Chapter 539:

🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙

Her hands flew to her head, clawing at her scalp as though trying to rip the agony out by force. Her cries spiraled into hysteria, years of buried pain clawing their way to the surface.

Then her body collapsed—convulsing, thrashing helplessly against the polished floor.

“Mom!” Kristopher gasped, lurching forward in panic.

But Dayna grabbed his arm just in time to stop him. “Wait—don’t touch her. She’s not stable.”

Before he could argue, she was already kneeling beside Jaqueline. With a swift, precise motion, she delivered a strike to the side of her neck.

The spasms in Jaqueline’s limbs slowed—a faint gasp, a final twitch—before her body sagged into unconsciousness.

Kristopher hovered, fists clenched, eyes burning with helplessness. “What—what was that? Why did she suddenly break down? Is she okay?”

Dayna exhaled, a troubled look shadowing her features. “Even someone perfectly healthy would fracture after years locked in a psychiatric ward. What you saw… it was a collapse. A mental and emotional trigger. It’s a manifestation of deep trauma—what psychologists would call an episode tied to chronic depression. You need to get her help. Professional help.”

She looked at him then, long and hard, as if willing him to understand. “For years, she funneled all her hatred into Charles. It was the only thing keeping her going. Now that he’s dead, that anchor’s gone. She’s flailing in the dark, looking for someone—anyone—to pin her pain on. If she doesn’t find a reason to keep breathing, she’ll shatter completely.”

The fact Jaqueline had held on this long—still able to speak, to function—was, in its own tragic way, remarkable. But beneath it all, she was frayed. Broken in places no one could see.

Kristopher’s expression darkened, his voice dropping into an icy register. “I’m starting to regret letting that man die so painlessly.”

𝖲𝗁𝘢𝘳e y𝘰𝘶r 𝗍𝗁o𝘶𝗀h𝗍s 𝗈n 𝗴𝘢𝗹ո𝗈𝗏𝘦𝗹ѕ.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Even Dayna, only a bystander to the family’s twisted past, could feel the weight of it pressing down. If Kristopher and Charles hadn’t shared blood, the reckoning would have already come in far crueler form. But Charles—the one who had orchestrated this generational ruin—was his grandfather. There was no clean way out of that kind of legacy.

“Let’s get her back to her room,” Dayna said softly, her voice almost a sigh.

.

.

.