Filed To Story: The Broken-Hearted She and The Icy He Book PDF Free
Taylor still stood/in place, numb and silent.
Once, he had been as blind as Bodger and Mergan, convinced Lily was the cruel one and Mathilda the victim.
But with everything that had happened lately, the truth was clearer every day: the one who was selfish, venomous, and treacherous was not Lily.
It was Mathilda.
And James surely had evidence now evidence that Mathilda had bullied Lily again and again.
Almost as soon as the thought crossed Taylor’s mind, Ashton stepped forward at James’s signal, a tablet in his hands.
His eyes glinted with icy mockery as he thrust it toward Bodger and Mergan.
“Open those dog eyes of yours and take a good look. See for yourselves-was it Lily who bullied Mathilda, or has this parasite been lying to you all along, treating you like fools?”
“Ashton!”
Bodger and Mergan roared in unison.
In the past, Ashton had at least spoken to them with some respect.
Neither of them had expected him to insult them so openly, to call their eyes “dog eyes,” or to call Mathilda a parasite.
They were about to explode when their gaze caught on the video playing across the tablet screen.
In the recording, Lily lay beaten and helpless, dragged to a reeking, secluded ditch.
Mathilda loomed above her, lips curled in a cruel sneer, her expensive designer heels stepping closer and closer.
“Mom and Dad are mine. My brothers are mine. Dare to steal my family… Today I’ll make you, you stupid mutt, understand what it means to humiliate yourself, what it means to suffer for your own sins!”
She lifted her foot and ground the mud-stained heel into Lily’s face.
“Stupid mutt, doesn’t it feel good?”
As she stomped, she poured some foul substance over Lily’s face, laughing as the girl writhed in agony.
“Stupid mutt, this is only the beginning! You’ll learn what happens when you try to take what’s mine!”
“No… this is impossible!”
“Right, it must be that Lily did something unforgivable first. Mathilda’s friends must have stepped in, forced her to retaliate. Mathilda would never bully Lily…”
At first, Bodger and Mergan clung to their disbelief.
Because Mathilda was their sister, the one they felt guilty toward, the one they trusted without question.
Because she had told them that the earlier video online- of her bullying Lily-was misleading, that her friends had forced her hand after Lily supposedly mistreated her.
If Ashton had shown them only a single clip, they might still have believed her excuse.
But Ashton laid out nearly a hundred videos before them.
In the ditch, in hidden corners, in school bathrooms, in deserted woods-
Over and over, Mathilda, Quincy, and others tortured and humiliated Lily with vicious cruelty.`
Their last scraps of denial crumbled to dust.
The foundation of their beliefs collapsed in an instant.
They could no longer deny that the sister they thought was pure, kind, innocent, and fragile was, in truth, a monster.
And Lily-the one they had condemned-had been her victim countless times.
Taylor had already begun to suspect Mathilda’s lies, but even so, he hadn’t imagined the sheer scale of her cruelty.
Nor had he dreamed her methods could be so depraved, so inhuman.
“Taylor, I’m fine. It’s just a little nosebleed. Wipe it off and it’s gone.”
Her voice, her face, surfaced in his mind.
He couldn’t stop the memory of Lily as a child, shoved down by mischievous classmates, her nose bleeding.
Back then, he had been furious, storming into her classroom to beat the bully bloody.,
He had cradled his foster sister afterward, soothing her with promises.
“I’ll always protect you. I’ll never let anyone hurt you. If anyone dares lay a hand on you again, I’ll make them suffer so badly they’ll regret being born.”
“You’re the best, Taylor! I’ll always love you most!”
Her sweet, milky voice seemed as fresh as yesterday, still echoing in his ears.
But she would never say such things to him again.
Because he had broken his promise.
When Mathilda brought her gang to torment Lily, he hadn’t protected her.
He had believed Mathilda’s lies, abandoned Lily, and even led others to isolate and hurt her.
He had been the one to push her toward hell.
Now, watching the frail girl in the videos, lying in filthy water, barely clinging to life, his heart tore itself apart. His head throbbed until he thought it might split open.
He had sworn to always trust her, to always be good to her.
So why hadn’t he believed her then?
Why hadn’t he reached out his hand?
Why had he sided with her tormentors?
Why had he raised his own hand against her, crushing the last shred of her trust in him?
What had he done?
What unforgivable things had he done?
Taylor’s face was ashen, his eyes brimming with a pain so sharp it seemed to bleed.
When he slowly lifted his gaze toward Mathilda, that anguish turned into a thousand blades, stabbing mercilessly at her face.
“I never bullied my sister…”
Even as Ashton stood back beside Bodger and Mergan, the bodyguards kept slapping Mathilda, her face, painted with makeup, swelling up until it became grotesque and almost unrecognizable. Her tears ran freely, but there was nothing delicate or pitiful about her-her distorted features only made her look hideous.
She tried desperately to snatch the tablet away, but her head spun from the blows, her body too weak to even stand. She could only sob through her pain, “These videos are fake… Lily had them forged to frame me…”
Bodger and Mergan adored her.
But even they weren’t blind.
It was clear as day that these videos could never have been fabricated.
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