I Raised My Husband's Love Child

Chapter 11

"The suppliers have all gone to Grace for business! Our accounts are completely drained!" The assistant's voice cracked with panic. "Greenwood Corp is facing huge penalties for breach of contract and massive losses. The company's going bankrupt!"

Before anyone could process what was happening, a large group of people stormed into the hotel. They were creditors, demanding overdue wages and breach-of-contract payments.

In a matter of seconds, Stephen, Rosie, and Kian went from being billionaires everyone envied to billion-dollar debtors, shouted at and condemned by the crowd.

At that moment, panic finally set in. Stephen glared at me, furious. "Daphne, you're playing dirty tricks with us?"

"How disgusting can you be?!" he yelled.

Kian, pinned to the ground by the creditors, screamed with all his might, "Daphne, you'd better fix this! Or I swear, I'll never forgive you!"

His words only made me laugh. It was clear I had only fed his inflated sense of confidence.

I looked at him, speaking slowly, clearly, "I don't need your forgiveness. If you'd learned anything over the years, maybe your company wouldn't be in such deep financial trouble."

Kian gritted his teeth, sneering. "Daphne, stop pretending to be powerful. Using a bastard daughter to show off, what's that supposed to mean?"

"If you were really capable, would you have handed me all your assets on a silver platter?"

Slap!

Before Kian could finish his sentence, Grace slapped him hard across the face.

"Don't you dare disrespect my mother!" she snapped. "I'm not some illegitimate child, my mom adopted me from an orphanage. Over the years, she loved and raised me without reservation. She helped me climb from nothing to where I am today. Everything I have is because of her!"

The room went silent, everyone stunned into disbelief.

"So she's just an adopted daughter, huh? But Daphne is amazing! She raised her to be so capable just by adopting her?" one person whispered.

"Yeah, and look at Kian, he's nothing but a pile of mud compared to her!" another voice chimed in.

Kian furrowed his brow, confused and enraged. "Then why did you marry me?"

Grace snorted, her tone blunt. "Of course, it's so I can have you call all your friends and family to witness the downfall of you ungrateful, white-eyed wolves!"

Stephen, still in shock, turned to me. "Daphne, you've been raising Kian while secretly adopting a daughter to deal with us? Did you already know everything?"

I responded coldly, "That's right. I knew when I was seven months pregnant that the child in my womb was yours and Rosie's."

Rosie's eyes widened in shock. "How is that even possible? If you knew, why didn't you expose it?"

I smiled faintly, my words deliberate. "Because that would've been too easy for you. I wanted to bring you to the highest point so that when you fall, it'll hurt more. The higher you climb, the worse the fall."

My calm tone and sharp words stunned everyone into silence.

It was now clear, I wasn't the fool they thought I was. I'd been playing the long game all along.

Kian collapsed to the floor, his mind racing in confusion.

Rosie and Stephen stood frozen, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Only now did they realize that all their intricate plans had been transparent to me from the very beginning.

The people they'd been toying with for years had actually been the ones in control of their fate all along.

As the crowd watched in shock, I turned and walked out without a word. Grace followed closely behind me.

Later, it was reported that Rosie and the others had sold off all their belongings, but it wasn't enough to pay their debts.

Kian was found dead in a remote wilderness, his organs harvested. Stephen, on the run from creditors, was forced to jump off a building. And Rosie? She was sold off by someone and vanished without a trace.

As for me, I moved back into my villa, a sense of calm settling over me.

Grace handed me a gold lock that I had once given away. "Mom, I've always wanted to ask you, why did you give your heirloom to those ingrates?"

I smiled faintly, my voice soft but firm. "Because this is the Walton family heirloom. Giving it to them only symbolized my determination to reclaim everything."