Unexpected Marriage With Mr. Leighton: Rebirth of the Villain-Chapter 104: THE WORST FEELING AND SUSPICION

Carl’s hair was still damp, and it wet his shirt when Laurel screamed in his face the moment he walked out of the bathroom. "What is this?!"

Laurel was hysterical when she saw the crystal powder; she threw it at Carl’s face, and the packet fell on the floor.

Carl could feel his heart racing against his chest. He had not yet tried it. One of his friends gave it to him because they saw how gloomy he was.

They said it could help him relax, but Carl was not stupid; he knew what it meant.

"How could you be like this? Why are you ruining your life like this?! What happened?! What are you lacking?! You have everything! Why are you ruining your life?!

Laurel was very emotional.

She raised Carl since he was little, and she thought of him as her son; she was well aware of what kind of situation she would face in the future if Carl turned out to be an addict.

An addiction was a step away from death. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

Carl was already sixteen years old now; he was slightly taller than her, yet the stepmother, who used to be very collected and calm, looked like an insane person when she thought her son was an addict.

"Why are you doing this?! Why?! Why, Carl!? What did you lack?! What don’t you get from this house?! Why do you have to be like this!?" Laurel couldn’t even think straight.

She cried, she yelled, and she felt so hurt. She was scared, panicked, and deeply disappointed. There was a part in her that blamed herself.

She must have done something wrong for Carl to act like this.

Carl lowered his head. "I don’t. I didn’t use it." He was telling her the truth.

"Liar!" Laurel roared loudly, and this angered Carl because she didn’t trust him.

But to be fair, it was so hard for Laurel to trust him when the evidence was right before her eyes, and Carl couldn’t even deny that fact.

"How could you say that when the evidence is right before you?! How could you say that with a straight face?!"

Carl raised his head and snapped back at Laurel. "I didn’t use it! Why don’t you believe me?! Damn it!"

Laurel was startled, but then her emotion got the best of her. "The proof is there!" Laurel pointed her finger at the small packet on the floor. "And you are still trying to deny it!? At least have some decency to own your mistake."

"I really didn’t use it!"

"I raised you better than this!"

"You raised me?" Carl glowered at his stepmother. "If you didn’t insert yourself in my father’s marriage, you didn’t need to raise me!"

A deep frown formed on Laurel’s face. "What? What did you say?" She couldn’t comprehend what she just heard. "What do you mean by that?"

"You know what? It’s supposed to be not a surprise that I turned out this way because I have been raised by a very wicked person. You can lie and deny it as you wish, but deep down you know you are nothing but a slut!"

Laurel had never been violent with anyone before. She didn’t think violence was the answer. More so, she felt like that kind of act was barbaric and below her.

Yet, she raised her hand and slapped Carl’s face so hard to the point he stumbled back; she was not in her right mind, and nor did she get the pleasure from it.

Everything was blurry. Her anger was overwhelming, her ears were ringing, and when everything was done, Carl was sitting on the floor, staring at her with this shocked look in his eyes because someone like Laurel was actually holding this much strength.

It took a while for both of them to register what just happened.

Laurel slapped Carl so hard that her hand was shaking, but the pain was good for the numbness that crept into her heart.

When you were in so much pain, you tended to numb your feelings so it wouldn’t break you even more.

That was what Laurel felt at this moment. Carl screamed in her face, and for the second time, he told her that she was not his mother.

"Stop acting like you are my mother! You disgusted me! You have been acting prideful and kind. You perceive your image as someone who was kind enough to take care of a motherless child. But the fact is: you are the reason why I didn’t have my mother in my life!"

Laurel’s mind worked very slowly. She couldn’t understand what he was talking about, but when she finally could wrap her head around the words that Carl said, he had already stormed out of the room, and Laurel found herself sobbing on the floor.

Her vision was blurry because she cried so much, but there was no word that came out of her mouth.

She looked at the drug on the floor and felt helpless. There was this hollow in her heart.

Every inch of her body was in pain.

She lost track of time...

Probably she cried for a few minutes or even a few hours, but even then, it was not enough to make her feel slightly better.

However, it wasn’t the worst because not long after that, her husband returned.

"What’s going on? What happened here?" James saw Laurel sitting on the floor, sobbing desperately. "Where is Carl?"

Laurel was shaking when she told him what happened through tears. She pointed at the drug packet, and James inspected it. Laurel was right. It was indeed a drug.

But, to Laurel’s surprise, James actually blames her for not being a good mother.

"There must be a reason why Carl is like this; he is not used to being like this." He shook his head and looked at his wife with disappointment.

Laurel was stunned to hear that. "What do you mean?" She stopped sobbing; her mind was spinning. "Are you blaming me?" All of the remaining energy that she had until now drained from her body.

"You are the mother. You have been with him all this time. You should know if there was something wrong with him."

"What did you say? How can you say something like that?" Laurel looked at James with disbelief. He actually blamed her for the thing that was out of her control.

James was quiet; he was still staring at the packet of drugs in his hand and then squeezed it before he lifted his head and looked at Laurel. His eyes lacked warmth.

"If only you had been a good mother, Carl would’ve never turned out like this. If only you had taken good care of him, he wouldn’t have fallen into the wrong crowd. I can’t believe this, Laurel."

On the other hand, Laurel couldn’t utter a single word when she watched James walk away from her.

After everything she had done for this family, she felt like she was being discarded. James put all the responsibility to raise Carl on Laurel.

In the beginning, Laura was happy to do that since she wanted a child on her own.

Everything went well, and her relationship with Carl was amazing, but ever since his biological mother came into his life, he changed drastically.

Carl didn’t even want to listen to her, let alone have a conversation like they used to have before.

Not only once or twice did Laurel voice out her concern, but James brushed it off, and now, when everything fell apart, James still didn’t step forward to help her.

Instead, he blamed her for everything that went wrong, yet he didn’t praise her for all the things that she did right.

Laurel could see it was a mistake from the beginning.

That day, Carl and James left the house for a few days.

***

It was in the middle of the night, and Ranon was still in his office.

This place was rather dark, and the source of light came from the city lights out there. Ranon was standing at the balcony; the wind was strong, and it was rather cold when he lit up his cigarette.

He sucked deeply and let the wind carry away the white smoke that escaped his lips, while his other hand was playing with a dented black Zippo, flicking the fire absentmindedly.

It had been a while since Ranon smoked again; he couldn’t do it because Hazel was around, and he only did this whenever he had a lot of things on his mind.

The smell of tobacco and the bitterness were comforting.

One of the things that bothered him was that he just figured out about the call from Hazel to Rafael, where his future wife told him that the Lozen family was not safe anymore because River would get her revenge.

Ranon knew about the existence of the Lozens’ eldest daughter. She was currently the best assassin, but she had disappeared for a few months right now.

Yet, Ranon didn’t know more details about it since it didn’t concern him.

However, there was one thing in that conversation that bothered Ranon to the point he had been smoking a lot since a few hours ago.

The fact that it was Hazel who actually talked to Rafael didn’t sit well with him, especially when she pretended to be River.

Ranon wondered what the relationship between Hazel and River was.

Based on the information he had, Hazel would never cross paths with River. The two of them lived in two completely different worlds.

But not only that, Ranon heard a lot more in their conversation.

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