Victoria continued, "You are nothing but a selfish man. You have no idea what real emotions are—you have no heart at all! For someone like you, if you don't experience the pain of being betrayed yourself, you'll never understand how deeply you've hurt the people around you!" She shouted the last sentence with heart-wrenching anguish.
Jonathan stared blankly at his wife. He could never have imagined that, over all these years, her hatred toward him had been buried so deeply! He wanted to raise his hand and point at her in accusation, but he couldn't control his trembling hands...
"Do you think I'm only getting revenge on you now? Do you think a man like you is worth me enduring for over twenty years?!" Victoria laughed bitterly, then fixed her gaze on her husband's face, enunciating each word: "I hate you! I truly hate you! That's why I couldn't wait twenty-odd years—and I absolutely refused to remain a pitiful woman betrayed by her husband!"
Jonathan's body alternated between cold and hot. Staring at his wife's eerie smile, a sharp pain suddenly spread from his chest—
"Let me tell you this: it's no big deal that woman bore you a daughter!" Victoria's eyes widened as she revealed the truth: "Because I gave birth to a daughter too! More than twenty years ago, I not only had an affair with another man—I bore that man a daughter!"
After Victoria loudly declared the "truth," time seemed to freeze in that instant...
"You... you, you..." Suddenly, it all clicked in Jonathan's mind. Sophie was actually the child of Victoria and Charles, which meant Ned must be the son of Sarah and himself—it had to be that way. But he couldn't even form a complete sentence.
The sudden flood of information overwhelmed all his senses. The intense stabbing pain in his chest forced him to double over, and then, Jonathan suddenly collapsed to the ground—
Victoria stumbled back several steps, clutching her chest with both hands, her eyes wide as she stared at Jonathan's abnormal state.
It took her a long moment before she rushed to the intercom by the gate and shouted frantically: "Help! Someone come quickly! Call an ambulance—call an ambulance right now!"
.........
By the time Ned rushed back from Manchester to New York and then to the hospital, Jonathan had already been wheeled into the operating room, and the surgery had been underway for five hours.
"You're here?" Victoria, who seemed to have aged ten years in an instant, spoke in a slow, dulled tone, her expression equally listless.
"How could Father suddenly have a heart attack relapse? What happened?" Ned asked.
"I don't know... We were just talking," Victoria turned her face away, "and I have no idea why he suddenly had a heart attack!"
"Did you two argue again?" Ned pressed.
Victoria's face changed abruptly. "Stop asking!" She suddenly stood up, avoiding her son's calm gaze. "Your father had a sudden heart attack—my mind is in complete chaos right now! Can you... can you please stop questioning me?"
Ned stared at his mother calmly for a long while.
Under his steady gaze, Victoria bit her lower lip tightly. It was a long moment before she finally spoke: "I... yes, yes, we argued again. So what? From the time we were young until now, we've had countless fights!"
"This time, what were you arguing about?" he continued calmly.
Victoria glared at the floor, unable to utter a word—and unwilling to.
"Would you like to go home and rest first? I'll have the driver take you back to rest," he then suggested.
Victoria shook her head.
"But staying here won't help anything."
She remained silent, her expression grave.
Ned slowly stood up, then made a phone call to summon the driver to the hospital parking lot.
He placed his hands on his mother's shoulders, looked into her eyes, and said gently, "I'm really worried about you right now. Promise me you'll stay strong—Dad will be fine." He gazed at her steadily.
His son's comfort did not ease Victoria's unease; instead, it made her feel even more distressed.
In this lifetime, who had truly wronged whom?
"No need to escort me—I'm going to the nurses' station to pick up your father's belongings." At the elevator, Victoria waved to her son and went to the nurses' station on the second floor.
In addition to his clothes, belt, leather shoes, and socks, she also collected her husband's wallet from the station.
Absently, she opened the wallet. Inside, besides over $30,000 in cash, there was only a golf course membership card...
Suddenly, in the inner compartment of the wallet, she spotted a yellowed photograph. It clearly showed a beautiful mother and daughter.
At first, Victoria was puzzled by the little girl in the photo—she had a face that seemed somehow familiar...
Then, looking at the long-haired woman beside the girl, with her gentle smile, Victoria felt that too seemed familiar. There was a faint mark on her forehead—a "birthmark." No, not a birthmark... it was a pale scar...
Gradually, Victoria's eyes widened as memories flooded back. She finally remembered where she had seen that woman and that girl—
She gasped sharply, clutching her chest...
A terrifying "possibility" assaulted her nerves, plunging her into extreme shock and panic—
Staring at the photo, her hands trembling, she turned it over. On the back, someone had written two small lines in black marker:
A beautiful mother and daughter.
Sophie's fifth birthday, photo taken at the park.
"Mother and daughter! How is this possible... how could this possibly be?!" Victoria suddenly clutched her head—
In horror, she stared at the warm, affectionate photo of the "mother and daughter"...
"My God! This is impossible—how could something like this happen?!" She clenched her teeth tightly, biting down hard because she was on the verge of breaking down.
The woman who had swapped daughters with her in Manchester all those years ago was actually Sophie's mother!
In other words, Sarah Wilson—the woman who had destroyed her happiness and stolen her husband...
That woman had wickedly swapped daughters with her back then...
And she, Victoria, had unknowingly raised her husband's mistress's son for nearly twenty-five years!
She had even helped him rise in the world, live a life of luxury, frequent high-end places, and become the sole heir of the Harrington family!
While her own daughter had been pointed at and whispered about as an illegitimate child, living in poverty her whole life—expelled from school, driven away, and...
She couldn't bear to think any further. Overwhelmed with regret, she wanted to find Sophie, to reclaim her poor daughter.
But Sophie had gone to America, and for four years there had been no word from her. No—that wasn't true. Victoria had deliberately avoided any news of her. At first, Sophie would still call the villa looking for Jonathan. Victoria had even answered once, unleashing a torrent of cold sarcasm before slamming down the phone. After Jonathan moved out, no more calls ever came to the villa.
Torn between regret and hatred, Victoria stared at the photograph for a long time. Moved, she gently stroked the face of the little girl in the picture. Only after several minutes did she finally suppress her surging emotions. With trembling hands, she took out her phone and dialed Charles—
"Hello?"
Hearing his deep, steady voice, a wave of bitterness and grievance instantly flooded Victoria's heart...
"Hello? Is that you? Why aren't you saying anything?" He instinctively knew it was Victoria calling—they never used each other's names.
"I can't believe it... I truly can't believe something like this could happen in the world! And even more terrifying—it's happened to me!" Victoria spoke with a choked sob, her voice breaking with emotion. She was clearly losing control, her whole body shaking violently.
"What happened? What's wrong with you?" He comforted her gently. Over the many years, whenever she called, she had always used an icy tone to ask about their daughter—never before had she been this emotionally unhinged. Charles grew anxious.
"Have you found our daughter?" Victoria suddenly asked.
Charles paused for a moment. "Not yet—"
"Just moments ago, I found her," Victoria announced abruptly. Her voice held no trace of joy—instead, it was cold, rigid, and almost terrifying.
"What did you say? You've really found our daughter?"
"Yes. Just now, I found her."
"How did you find her? Where is our daughter now? Where are you? Are you with her?"
"I'm not with her at all—because I had no idea she was actually my daughter!" She shook her head and answered blankly.
"What are you talking about?" Hearing her response, Charles couldn't help but feel worried. "Are you alright? Are you okay?"
"I'm not okay! I'm going insane!" Victoria burst into loud sobs over the phone again.
"Where are you now?" Charles grew even more worried. Her answers and sudden sobbing were making him deeply agitated.
"I'm at the university hospital. Jonathan saw us leaving the small hotel together, suspected something between you and me, and cornered me at the villa gate to confront me. We had a huge argument. I was so angry at the time that I told him we have a 24-year-old daughter—and then he suddenly had a heart attack!"