Chapter 81 Shadow Of The Past

• Rachel POV
• The silence in the living room was a palpable force, a void that seemed to siphon the air from the space after my outburst, leaving only a heavy, lingering tension. Scarlett, my mother, stood before me, her gaze locked on mine, her eyes brimming with an anguish that cut through me like a shard of glass. The disappointment etched into her expression was unmistakable, as vivid as the soft morning light streaming through the curtains, interwoven with a desperate, wordless plea that tightened my throat. I knew she hadn’t expected me to acknowledge Cody, to claim a space for him in my life after all he’d done. But what choice did I have? Cody was my biological father, a fragment of my identity shrouded in mystery, and a fierce, aching certainty gripped me—no one was giving me the chance to know him, to forge my own truths about the man he was. Didn’t I deserve that, the right to unravel the threads of my own existence?
• “Rachel,” Scarlett said, her voice low, almost a whisper, but laden with a raw emotion that trembled in the air like a plucked string. “Can I talk to you alone?”