Too Late to Hold Me Back novel Chapter 477

Smack!

Operating purely on raw, devastated instinct, Lacey slapped Fiona across the face.

Before Fiona could even react, Adrian was on his feet. His hand cracked across Lacey's jaw like a whip.

Smack! Smack! He struck her twice more with brutal force, sending her crashing to the marble floor.

"Are you out of your mind, you psycho?!" Adrian roared. "Fiona is kindly explaining the reality to you, and you assault her?"

"You're lying! If he didn't love me, why did he treat me so perfectly after we got married?!"

Even now, Lacey was desperately clinging to the illusion of Adrian's love.

Fiona scoffed, looking at her with absolute disdain. "Because your family had money and power, you idiot! We needed the Quinn family's backing to build his empire.

I sacrificed my own happiness and stepped into the shadows so his career could thrive."

Decades of boiling jealousy and hatred finally spilled over. Fiona had spent her entire adult life waiting for the day she could steal back what was rightfully hers.

She let a few strategic tears fall, playing the victim flawlessly. Adrian immediately pulled her into a protective embrace.

Lacey pushed herself up onto her elbows. The horrifying truth was finally carving its way into her brain.

"When you were a broke college student, starving and desperate, I was the one who paid your tuition!

I gave you a job when no one else would look at you!

Fiona, I was your savior, and you repay me by sleeping with my husband and conspiring against me?"

"Savior?" Fiona spat. "It was charity! A pathetic little display to stroke your own ego and show off your superiority.

And even if I did owe you, I spent decades playing the role of your obedient little servant, enduring your endless demands. The debt is paid.

So right now, I don't owe you anything. You owe me."

If you were too stupid to see our affair, that's your own fault."

Lacey felt a suffocating wave of despair. "Fine. I'm stupid. I am the biggest fool on earth.

But tell me this... what actually happened the day Mara went missing as a baby?"

"Missing?" Fiona laughed maliciously. "Since you're already on the floor, I might as well tell you.

There was no kidnapping. I paid a man to stuff your screaming little brat into a garbage bag and toss it into a dumpster."

"You... you monster! Hate me all you want, but she was an innocent baby! You're a venomous snake!"

"I'm a snake? Please. You were popping out sons left and right!"

Fiona yelled, her eyes flashing with madness. "I needed my only daughter to be the sole, undisputed heiress of the Mercer fortune. I couldn't let your brat get in the way.

But the idiot I hired botched the job. He grabbed the wrong infant and threw my baby into the dumpster instead!