Filed to story: The Daughter in the Shadows (Yunice) Book by Una Norris
Owen slammed his fist on the steering wheel. “If we hadn’t been in such a rush to arrange Yunice’s engagement, we never would’ve crossed paths with that lunatic! He’s doing this out of spite over the canceled marriage. He’s using you to get revenge. He’s not to be trusted. Once we clean this up, stay away from him.”
Elsie nodded quickly, all wide-eyed obedience.
Back at the Saunders estate, Owen ignored Lily, who was sitting in the living room, and took Elsie straight to the study.
The fewer people who knew about this, the better. He didn’t plan to tell Lily anything.
Once the door closed, Elsie sat down and opened the email from the paparazzi. The moment she saw the files, her legs nearly gave out.
She’d known the pictures might be bad-but she hadn’t expected them to be this graphic.
Her voice trembled. “Owen, this is fake. It has to be. This is a malicious edit, I swear! I would never… I couldn’t…”
She wanted to crawl into a hole.
Thankfully, she’d always played her role well. In Owen’s eyes, she had a strong moral compass.
That’s why he hadn’t believed the woman in those explicit photos could be Elsie-and why he dragged her home to confirm.
Her grades were always excellent. Her professors praised her constantly. The report even claimed she faked her academic credentials, but Owen dismissed that outright.
Now that he had her confirmation, he was furious. “Then we’ll sue them!”
Elsie panicked. “No!”
Owen looked over, confused, as she burst into tears. “Have you forgotten what happened to Yunice when she got doxxed online? The internet is brutal, Owen. If this leak spreads, even if it’s fake, my reputation will be destroyed… I might as well disappear.”
Her voice dropped into a hopeless whisper. “I should just find somewhere quiet and end it.”
If money were that easy to come by, Owen wouldn’t be sweating.
What little savings he had left had already gone into plugging the hospital’s financial holes. The family hadn’t brought in income for months.
A million? He couldn’t even scrape together half that.
Elsie collapsed against the desk, sobbing quietly.
Owen’s head throbbed. The last time she cried, he’d warned her he’d slap her if she did it again.
And now, here they were. Another crisis.
She kept her sobs muffled, and he was too agitated to yell. After all, this wasn’t entirely her fault.
They were siblings. If Elsie’s name got dragged through the mud, the entire Saunders family would go down with her.
He sat down with a grim face. “Stop crying. I’ll figure something out.”
At that, Elsie wiped her tears and asked softly. “Owen… do you think Yunice might be behind this? Why else would Morgan suddenly start hitting on me, and then paparazzi just happen to be right there filming us…?”
She wanted to redirect the blame to Yunice.
But Owen shook his head. “It’s not her. Morgan’s never been a decent guy. I should’ve never considered marrying Yunice off to him. He’s barely human.”
Elsie was irritated. He was blaming Morgan-but not Yunice?
Yunice was his real sister. No matter how horrible she got, Owen would always feel something for her.
But Elsie couldn’t swallow it. She was convinced Yunice had orchestrated the whole thing.
Owen might’ve helped smooth things over today, but only Elsie knew the truth-the expos? was real. And sooner or later, it would blow up again.
Ever since Yunice married Wyatt, Elsie’s own luck had gone straight downhill. Meanwhile, Yunice was thriving-her glow practically radiated luxury.
If things kept going this way, Yunice would end up burying her.
Elsie glanced at Owen, who was on the phone frantically trying to scrape together money. Then she quietly stepped out and made a call of her own.
Standing at the second-floor railing, she talked on the phone while casually watching the first floor below.
She spotted Lily answering a call, then walking over to open the front door.
A delivery man handed her a thick envelope.
Elsie raised an eyebrow, curious. Lily looked up toward the second floor cautiously.
But since Elsie was leaning behind a column, Lily didn’t see her.
Elsie frowned. What’s Mom being so sneaky about?
Then she saw Lily do something even weirder-she didn’t even open the envelope before pulling out a lighter and setting one corner of it on fire.
But the rising smoke triggered the fire alarm.
With a yelp, Lily quickly doused the burning papers with a glass of water, tossed the soggy mess in the trash, and hurried off to the kitchen to turn off the alarm.
The second Lily was out of sight, Elsie rushed downstairs, pulled the half-burned document from the trash, and unfolded it.
The text was still legible-it was a court summons.
Defamation, false accusation, malicious slander… The letters SAT jumped out at her. Suddenly, everything clicked.
She remembered Yunice saying in the hospital that whoever falsely accused her would be receiving a court summons.
Which meant… the person was Lily.
Hearing Lily’s footsteps coming back from the kitchen, Elsie quickly composed herself and slipped back upstairs like nothing had happened.
But as she turned her back to Lily, a smirk curled across her lips.
Elsie had always thought Lily was protecting her out of favoritism. Even when she did something wrong, Lily would lie for her, cover for her, play the doting mother.
Now she saw it clearly. Lily didn’t love her-she just hated Yunice.
Watching Yunice struggle was Lily’s favorite pastime. She was jealous of her own daughter.
The Saunders family had never been hers to manipulate. Everyone in it had their own dark side. And once you were no longer useful, you ended up just like Yunice.
In the study, Owen had finally begged and bargained his way to securing the million-dollar payout. He made the deal with the paparazzi, kept the evidence, and stored it safely.
That’s when Elsie’s voice called from the hall.
Elsie’s eyes were red. “Word just came from the Powell family. Wyatt beat Yunice. She was rushed to the ER in the middle of the night!”
“What?!” Owen shot up from his chair, shock written all over his face.
He grabbed his coat and bolted for the door.
“Which hospital?”
Elsie followed closely behind. “Wellinges Pharma only sponsors one hospital, it’s got to be that one! Wyatt’s gone too far. No matter what Yunice did, he had no right to hit her so hard she ended up hospitalized! And it’s been hours-why hasn’t anyone told her family?”
Owen’s expression turned grim. He suddenly stopped at the door and blocked Elsie’s path. “You’re not coming. You’ve caused enough trouble lately. Just stay home for now.”