Filed To Story: The Broken-Hearted She and The Icy He Book PDF Free
The three Ginger brothers bore bruises of their own, their faces marred by the fight.
She lifted her swollen, blotched face toward them, sobbing breathlessly. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have offended Lily. But if she hadn’t stolen my place, my life, I wouldn’t have suffered so much. She ruined me, and I just lashed out. I regret it, I really do. Please don’t hate me. Please give me one last chance. When I was trafficked into the mountains, I was beaten every day, starved, living in despair… I was so hopeless, so sad…”
In the past, whenever she spoke of her suffering after being abducted, the Ginger family’s hearts would ache unbearably.
Bodger and Mergan wavered now, their expressions softening.
But just as their pity began to stir, Taylor’s voice cut through.
“Mathilda, you always say Lily caused your suffering… but what does your abduction have to do with her? When you were taken, we were the ones nearby. If you hadn’t disobeyed and run into that alley, how would anyone have snatched you?”
For years, Taylor had been tormented with guilt, believing Mathilda’s disappearance was partly their fault.
When they found her again, and she blamed Lily, they had been too quick to shift that guilt onto Lily, convincing themselves she was to blame.
But that had been nothing more than cowardice.
They had been running from the truth.
Because if they faced it honestly, they’d see it clearly: when Mathilda was abducted, they didn’t even know Lily.
How could Lily possibly have caused her suffering?
They had always known this deep down. They had just refused to admit it.
Taylor closed his eyes in torment. When he opened them again, the grief and regret inside seemed enough to devour his soul.
“And you keep saying Lily stole your life, that she took your place…”
He suddenly lifted his gaze toward Bodger and Mergan. “Ask yourselves honestly-was Lily ever enjoying some blessed life by being adopted into the Ginger family? If anything, she healed us. She even saved both me and Mom’s lives. She owes us nothing! In fact, if she had been adopted by the Luke family instead, she would’ve lived better. If she had gone to the Luke family, she wouldn’t have been bullied, wouldn’t have been targeted by us, wouldn’t have been left alone, helpless… How unlucky was she, to end up in our house instead?”
Every word shredded him from the inside out.
His voice broke as he pressed his hands to his face, choking back sobs until he could speak again.
“Do you even know what happened a week ago? On the way home with Mathilda, I got into a car accident. The moment the car was hit, without a second thought, I shielded her with my body. She walked away nearly unscathed, while I was injured, unable to move. I thought that since I’d risked my life to protect her, seeing me hurt, she would worry, she would care, she would try to save me. Do you know what she did? She climbed out of the car and ran. Ran-because she was afraid of being dragged down with me. But years ago, in another accident, when the car began leaking oil and could have exploded any second, it was Lily who pulled me out. Lily, who cheered me on to stay awake, who carried me to safety at the risk of being blown to pieces or burned. alive. That’s how I survived then.”
He looked at his brothers, anguish twisting his face. “We always said blood was thicker than water, that Mathilda was our blood sister, so we had to protect her. But the truth is, blood means nothing. Even without our blood, Lily called us her brothers for twelve years. She was family. She was our sister. And yet we abandoned her, for that parasite, and drove her into despair with our own hands!”
The raw truth in Taylor’s voice pierced Bodger and Mergan. They squeezed their eyes shut, their hearts seared with pain.
They had always known Lily hadn’t caused Mathilda’s abduction.
But they’d buried the truth beneath their guilt, shoving all blame onto Lily to escape their own conscience.
And deep down, they had always known Lily was more innocent than any of them.
After Mathilda was found, they could have cherished both-making amends to their blood sister while continuing to love the foster sister who had saved them again and again.
Instead, like fools bewitched, they believed every poisonous word Mathilda spoke. And they had broken Lily’s heart beyond repair.
When Lily had first come into the Ginger family, they had wanted to be good brothers, to treat her with all the warmth in their hearts.
How had they grown up only to grow crueler, to nearly destroy the very sister who gave them warmth?
“I was wrong…”
Bodger clutched his chest in agony. “I never should’ve led the bullying. I never should’ve hurt Lily again and again for Mathilda’s sake…”
Taylor’s face twisted with pain as well. What he wanted most now was to see Lily, to look her in the eye and say the words that burned his throat: *I was wrong. I regret everything.*
“I need to find Lily. I need to beg for her forgiveness…”
He didn’t look at his brothers again, didn’t care to hear Mathilda’s excuses. Muttering hoarsely, he staggered toward his car.
“I’m going too. I have to see her…”
Bodger, filled with regret, rushed after him.
Mergan’s heart twisted with a darker, selfish emotion. He still couldn’t bear that Lily carried James’s child.
But knowing how badly they had wronged her, he told himself it was understandable that she had sought someone to lean on, that she had ended up pregnant with James’s baby.
Once he found a way to get rid of that child, he thought grimly, he would cradle her in his hands and cherish her the way he should have all along.
With that in mind, he cast Mathilda a cold, hateful glance before striding off to join his brothers.
“Guys…”
Mathilda’s face was etched with pain and despair, her heart sinking into ice.
They just left?
She was still lying broken in the dirt, her body covered in wounds, barely able to move. Didn’t they fear she might die here?
How could they be so heartless?
Were they really throwing her away-for Lily?
That bitch.
It was all Lily’s fault!
Mathilda slammed her hand down in rage.
But her shattered bones screamed, blood smearing across the ground. She hadn’t hurt Lily-only herself.
The agony tore a shriek from her throat, her strength giving out until her face collapsed into the mud.
By cruel chance, her mouth was open, and foul, stinking water rushed in, filling her throat with filth.
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Adeline smiled brightly as James led Lily out of the recording studio.
Though usually quiet and reserved, she could never stop talking with Lily.
And with Lily, her usual coolness vanished. Her eyes glowed with warmth, admiration, and a fondness that spilled through every glance.
James noticed the look in Adeline’s eyes.
A pang of sourness struck his chest.
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