Filed to story: Seventeen Heartbreaks: When Love Has No Voice
Landon eyed the ward door but showed no inclination to enter. He stated icily, “Don’t take me for a fool. I’m fully aware of your schemes. I came here today to openly confront you guys. Dean, we are related by blood. If you have grievances, confront me directly. Resorting to deceit shows no real prowess.”
Landon’s smile disappeared, his gaze turning frosty. “Dean, I’m offering you one final opportunity. If you stop, I can pretend nothing ever happened.”
Dean clenched his teeth, choosing silence over response.
Landon turned on his heel and departed.
Catching up quickly, Edgar expressed his confusion, “Mr. Kensington, why didn’t you visit your mother?”
With a steely look, Landon responded, “Now that I’m certain Dean is plotting against me, I won’t blithely step into whatever snare he’s laid. He might lack brains, but his ruthlessness is boundless. Who knows what he’d do next to pull me down?”
Edgar grasped the gravity of Landon’s words, a chill running through him. “But she’s his mother. She’s always been his staunchest supporter. It seems unthinkable for him to go to such extremes.”
Yet, Landon dismissed it with a scoff. “Maybe the circumstances around Shirley’s car accident weren’t quite so accidental after all.”
Edgar, taken aback, struggled to respond. He had always viewed Dean as merely competitive, often engaging in petty squabbles with Landon and lacking the qualities expected of an elder brother.
Edgar couldn’t fathom that Dean would stoop to such malevolence.
As Landon moved away, Dean’s and Melinda’s expressions darkened with fury.
“Utterly useless!” Dean spat out bitterly.
Standing beside Dean, Hazel said, her voice coquettish, “Dean, what are you doing? You scared me.”
This time, before Melinda could react, Dean turned abruptly and slapped Hazel. “Get lost!”
Covering her face, Hazel, now humiliated, quickly gathered her belongings and departed.
A wave of satisfaction washed over Melinda. Even though her relationship with Dean was far from perfect, they were now undeniably in the same boat. Dean would find it impossible to discard her from his life.
“If anger were truly powerful, you would have succeeded long ago,” Melinda said, seizing the moment to mock Dean.
Dean raised his head to meet Melinda’s gaze, his eyes burning with malice. “You vouched for that man, claiming he could help me get rid of Landon. But look at what happened! The plan was supposed to have him kill Leila and her unborn child, but he betrayed me by taking Leila away and allowing Landon to see through our scheme! Today, Landon humiliated me. You know Landon is always on guard. Handling things this way only lands me in deeper trouble.”
Despite everything, Melinda felt compelled to defend Stan. “Perhaps he had his reasons. Instead of yelling about it here, why not confront him directly and demand an explanation?”
Dean, his face flushed with anger and his breaths coming in sharp bursts, conceded. “You’re right. I need to face him and hear it from him.”
With reason abandoned, Dean charged out, heading straight to Stan’s place.
Melinda frowned, trembling with apprehension. Dean seemed to pay no heed to the risk of Landon’s men monitoring his every move.
Upstairs, Leila noted the commotion as Dean stormed in. She could clearly see the fury in Dean’s face as he rushed in with Melinda by his side.
Leila didn’t expect that it was Dean who had conspired with Stan. After all, Landon was Dean’s biological younger brother, yet Dean had gone to such extremes.
Courtney, alerted by the noise, turned her attention to the scene and quickly grasped the situation. She shot Leila a look of severe disapproval. “You’re the cause of all this. Dean’s only here causing trouble for Stan because of you. You are nothing but trouble!”
Despite Courtney’s harsh words, Leila remained composed. She had grown accustomed to it. Now she could even retort expressionlessly.
Leila typed down her reply. “If you think I’m such trouble, then make a choice. Either end me or set me free.”
Courtney, a doctor, was well aware of the methods she could employ to torment Leila without endangering the child Leila carried.
This knowledge made Leila’s situation increasingly unbearable.
Moreover, Leila grasped that without Landon’s intervention, escape was impossible. Though the Hayes and Brooks families continued their search for her, it seemed their efforts yielded nothing substantial.
Plus, Leila knew this situation was fundamentally a conflict within the Kensington family. She was still Landon’s wife. If the Kensington family claimed they required no external intervention, the Hayes and Brooks families would find it challenging to rescue her, despite their desires. She realized she was an unfortunate pawn in the Kensington family’s internal strife.
With this realization, Leila felt a wave of exhaustion wash over her. She lowered her head and sighed deeply.
Courtney noticed Dean’s antagonistic expression and sensed that the day’s events might not conclude peacefully.
After a brief pause, Courtney reached out and grasped Leila’s wrist.
Leila looked at Courtney, bewildered.
Courtney’s lips curled into a frosty smile. “You started this mess, so it’s up to you to fix it. If we can’t settle things today, it’ll get messy. Should anything happen to Stan because of you, then severe punishment is only fitting.”
Leila’s heart raced with fear. Despite her fear, at this point, she didn’t want to dwell on what the outcome would be.
As Courtney dragged Leila toward Dean and Melinda, she witnessed Dean lift his hand and strike Stan.
Stan staggered from the blow but held back from retaliating.
Courtney’s heart was heavy with sorrow. She tightened her grip on Leila’s hand, pulling Leila along with too much force, and shoved Leila forward.
“Dean, here Leila is. Whether you want to kill or punish her is up to you. Just don’t trouble Stan any further,” Courtney declared.
Dean turned around, a chill smile playing on his lips. He cast a brief look at Leila’s pale face before his eyes settled on the slight swell of her belly.
“What if she ends up like Melinda, only giving birth to a daughter? Wouldn’t that disappoint you?” Dean questioned Stan.
Stan, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with composed movements, responded, “The gender of the child doesn’t concern me. Yes, I broke my promise, but it was in your interest as well. Even if Landon holds no real affection for Leila, any harm coming her way would serve as a perfect pretext for him to strike back at us. It’s wiser to seek a compromise that benefits both sides.”
Dean, still seething, snapped, “Do you think I’ll be fooled by such feeble excuses? Aren’t you just scheming to use her unborn child to your advantage? Yet, all this time, that idiot Landon remains oblivious that he is the father!”
“Dean!” Melinda’s voice pierced the air just as Dean bellowed.
But it was already too late.
Leila, standing off to the side, overheard everything. She lifted her head in shock and scanned the faces around the room. What did Dean mean by suggesting Landon was unaware that the baby she carried was his? And there was Melinda, appearing as though she had been privy to this for quite some time.
Reflecting on her previous hospitalization, the time when Landon discovered her pregnancy, Leila recalled how often Melinda had been there.
Suddenly, everything clicked for Leila like a bolt of lightning slicing through her confusion. Now it all made sense. She belatedly realized the true cause of Landon’s seeming dislike for their child. It was because he believed the child was another man’s. What had these people done?
Leila clapped a hand over her mouth as tears streamed down her face uncontrollably.
Dean’s expression briefly flickered with regret upon realizing his slip. Soon, his gaze hardened once more. “I had thought about sparing your life,” Dean stated icily. “But now, that seems utterly pointless.”
Shocked to her core, Leila collapsed into a nearby chair. Surrounded by their cold stares, she felt like a lamb amidst wolves, utterly defenseless.
Courtney seized the opportunity to press Stan, saying, “Mr. Kensington, Leila is no longer of use to us. If she reveals the truth to Landon, they might patch things up, and all our schemes will be for nothing. You can’t afford to be merciful right now.”
Stan remained silent, a calculating glint appearing in his eyes.
Melinda chimed in, “We’ve still got Sarah, and if push comes to shove, there are other women too. As long as we control Landon’s circle, why should we fear not being able to manipulate him? Leila is an unpredictable factor we can’t risk keeping.”
Stan’s gaze shifted to Leila, and he suddenly proposed, “Shouldn’t we ask Leila’s opinion?”
His words shifted the room’s atmosphere.
Dean scoffed. “She surely wants to survive. Who doesn’t?”
Leila lifted her head to meet Stan’s gaze, a shiver running through her.
Though Stan seemed the most benevolent in the group, he was more akin to a venomous snake in disguise.
Leila clenched her fists and shook her head in despair, portraying herself as someone who had given up all hope of living.
Courtney’s smile widened. “See? She herself has lost the will to live. If something happens to her, it won’t be on our hands.”