?<strong>Chapter 372:</strong>


    When Adrian and Joelle arrived, they found Amara seated by the window, exuding an air of poised fragility with her legs crossed. On the small table beside her sat a disposable paper cup, which she lifted with a gesture so exaggeratedly delicate it bordered on theatrical. Joelle, observing this, didn’t snicker or roll her eyes. Instead, a pang of sympathy stirred in her chest. Ever since Amara’s husband passed away, she had be more and more unstable mentally. Watching her husband and another woman’s son every day seemed to further warp her already fragile heart.


    “Mom.”


    The word sliced through the silence, startling Amara. She flinched, turning her head abruptly. For a moment, she blinked at Adrian in confused disbelief. But as she rose to her feet, her eyes welled up with tears.


    “Adrian!”


    She moved toward Adrian, and for the briefest moment, Joelle thought Amara’s pain ran deeper than any of them couldprehend. But just as Amara was about to embrace him, her sorrow morphed into something wild, and she shoved Adrian away hard. Adrian stumbled, his body still fragile from his injuries. The bandages had been removed, but his bones were far from fully healed.


    Joelle rushed to steady him, her hand on his arm as a look of bewilderment flickered across Adrian’s otherwise stoic expression. Amara’s voice rose. “You ungrateful brat! You left me locked away in this ce just so you could reunite with Raelyn! Using the Miller family’s money on your real mother? Don’t even think about it! I should have never let her give birth to you in the first ce!”


    Even if Adrian could withstand the barrage of venom, Joelle couldn’t. “You regret letting Raelyn give birth to him? Did you ever stop and ask if Adrian wanted to be your son? You throw all your misery at his feet as if he’s the cause of every bad thing in your life. Just because he’s Raelyn’s child, does that give you the right to wound him so cruelly?”


    Amara’s hair hung in disarray, her face drawn into shadows of bitterness, but her bloodshot eyes gleamed with rage. “Bitch! Who do you think you are, speaking to me like that?”


    Adrian reached for Joelle’s wrist, his grip firm. He then turned to face Amara’s wrath head-on. “I came here intending to take you away from this ce. But now I see you’re still blind to your own faults, which means you get to stay.”


    “What? What are you talking about?”


    Adrian had already turned to leave without bothering to engage further. Desperate, Amara took a few hurried steps forward. Her voice hitched to a fevered pitch. “What do you mean by ‘I get to stay’? God! I’m your mother! You’ve locked me in a mental hospital! How could you even call yourself human?”


    Adrian paused, the words visibly hitting him, though his back remained to her. Joelle could see it—the flicker of hope for her still dancing in his eyes. “You are my mother, but have you ever treated me like your son?” Amara had lost her husband, true. But in that same moment, Adrian had lost his father. His grief had matched hers, if not exceeded it. Yet, Amara had never once cared to see his pain, too absorbed in her spiraling misery. The dead could not return, and the weight of loss would forever linger, but did that mean the living had to drown in the same misery?


    In the heavy silence that followed Amara’s avoidance of the subject, Adrian felt an unexpected sense of relief wash over him. He owed Amara nothing. He owed the Miller family nothing.


    “Joelle, let’s go,” he said.


    As the door clicked shut behind them, it was as if Amara snapped out of a daze. “Let me out! Do you hear me? Let me out! I’m a Miller! Who daresy a hand on me? Adrian Miller, I gave you everything! How could you do this to me?”


    By the time they reached the end of the hallway, Amara’s desperate cries had be nothing more than a distant echo. Joelle squeezed Adrian’s hand. “We should get going. We still need to pick up Aurora.”


    The sky back home loomed with dark, brooding clouds, threatening rain at any moment. There wasn’t a breath of wind, but the chill in the air clung to them as they stepped out of the car. Across the street, Raelyn stood alone. She looked like a shadow of herself. Since she was stabbed, Adrian and Joelle hadn’t made any attempt to visit her. Raelyn had made her choice, severing ties with Adrian as though he never existed. So, he had done the same.


    At her feet sat a suitcase, a sign that she was preparing to leave, perhaps for good. Adrian nced at her briefly before looking away.


    “Adrian!” Raelyn called out, her voice soft.


    There was no avoiding the inevitable conversation now—mother and son, forced into a reckoning neither truly wanted. Sensing the tension in the air, Joelle said, “I’ll go inside.” Adrian’s grip tightened around her wrist, silently asking her to stay by his side.


    Raelyn drew nearer. “Adrian, I’m sorry.”


    But Adrian had long since stopped expecting anything from Amara, and he had even less hope left for Raelyn. Maternal love had always been a luxury beyond his reach. He knew what Raelyn’s life had been like all these years—unfettered and free. Back then, she had earned a small fortune by bearing children for wealthy women who couldn’t have their own.


    And with her sharp mind, she’d managed to multiply that wealth over time. That once poor worker had be financially secure, rising well above her beginnings. Raelyn had traveled the world, her life full of experiences. Even without Adrian in it, she had found no void that needed filling. Adrian stood there, silent and unmoved, his gaze fixed on anything but her.


    Raelyn’s scarf fluttered in the faint breeze, a delicate gesture she couldn’t mimic. She lowered her head, incapable of tears. She had made her choice long ago, and she wasn’t the kind to regret it.


    “I don’t expect you to understand, so I won’t exin the past. I know I wasn’t a good mother. But I never thought the Miller family…” Her words faltered. She hadn’t imagined that Adrian’s life with the Millers would turn out so far from what she had envisioned.


    “Adrian, I truly hope you find happiness. From now on, I’ll keep my distance. I won’t interfere in your life anymore. Neither Amara nor I have been the mothers you deserved, but I know this—you and Joelle will be great parents.”


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