Chapter 203 A Terrifying Need for Control
Eloise felt torn.
If Alistair and Caroline could go too, there wouldn’t be any dilemma at all.
Thankfully, there was still over a month before the peak of summer. She had time to think it through.
That night, only Alistair and Caroline returned home. After a warm shower and some whispered conversation in bed, Caroline fell asleep in his arms.
Alistair lay there, eyes open, adjusting to the darkness. He studied her sleeping face in the faint light and then gently pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Sleep well, my girl.
He had let too much slip through his fingers. But now, he was here to stay, and he wouldn’t miss another moment.
While their evening at Ashbourne Manor had been filled with laughter and peace, elsewhere, Derek was carrying out a plan on Alistair’s orders. Dressed neatly and trying his best to look presentable, Derek had agreed to meet a woman who’d invited him out.
Chapter 203 A Terrifying Need for Cont…
After all, beauty was a trap that never stopped working. Subtle or not, it always pulled people in..
For someone like Derek, who had been beaten down by life and left crawling in the gutter for over a decade, the illusion of validation was almost impossible to resist.
His pride had long since been worn thin. Now, with a woman throwing herself at him, his instincts screamed for the chance to feel like a man again. At least, that was what Paige, or rather, her enabler Theresa, was counting on.
Theresa had clawed her way up by using her looks. She believed in the power of seduction more than anything.
Around midnight, Alistair gently eased out from under Caroline’s sleeping form and slipped into the bathroom without turning on the light. He hadn’t turned it on at night since they started sleeping together. Caroline had always struggled with sleep, but since he’d been beside her, she slept deeply, often through the whole night.
He closed the door softly behind him. The glow from his phone lit his face in pale, sharp contrast.
Derek had checked into a motel that evening.
Just past midnight, a large wooden crate was quietly wheeled out of the motel’s back exit. Under the cover of darkness, it was loaded into a truck that immediately headed north.
By morning, Derek would have vanished without a trace.
Where did he go? No one could say.
Maybe he got drunk and drowned in a ditch. Maybe he fell off a cliff. Maybe something worse happened.
Maybe, after years of being beaten down and humiliated, Derek had finally reached the end of the line.
Alistair read the final messages with a steady gaze and then wiped them all. He removed the special SIM card he’d used solely for contacting Derek, a disposable one purchased from System Store. He dropped it into the toilet. Within seconds, the card dissolved like ice, leaving no trace.
He flushed, turned, and walked out like nothing had happened.
Time to sleep. Got to be well rested for tomorrow’s show.
As for Derek, the man who was supposed to disappear tonight…
He was sleeping peacefully at home.
Though the crate they’d smuggled out wasn’t empty.
Alistair climbed back into bed and lay down beside Caroline. Like she had some internal radar tuned to his presence, she immediately rolled over in her sleep and curled into him.
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He wrapped his arms around her and gave her back a couple of soft pats.
She shifted, nestled deeper into his chest, and then went still again.
He held her close, and a heavy breath escaped his lungs.
If it hadn’t been for Secret Obliterator, Alistair would’ve never connected the dots. He would have never imagined that Caroline’s mother and the miserable, broken Derek had once been involved.
But the memory was now crystal clear. Gordon had caught his wife cheating, and the man in her bed… was Derek.
That moment had shattered their marriage.
It told Alistair that even Gordon couldn’t escape being played.
His marriage had been destroyed by his own sister, Paige.
Paige had always believed herself superior, obsessed with perfection and control. Her domineering personality had driven her husband to the edge until he finally asked for a divorce.
To her, that request was the ultimate humiliation. She didn’t believe he had simply fallen out of love. What she believed was that he had “cheated.” And rather than agree to a separation,
Grapici
she responded by tightening her grip, controlling him more fiercely than ever.
At first, her grip only tightened around her husband.
He endured it, afraid to speak out. After all, her younger brother was Gordon. No one in their right mind would want to cross her.
But his silence didn’t appease her. It only made her more
extreme.
Her need to dominate expanded to those around her, like her brother Gordon and his wife at the time, Lillian Ashbourne, who later reverted to her maiden name, Lillian Elwood.
But Gordon was a busy man and not so easily manipulated. As for Lillian, she simply refused to play along.
It drove Paige mad.
She remembered the day Lillian, with quiet firmness, told her that no one else got to dictate how her family lived. From that moment on, Paige began scheming to push her out.
Later, when Lillian explicitly said she didn’t want advice on how to raise her daughter, or on what to wear or how to behave, Paige took it as a direct challenge to her authority.
Ingrate. She really thinks she can defy me?
Chapter 203 A Temmying netu tur dui
So Paige made her move.
Under Paige’s machinations, Lillian was labeled a cheater.
Lillian agreed to the divorce and to leave everything behind, but only if she could take Caroline with her.
Gordon refused.
Eventually, Lillian left the country alone and barely ever
returned.
Their marriage crumbled for good.
Over time, Lillian disappeared from their lives.
Paige had won, or so she thought. She’d removed the one woman who dared to defy her, but Gordon never remarried. Too focused on his work. So Paige shifted her attention to someone else–Caroline.
Unfortunately for her, Caroline had inherited her mother’s strength. She was even harder to manipulate. But Paige had
time.
But there was one obstacle she couldn’t get past–Mabel.
Mabel had always been fiercely protective of Caroline, making it nearly impossible for Paige to act freely. But then, finally, an opportunity came.
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Mabel fell ill and was moved into a care facility.
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Relying on Gordon’s trust, she temporarily took custody of Caroline.
That year, Caroline had endured more than anyone realized.
The weight of that truth settled heavily on Alistair’s chest, leaving him breathless.
Paige had treated her like a prisoner, dictating what she ate, how she spent her time, and when she went to bed. Every part of her day was scheduled, enforced, and monitored without exception.
Even real prisoners got time in the yard. Caroline wasn’t allowed outside. Not even to the garden.
She wasn’t allowed to leave the second floor of the house. If she disobeyed, the two women hired to “discipline” her would withhold food.
Alistair’s chest tightened painfully.
If only I’d known. She was right under my nose, and I didn’t see a thing!
No wonder she kept her distance from Gordon. No matter how one looked at it, her childhood trauma had Paige’s fingerprints all over it, but Gordon wasn’t innocent either.
Lillian had “cheated,” or so the story went. And yet, it was
Caroline who paid the price. What kind of father punished his daughter for that?
