Chapter 4

Madison raised her voice and shouted.

"He stopped loving you, you old hag, a long time ago! He didn't want you paying respects to his ashes at all!"

As her words fell, the smile froze on Mom's face.

In that moment, something shattered in her eyes.

Madison grew more confident as she continued.

"You don't even know, do you? We were together for a long time. He wanted to divorce you. If his parents hadn't absolutely refused, I would be his wife right now, not you."

"Shut your mouth!"

I cut her off sharply.

"What you're saying has no evidence! Who knows if you're just making things up?"

"You want evidence? Fine, I'll show you!"

Madison went to a drawer, pulled out an envelope, and slammed it down in front of me.

"This is a suicide note your father wrote himself. See for yourself!"

I was about to reach for it, but Mom stopped me.

She extended her own hands—rough and worn from years of hard work—trembling as she picked up the envelope and slowly opened it.

Inside was Dad's familiar handwriting.

The contents were simple, just a few short sentences, but they instantly brought tears to Mom's eyes.

Because everything written there expressed Dad's feelings for Madison and their time together.

At the end, he'd left all his remaining assets to Madison.

Even this villa had been specifically set aside for her.

As for Mom and me, he'd left us nothing.

Nothing except a mountain of debt we could never fully repay.

You have to understand—this villa alone was worth enough to pay off all of Dad's debts.

But he'd given it to Madison without hesitation, leaving Mom to work herself to the bone for over a decade, slowly paying back those debts bit by bit.

In that instant, all the blood in my body rushed to my head.

Right now, I wanted nothing more than to scatter my father's ashes to the wind.

Mom's hands trembled as she finished reading the letter, tears finally breaking free and streaming down her face.

Seeing this, Madison lifted her chin smugly.

"Do you believe me now? Just leave. With this suicide note, there's no way you can take your husband's ashes."

I couldn't control my emotions anymore either.

After helping Mom sit down on the couch, I strode toward Madison.

"Where are his ashes? Hand them over now!"

"I'm not giving them to you—"

*Slap!*

I raised my hand and struck her hard across the face.

Madison's face whipped to the side.

She stared at me in disbelief.

"You hit me?"

I flexed my wrist and threatened her coldly.

"I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. If you don't hand them over right now, I'll beat you until your own mother wouldn't recognize you. After all, that suicide note can't prove one hundred percent that my father wrote it. I could easily say you stole my father's ashes. I just lost control for a moment out of anger."

With that, I grabbed a fistful of her hair and, ignoring her screams of pain, yanked her toward me.

"Talk! Where are my father's ashes?"

At that moment, a familiar voice suddenly came from the doorway behind me.

"Evelyn Thompson, what do you think you're doing? Let go of Madison right now!"

In an instant, every hair on my body stood on end.

Because that voice belonged to my father—my father who had been "dead" for twelve years.

I stiffly turned my neck and looked back.

Standing in the doorway was a man.

It was my father.

He was alive.

He hadn't died.