One Last 105

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Chapter 105
Irene’s POV:
I stood in pure shock, my breathing choking in my throat. Lenora’s words hung in the air like a dark cloud. The venom in her voice and her raw anger felt unreal, but it was. She stood there, looking at me like I was the root of every misfortune in her life.
“You ruined my life, Irene. You ruined everything.”
I blinked, unable to move from where I stood as my mind struggled to grasp the gravity of her accusations. My heart thudded wildly in my chest, every beat filled with disbelief.
Ruined everything?
My throat tightened, and the words I wanted to say, words to defend myself, to tell her she was wrong- they got stuck somewhere in my vocal box, tangled in the web of pain and confusion.
But before I could even gather my thoughts, Eva stepped forward as if she had been waiting for the right moment to twist the knife deeper into me. Her glare was cold, cutting through the tension like a razor.
“She’s right, you know,” Eva said, her tone dripping with fake sympathy. “Lenora’s life started falling apart the moment you walked into Damien’s. You’ve been selfish, Irene. You made everything all about you. You’re always thinking about what’s best for you. You have never for once paused to think about what you’ve done to this family.” She poked at my open wound with those words she was spouting.
I could feel Damien move beside me, his body tensed with rage, but I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look at anybody. It seemed like the walls were closing in on me, and I was suffocating from the weight of their blame.
“I never… I have never wanted to hurt anyone,” I rasped, more to myself than anyone else. My voice felt so small compared to their powerful accusations.
“I didn’t…. I didn’t do this.” I was stumbling on my words, not even knowing what else to say.
“Oh Irene, but you did,” Lenora said through gritted teeth, her face twisting with pain. “You entered our lives and took all that mattered. You convinced Damien to pick you over us. You turned him blind to his own family, and now look where we are.” She glared even harder as she spoke,
Tears welled up in my eyes as I shook my head, “No, that’s not true. I never wanted to come between you and your brother. I
“Stop lying!” Lenora’s voice cracks as she cuts me off, shouting. She took a step closer, her fists clenched at her sides. “Everything was fine before you came into our lives. I had my brother. We were close. We had a bond. And now, because of you, I’ve lost him. I’ve lost everything.”
And as much as those words weren’t the real truth, her words were like arrows, each one hitting its target in my chest, going deeper into the wound that was already infected in my heart. I felt like I was unable to breathe. My head was still spinning, trying to hold onto something, anything, to get myself out of this nightmare.
Damien finally spoke, his voice stern but shaking with emotion. Lenora, stop. This isn’t Irene’s fault, and you know that fully well. She’s done nothing but try to make things work. She adores this family.” He argued, but Leonora scoffed, tears streaming down her face.
“Did you say she loves this family? She’s f****ng torn it apart! You’ve changed, Damien. You’re not the brother I knew. You don’t care about me anymore. You only care about her. If it’s not something related to Irene, you don’t give a damn. She’s poisoned you against me.” Lenora shouted, her voice strained but loud and menacing.
“Lenora, stop! You know that’s not true!” Damien shouted back, his voice breaking as he tried to reach her, but she was deaf
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Chapter 105
to anything we said.
She was too consumed by her pain and anger. She was far too gone.
Then she said the words I had never expected to hear coming out of her mouth.
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“You have to choose, Damien. You must choose between your wife or your sister right here, right now. Because I can’t do this anymore. I won’t.”
Silence fell over the room, thick and heavy. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Lenora was pressuring him to make a decision that no one should ever have to face. My pulse rate fell, and for a brief minute, I believed I was sick. The world spun around me, and all I could do was stand there, frozen, my body quivering under the weight of her request.
Damien’s face paled, and his eyes were wide with shock and pain. “Lenora, please don’t do this,” he pleaded, his voice raw. “You’re my sister. I love you. But I love Irene too. You can’t make me choose.”
“I already have,” Lenora snapped, wiping her tears furiously with the back of her hand. “It’s her or me, Damien. You’ve spent years choosing her over us. Over me. Now it’s time to decide once and for all.”
I couldn’t breathe. My heart was racing, my mind was a disarray of emotions. How did it come to this? How had I become the villain in Lenora’s story? I wanted to scream, to shout that this wasn’t fair, that I had done nothing but try to keep the peace, to love Damien and support him, but the words wouldn’t come. I felt utterly helpless.
Eva, ever the snake, stood back and watched everything unfold, a nasty smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. I could tell she was enjoying it. She was watching the family she had so skillfully managed to manipulate fall apart.
This was exactly what she wanted. And I resented that I was playing right into her hands.
Damien turned to me, his eyes filled with so much hurt, so much pain, that it nearly broke me. He was caught between the two women he loved most, and I could see the agony of the choice he was being forced to make.
“Irene…” His voice was soft, pleading. He wanted me to say something, to help him, but what could I say? How can I fix this?
I shook my head, tears streaming down my cheeks as I took a step back. I did not want to be the reason for this. I did not want to be the one breaking him apart. But deep down, I knew I couldn’t leave him. Not like this. Not after all we’d been through.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice breaking as I met his gaze. “I’m so sorry.” That’s all I can manage to utter for now.
Lenora watched us, her answer increasing with every passing second. “See?” she said bitterly. “She’s already won, Damien. You’ve already chosen her.”
“No,” Damien said, shaking his head. “No, I haven’t.”
But the damage was done. Lenora’s face crumpled, her tears flowing freely now as she stepped away from us. “You’ve broken me, Damien. You have broken me, and I can’t repair it. I’ll never forgive you. And I’ll never forgive her.”
Her words hit me like a big hammer, and before I could say anything else, she turned on her heel and stormed out of the bathroom, leaving us standing there in silence, the gravity of her hatred pressing down on me like a crushing force.
Damien stood alongside me, shaking as he grabbed my hand. But I could not feel his touch. I was too numb and overwhelmed by the reality of what had just occurred.
Lenora had blamed me for everything. She is on the verge of cancelling her wedding and now I was the reason why her relationship with Damien shattered. I had tried so hard to keep us all together, but in the end, it felt like I had only driven them further apart.
And Eva… she had orchestrated this perfectly. She had wanted this chaos, and now she had it.
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