Chapter 688

"Of course, Evelyn. We understand you look down on us for being less fortunate." The woman's voice trembled with false humility. "But blood ties should count for something. Why this hostility?" All eyes darted between the nervous relatives and Evelyn's icy glare.

Charles Sterling cleared his throat. "Evelyn, enough dramatics. This is a family gathering." His reprimand carried through the tense silence.

Evelyn's lips curled into a humorless smile.

"Exactly, Uncle Charles. That's precisely why Father and my brothers sacrificed their sleep to host this New Year's celebration." Her manicured nails tapped against her champagne flute. "Why we spared no expense on hospitality and gifts."

Then her gaze hardened like tempered steel.

"But if family means stabbing each other in the back..." She let the sentence hang, watching the color drain from two particular faces. The room collectively held its breath.

"Then I'd rather be an orphan."

A shocked murmur rippled through the crowd. Only Evelyn and the two guilty parties knew what had transpired in the garden. "What happened?" "She was perfectly pleasant all evening!" The whispers grew louder.

Evelyn tilted her head, studying the women's panicked expressions. "Still playing innocent?" Her voice cut through the noise.

The older woman clutched her pearls. "W-we didn't—"

"Lucas." Evelyn didn't let them finish. "The garden surveillance footage. Now." Sterling Manor had no surveillance blind spots - a fact these fools had forgotten.

The women turned ghostly pale. "Evelyn, please—"

But she'd already turned away, the click of her heels echoing like a countdown to their ruin. Lucas stormed off with thunderous steps, the card game forgotten.

When the damning recording played, William Sterling's knuckles turned white around his cane. The video's audio filled the room with venomous whispers about Evelyn's divorce and supposed inadequacies.

A chair shattered against the marble floor as Alexander Sterling lost control. The temperature in the room plummeted to subzero.

The guilty women collapsed to their knees. "We were just speculating!" "Family shouldn't take offense at harmless gossip!"

Their pleas died when William's cane struck the floor with a crack that sounded like a gavel. The relatives exchanged terrified glances - their livelihoods depended on the Sterlings' goodwill. Everyone knew William was their only advocate; his children tolerated these gatherings at best.

Now two idiots had burned that fragile bridge.

The grand-aunt shuffled forward, grasping Evelyn's wrist with gnarled fingers. "Child, elders sometimes speak without thinking. Surely you can forgive—"