Chapter 410 - JUDGING HER OWN MOTHER

If it was a good thing and she guessed it, Stefan would be happy but this time, he only showed her the file that Shein sent to his phone.

"It's very small. Did you bring your laptop? Let's look at this from your laptop." She suggested and Stefan instantly opened his bag to get his gadget. "Is this about me? You didn't answer my question earlier."

"It's about you." 

Cayenne's face fell and she looked disheartened. "Am I causing you trouble again?"

"I'm not really sure if it's trouble. Why don't you take a look of this yourself?" he opened his laptop, typed in his password and looked for the file that he received from Shein.

Cayenne raised her eyebrow when she saw the picture of the woman they met twice recently. Her name was Diana Rule, eldest granddaughter of Jean Nikko Rule. There was a picture of the old man, probably the grandfather being described. Her sister's name was Artemis.

"Wow! Their parents have a unique way of naming their children." Cayenne commented while she looked at the picture of the girl who took the same examination as Luiz. She continued to scroll down while reading their family structure, getting more anxious and restless as she kept looking at their faces which started to look like her or her siblings. The resemblance was becoming clearer until she saw a picture of a very beautiful woman.

Cayenne's hands trembled and she didn't know how to scroll down anymore. She just stared at the picture that looked exactly her mother but the name was different. Amethyst Nile Rule, the youngest daughter of Jean Nikko Rule. She left her home and up until now, she was nowhere to be found. They've been searching for her in the past twenty-four years.

"Stefan, my mother is Emerald Ardolf, it can't be possible that it's her, right?" Even though she asked that, there's this tiny voice inside her that tells her, she was looking exactly at the same person.

"How about you read the rest?"

"I don't want to read it anymore. My mother has always been Emerald Ardolf. It couldn't be her. They might just look the same but they're two different people."

Stefan pulled his wife and hugged. Sometimes, it's easier to accept the truth when things involve other people but when it's you who's in that situation, you will still find it hard to digest everything. "Ayen, you need to know everything or we won't be able to move forward. You need to make decisions on this matter. Whether you accept them or not, I'll support your decision. I just want you to face this harsh truth."

"So, what exactly was my mom trying to do? I just couldn't understand." Cayenne blinked back her tears to stop them from falling. "Stefan, why did we have to live in poverty when she could have asked her family to help us? Why did she make me suffer? I was almost raped! I was almost killed! Every day, I had to leave for work with fear and anxiety! I had to work so hard to make ends meet. I had to shoulder so many responsibilities. So, why? What's her purpose in doing all this?"

His throat constricted and he felt so bad for her. He didn't know that she was almost raped. He didn't know that she was nearly killed. And during her first night working in the hotel, didn't he say that she should learn to protect herself? How can you expect a weak girl like her to protect herself?

Cayenne was currently blaming her mother when she accidentally clicked the arrow down and the file was scrolled further. Her eyes caught sight of the words that Shein highlighted. 

"Wait. What?" she pulled away from her husband and looked for a tissue to wipe her nose but she couldn't find any. In the end, Stefan wiped her nose with his own shirt. "That's dirty."

"It's fine. Don't we use our clothes to wipe our tears and snots when we cry alone?"

Cayenne laughed at his statement because it was absolutely true. If she was alone and she was crying, she would do the same thing. That's perfectly normal when you don't have a tissue. Sometime, you would even use your blanket.

"Go and change your clothes. I won't cry. I'm not really weak, you know." She said that but she was in the verge of crying earlier. She was just able to hold it up.

She continued to read where she left off and if she was able to hold her tears last time, this moment, she didn't. Her tears fell in the back of her hands and they were cold. Some even fell on the keyboard of his laptop. "This is funny." Her hollow laughter made her cry even more. Stefan felt so helpless this time.

"I was just blaming her earlier without reading the whole information. Now that I did, I feel so stupid."

"It's alright. Is there anyone who exist in this world who haven't tried judging someone without knowing the truth? I'm sure we all tried judging someone without getting the facts. Don't beat yourself just because of that."

"But it's different. I wasn't just judging some random strangers. I was judging my own mother? It's my mom!"

Her tears kept falling and Stefan kept wiping her with his shirt. "I understand. I judged my grandpa and father as well when I didn't know the whole truth yet and I am so guilty to even face them now. Aren't we the perfect pair? We both make the same mistakes."

Cayenne sobbed in his arms from pain. It turned out, her mother didn't really leave her home but she was kicked out of her home by her own family after she got pregnant of her. They thought she'd come back but after months, they didn't hear anything from her. Months, became years and until her mother died, her family had no idea about it because she no longer used the name Amethyst Nile Rule. She changed her name to Emerald Ardolf. As for who this Emerald was, she didn't exist in the first place, it was a name that her mother made on her own when she was seventeen and she created fake IDs with this name.