Filed to story: The Daughter in the Shadows (Yunice) Book by Una Norris
“Come with me!”
Peggy, realizing they were teaming up against her, just rolled her eyes and didn’t bother stopping them.
She lazily flopped onto the couch and began snacking on fruit, gently rubbing her flat stomach, a calculating glint in her eye.
At that moment, a figure entered from outside-Elsie walked in pitifully, her hands scraped and holding a pile of shattered antique porcelain.
Peggy glanced over and said through a mouthful of grapes, “Your mom and brother are upstairs. No one’s watching your little performance.”
Elsie was genuinely aggrieved. She had never been treated like this in the Saunders family.
She’d thought that once Peggy married into the family, they could toy with her as they pleased-make life difficult until she couldn’t take it and asked for a divorce.
But neither she nor Owen had anticipated that Peggy was not only physically strong but also fiercely aggressive. When they fought, she handled them like chickens-grabbing one in each hand without breaking a sweat.
Yesterday, the moment Peggy arrived, she beat the two of them into submission, then ransacked the house, claiming whatever she liked and tossing aside what she didn’t.
If either Elsie or Owen so much as defied her, she’d smash something immediately.
It was obvious-she was testing their obedience.
They even tried calling the police, but the authorities said Peggy hadn’t caused any bodily harm, and since she had a marriage certificate, it was just a domestic dispute. Couples fighting and breaking things wasn’t unusual. Not only did they refuse to punish Peggy, they even lectured Elsie, telling her to be more accommodating and not provoke tension in her brother’s marriage.
The two of them were left hopeless-this woman was a walking disaster.
On the couch, Peggy absentmindedly wiped grape juice from her fingers and suddenly had another idea. “Elsie, now that Mom’s back, there’s one more person in the house. We’ve only got four bedrooms-you’re not seriously going to make an old lady sleep on the couch, right?”
Elsie froze, immediately grasping Peggy’s implication, and exploded. “You want me to give up my room and sleep on the couch?!”
Peggy paused, then clapped her hands like she had a lightbulb moment. “No, no, that won’t work. You’ll need a place to change and shower, right?”
Her eyes swept across the house and finally landed on the tiny maid’s room that Yunice used to stay in. Her eyes lit up. “Ah, that one’s perfect for you!”
She clapped her hands again, sealing her decision. “Move in there now.”
Then her expression darkened. “Everything in this house belongs to me now. Don’t let me catch you hiding anything. Or else…”
Peggy raised her fist and threatened to break Elsie’s legs.
Elsie was about to explode.
That tiny maid’s room was dark and stuffy, with only one small ventilation window!
She used to throw Yunice in there as punishment-why should she have to live there?!
And weren’t there four bedrooms? Her older brother’s room was still empty!
After getting the marriage certificate, Owen hadn’t wanted to share a bed with Peggy, so she’d slept in Lily’s room last night-which was how she managed to steal all of Lily’s valuables.
And now Peggy wanted to shove her into the maid’s room too?
Peggy said, “Oscar might not come home often, but that room’s still his. You can’t just move in. I don’t only have one sister-in-law. When Yunice comes home to visit, that room is her place to stay.”
Elsie clenched her jaw, furious. “Yunice never comes back. We don’t need to leave her a room!”
Peggy raised her brows. “That doesn’t matter. Whether she comes or not is her choice. Leaving the room for her is my choice. If you’re not happy about it, then throw me a wedding like she did. Then I’ll treat you just the same.”
Elsie snapped, “I…”
Peggy snorted and popped another grape into her mouth. “Cheapskate.”
Upstairs, Owen had just finished telling Lily the whole story of how he ended up marrying Peggy.
Lily was trembling with rage. “This is all Yunice’s setup! Her own life’s a mess, so she’s dragging us down with her!”
She covered her face and cried. “How could she be so cruel? I nearly died giving birth to her. I thought she bailed me out because she still had some sliver of mother-daughter affection. But it turns out she just wanted me to come home and suffer…”
She slammed a fist against Owen’s shoulder, sobbing. “You stupid boy! How could you fall into her trap and bring that lunatic into our family? What are we supposed to do with the rest of our lives now…”
As soon as Lily finished speaking, Peggy’s playful voice rang out from downstairs. “Honey, Mom, don’t just talk among yourselves! It’s my first day as a newlywed, and you’re already ignoring me? That’s not okay. If you keep this up, I’m gonna post online and ask the internet: ‘What should I do when my mother-in-law is glued to my husband every day?'”
“Oh lord, what a nightmare!” Lily’s face flushed with embarrassment. She pushed Owen toward the door. “Hurry up and get out of here. It’s just us lonely womenfolk in here-if that crazy woman starts running her mouth, I’ll be ruined…”
“Mom…” Owen hung his head in shame, but knowing Peggy was fully capable of making a scene, he had no choice but to leave Lily’s room.
Just as he stepped into the hallway, Owen saw Elsie coming out of a room in tears, holding her bedding.
He grabbed her hand, which was covered in bloody cuts, and asked in both worry and shock, “Why are you bleeding? What happened to your hands?”
Elsie quickly hid her hand behind her back, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I cut myself by accident while cleaning up the broken pieces for Peggy. It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt… As long as you and Peggy are happy together, I’m fine with it.”
Owen’s voice rose. “When was I ever happy with her?”
“She asked me to clean up the broken pieces, and you agreed, didn’t you?”
Owen fell silent.
He hadn’t really thought it through-he just didn’t want Peggy throwing a fit, so he had told Elsie to go along with it for now.
Seeing how badly injured she was, guilt surged in him. He gently took her hand. “How can it not hurt? That vase had been sitting there for ages-who knows if it was even clean? With all these cuts, you could get an infection. Come on, I’ll clean and bandage them for you…”
Just as they were about to return to the room hand in hand, they heard Peggy clucking her tongue from downstairs.
She was holding her phone up, the camera pointed right at them, tongue clicking as she edited a post. “Barely married, and my husband’s already sneaking around with his sister-in-law-proof right here, folks!”
Owen yanked his hand away from Elsie like it had burned him.
Then he stormed downstairs, reaching for Peggy’s phone. “What the hell are you posting now?!”
Peggy raised her hand and danced away from his reach, grinning. “What, mad that I exposed the truth?”
“Delete it!” Owen barked.
Peggy smirked. “Sure, I can delete it.”
She leaned in and offered her cheek. “Give me a kiss and I’ll delete it.”
Owen froze.
Peggy wasn’t ugly-she was actually quite pretty, with a full, curvy figure and a sultry kind of beauty.
If she weren’t so cruel and unreasonable, he might not have hated her so much.
But no matter how pretty that face was, he couldn’t bring himself to kiss it.
Peggy pouted but didn’t seem to care about his disgust. She casually raised her phone, ready to hit “send.” The glare on the screen showed Owen’s expression, and sure enough, he looked panicked.
The next second, with the air of a man facing execution, Owen pecked her cheek.
Peggy’s lips curled in a triumphant smile as she snapped a photo right at that moment-click.
The sound of the shutter sent a chill down Owen’s spine. He stared at her. “You took a picture?”