Chapter 3

Still not satisfied, Derek slapped my face lightly.

“Had enough? Learn your place. Otherwise, every time I see you, I’ll teach you another lesson!”

I spat out a mouthful of blood and sneered. “You? Who the hell are you to teach me anything?”

His eyes burned red. “You really don’t know when to quit! I’m Vanessa Reed’s rightful husband. Challenge me in public, and I’ll make you regret it!”

He snatched a culinary torch from one of the outdoor chefs and charged toward my private aircraft.

Flames scorched enormous, ugly words across its white body.

“ETHAN AND LILY BROOKS: HOMEWRECKING TRASH!”

I stared at him, my gaze icy, and raised my voice. “You’ve got some nerve. I hope you’re still this confident in a few minutes!”

Derek backhanded me across the face. “You bastard! Since you love breaking up families so much, I’ll give you something to remember!”

His face flushed with rage. He had lost all reason.

He picked up a wooden club from the ground and swung it at me without hesitation.

I cried out and collapsed.

Then he grabbed the torch and ran into the aircraft’s cabin, setting fire to everything that would burn.

The parents ignored me lying injured on the ground. They followed Derek and began tearing my aircraft apart.

Watching black smoke billow from it, I said coldly, “I swear every one of you will pay for what you’ve done today.”

Derek grabbed me by the collar and tried to force me to apologize.

A desperate scream rang out nearby. “Stop! Let go of my dad!”

Derek’s eyes lit up when he saw my daughter running toward us.

“Your adopted kid’s pretty attached to you, huh?”

I pulled her behind me. “Don’t you dare touch her.”

Derek called his twins over and gave me a pointed look. “See? A woman has children with the man she loves. These two are the most precious gifts Vanessa ever gave me!”

“For their birthday this year, she even bought them a set of jade pendants worth millions. What do you have? You and your adopted brat edited my wife into your photo and thought you could take our places? What a joke!”

The twins, Mason and Mia Hayes, burst into shrill laughter. “Are you two that desperate for money? You want to steal our mom? She says she loves us more than anyone and will never leave us!”

I stared at the jade I had bought at auction, now hanging around their necks.

Those two faces looked so much like Vanessa’s, yet every word out of their mouths cut into me.

Had ten years of love earned me nothing real from her?

Did she love Derek so much that she was willing to break her promise to remain child-free, just to give him children?

Seeing the devastation on my face, the people around us roared with laughter again.

“A homewrecker showing up to humiliate himself in front of the real husband. Is he arrogant or just stupid?”

“Look at what Ms. Reed spends on Derek and the kids. We all know who she really loves!”

My daughter clung to me, tears streaming down her face. “Stop saying that! My dad isn’t a homewrecker!”

Derek spotted her bracelet and seized her wrist. “Where did you get that jade bangle? Did you steal that from my wife too? Can lowlife trash like you survive without stealing? Take it off!”

Mason and Mia immediately grabbed at her arm.

I shook with rage and shouted, “I told you not to touch my daughter! And that bracelet is off-limits! Lay another finger on her, and I swear none of you will walk out of here!”

Ten years ago, my mother and I had been kidnapped on our way home. The kidnappers tortured me to force my family to pay an enormous ransom.

In the middle of the night, Mom managed to cut through her ropes and tried to get me out.

I would never forget how that frail woman hid me in a nearby cave.

To keep the kidnappers away from me, she led them in the opposite direction. Even as they tortured her to death, she kept pointing them farther away.

Her blood stained that jade bracelet red.

A baby abandoned in the nearby grass seemed to sense the grief and cried without stopping.

My mother’s sacrifice bought enough time for rescuers to find me.

That day, I lost the mother who loved me most.

But I also found my daughter, Lily Brooks. I wiped the blood from the bracelet and gently slipped it over her tiny wrist. Both of us had been given a new life.

They were treasures I would protect with my own life.

I summoned every ounce of strength I had and rammed into Derek and his children, knocking them away from my daughter.

Derek staggered.

Then he turned in a fury, wrenched the bracelet off her wrist, and smashed it to pieces.

My eyes widened, and I roared, “Derek Hayes, I’ll kill you!”

Just then, a hundred Maybachs pulled up in formation outside the mansion. Hundreds of bodyguards in black suits lined up on either side as one person stepped out of a car…