Chapter 276: The brutal truth

Words : 1163 Updated : Oct 5th, 2025

Chapter 276: The brutal truth Hugo didn’t respond right away. He just stared down at Oliver contemptuously. "Yes," he said calmly a while later. "I’ve always been with Susan. She is my woman... my girlfriend. The mother of my children." Then, without a hint of shame or hesitation, he wrapped an arm around Susan’s shoulders and drew her close. She leaned into him, her lips curling into a triumphant smile. Oliver blinked, stunned, as if the words hadn’t quite landed. "Your girlfriend?" he repeated, befuddled. "You are saying... she is with you?" He looked at Susan, then back at Hugo, his mind racing, unable to compute the revelation. The woman he had once trusted had been living a double life, and he had never even seen it coming. "When?" he asked with growing alarm. "Since when have you two been together?" Hugo’s gaze darkened, but he never looked away. "Long before she ever walked into your office. Long before she ever became your secretary." A violent chill shot through Oliver’s spine. It was as if someone had ripped open a hidden vault of memories and turned every truth he thought he knew upside down. His mind reeled, diving back into the past—the day Susan was hired, shortly after he had won that high-profile case, the one where he had buried Hugo under accusations of tax evasion and money laundering, thinking he had finally crushed the one man he had always loathed. He had thought he had won. But the truth was far crueler. Hugo hadn’t accepted defeat. He had been planning to get even with him and had planted a spy. A woman he trusted implicitly, stood by his side, managed his schedule... all while secretly tearing down everything he had built. Then Susan spoke with contempt. "Yes, I’ve always belonged to Hugo. Every time I looked at you, I felt nothing but disgust. But I smiled anyway, played the role perfectly, and executed every move Hugo and I planned." Her sneer widened. "You were so easy to fool. A few forged papers, a well-placed lie or two, and you did the rest yourself. Watching you unravel was satisfying. You destroyed your family with your own hands." She laughed—cold, mocking, victorious. "You believed every single word I said," she said with a smirk. Oliver sat motionless on the floor, the blood still trickling from the back of his head, but he barely felt it. The pain in his skull was nothing compared to the chaos tearing through his heart and mind. He had been played utterly. Everything he had once been proud of—his choices, his judgment, his so-called victory over Hugo—was now nothing but a carefully constructed illusion. Rage coursed through Oliver’s veins like wildfire. His face twisted as he forced himself to his feet and moved to strike Susan, to wipe that mocking smile off her face. But Hugo was faster. With a swift, brutal motion, Hugo kicked him hard in the ribs. "Ugh—!" Oliver crumpled to the floor, a guttural cry escaping his throat as pain shot through his body. He curled in on himself, sweat beading across his forehead. Towering above him, Hugo’s eyes blazed with long-buried vengeance. "You threw me in jail on a bogus charge," he spat. "Just because you hated me. Just because you couldn’t stand that your half-brother existed. You destroyed my reputation, sabotaged my career, and left me with nothing. And you thought you won." His lip curled into a snarl. "I wanted you to rot in loneliness. So I sent Susan into your world. And the irony? I never expected you’d make it so easy." He pulled Susan into his arms again and kissed her hard, possessively. She responded without hesitation, her hands cupping his face, her lips devouring his with equal intensity. Oliver watched, fury and humiliation churning in his gut. He wanted to stand, to retaliate, to wipe away the smug satisfaction from their faces. But his limbs felt heavy, his head throbbed violently. He could only lie there, trembling, helpless. When they finally pulled apart, Hugo looked down at him with a cruel, victorious smirk. "You know," he said with disdain, "Margaret was the only one in your family who ever treated me like a human. She showed me kindness when everyone else looked at me like dirt. I liked her for that. But you—you couldn’t bear it. You always assumed something was going on between us. You let your jealousy poison everything." He shook his head, almost mockingly. "Margaret tried to explain. She begged you to trust her. She cried in front of me, desperate to hold your marriage together. I told her she deserved better. I told her to walk away from you. But she wouldn’t. She stayed because she wanted to give her son a complete family." Hugo’s voice hardened. "And how did you repay that loyalty? You betrayed her. You cheated. You left her when she needed you the most." Oliver’s lips curled into a disgusting smile as he forced the words out between clenched teeth. "What a shameless man you are... You sent your woman to sleep with me, all just to settle a score. And you have the nerve to say you love her?" But instead of anger, laughter erupted from both Hugo and Susan. Susan wiped a tear from her eye as her laughter faded, then looked at him with a mocking tilt of her head. "Sleep with you? Oh, please," she scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. "I would’ve gagged at the thought. You seriously think it was me?" She took a step closer with confidence. "You are one of the top five lawyers in the country," she said with a mocking smirk. "And yet you couldn’t figure out something this simple?" He stared at her, confused and frozen. "You were drunk out of your mind that night," she muttered as she leaned down, her face inches from his. "Too far gone to tell who was actually in your bed. You thought it was me because I let you think that." She leaned back. "But it wasn’t me. It was an escort. I paid her." Oliver’s face drained of all color. His body stiffened as the weight of her words hit him like a blow to the chest. His mind scrambled to the memory. In his drunken haze, he thought he had slept with him. It was Susan who had been lying beside him the next morning, telling him that they had had sex the previous night. And the most damning of all: her claim that she had gotten pregnant from that night. He had believed her. He had paid her a large sum to keep it all quiet. And more than that, he had secretly covered the expenses of the baby. And eventually, when he cast his real daughter aside, he had embraced Megan, believing it was his daughter. "You mean... Megan isn’t... my daughter?" he stuttered with utter shock and disbelief.

Chapter 276: The brutal truth

Comments (0)