Too Late to Hold Me Back novel Chapter 275

Lacey couldn't hold back anymore, her voice trembling with unshed tears.

Her eldest son, the one she had always leaned on, was openly defying her?

"If you want to coddle and spoil her, we won't stop you," Damon said, his sculpted face hardening with displeasure. "But don't try to force everyone else to play along with your delusions."

With that, the two towering brothers left the dining table. They went to their respective rooms, changed their clothes, and walked out the front door, one after the other.

Lacey stared blankly at the space where her two proudest achievements had just been standing. They had left without even saying goodbye. A sudden, sharp ache pierced her chest.

Was she really in the wrong?

"If you walk out that door, don't bother coming back!" Adrian bellowed.

Damon paused with one foot out the door and looked back. "You kicked Mira out, and she's doing better than ever.

"Do you honestly think we can't survive without this family?

"But if the Mercer family loses us, you'll become an absolute joke."

He had been a child star. He had been earning his own money since before he was a teenager.

Hearing his younger brother speak, Ethan realized Damon saw things even more clearly than he did.

But why had he stayed quiet for so long? Was it because his own interests hadn't been threatened, or was there another reason?

Ethan couldn't figure it out and decided to let it go. Maybe his brother was like him—just brushing the family drama off as petty squabbles in the past.

"Am I just a burden? I knew I shouldn't have come back," Mara whimpered, slipping right back into her victim act the moment her brothers were gone.

"Who said you're a burden? Eat your food. I'll have someone handle the Melvion Midwinter Jubilee for you," Adrian said, softening instantly.

"Thank you, Dad," Mara beamed, her tears vanishing like magic.

"Tessa, heat up the food," Lacey called out to the kitchen.

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