Margaret.

But after her trip to Havenridge City, Margaret had finally woken up.

She often wondered if she had treated me better, had she not resented me for having the same eyes as my late grandmother, would things have been different?

Maybe when the Voss family found me, they wouldn’t have written her off as a cruel, abusive mother.

Margaret slapped Lila hard across the face, screaming in fury.

“You vile girl! You’ve been manipulative and wicked since you were young.”

“If you hadn’t pried into my past when I was drunk, and turned me against my daughter at every turn, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

Lila fired back without hesitation, accusing Margaret of never truly caring about her future.

All the jobs Margaret had arranged were dead–end positions–either a substitute teacher or a municipal office clerk.

They were stable, sure.

But the pay was nowhere near enough to support her entire family.

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The two erupted into a vicious shouting match.

In a fit of rage, Margaret pushed Lila down a flight of stairs.

Lila lost the baby she’d been carrying.

The Mae family rushed to town overnight, demanding justice and three million dollars in compensation, threatening to bring the whole village to the Voss family’s doorstep to harass me if they didn’t get the money.

But their scheme never even made it out of their village.

My father’s men shut it down immediately.

Every debt has its debtor, every wrong its doer.

No one was going to disturb my recovery.

Margaret had no choice but to sell her house and pay half the sum to the Mae family.

She was forced to rent a tiny, run–down apartment.

She scavenged for wilted produce to cook with, thinking that punishing herself and living in misery would

earn my sympathy and fix our broken relationship.

She flooded my phone with messages on every holiday, begging for forgiveness, insisting she was wrong.

But the Voss family protected me fiercely.

Not a single word of it ever reached me.

Jax’s voice was bitter and hollow.

“The family business went bankrupt. My parents blame Margaret and Lila for everything. They’re forcing me

to divorce her.”

“I want to leave her, but Lila’s lost her mind. She can’t have children anymore–no one else will want her. She

won’t let me go.”

He sobbed about his miserable, suffocating life.

The Mae family was utterly hopeless, beyond all help.

They’d taken the hundreds of thousands in compensation and gambled it all away within days, leaving

behind a mountain of debt.

Lila was obsessed with supporting her brothers, bleeding her family dry to send money and gifts back home, stealing whatever she could from the Cole family to send back home–even a pair of nice shoes, a box of

cherries, a carton of eggs.

I could only be grateful that Betty Cole had passed away years earlier, spared from the chaos and misery.

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Jax’s voice shook with desperation.

“Elara, I know I hurt you. I’m so sorry.”

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