?Chapter 1544:


    The moment he finished, it was as if all his strength drained away. He sank back into the sofa, shoulders copsing inward.


    After several slow breaths, he went on. “Those words were spoken in anger—nothing but impulse. In truth, that very same night I regretted them. I began thinking about how to exin everything to the public, how to restore their rightful ce, even about letting them marry overseas first. But when morning came, they were gone. Your mother left behind only a letter.”


    Maia did not respond. Her mind moved quickly, connecting every fragment she had ever noticed.


    She had long sensed that her parents were educated people who had been forced to leave their original family. When they arrived in Wront, with their skills and abilities, they could have livedfortably. Yet they chose to remain in the slums—and eventually died there.


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    Now, atst, the truth was in. Her parents had been hiding from Dominic’s search. They had never wanted him to find them. Maia remembered how she herself had once wanted to sever all ties with the Morgan family after being wrongfully imprisoned. In that moment, she understood her parents’ choice more clearly than ever—and the weight of the hardship they had quietly endured.


    “So they fled Drakmire and came to Wront?” Maia’s voice turned cold. “Do you know they lived in the slums the entire time?”


    The color drained from Dominic’s face. His body trembled as silence took hold of him, his mouth opening and closing as though the words were lodged in his throat.


    After a long pause, he finally managed, “I only learned of their situation after they reached Wront, through Cade. If I had known they were living in such conditions, I would have—”


    “Would you?” Maia cut in, her tone sharp and even, her eyes locking onto his.


    She rose to her feet and stood over him.


    If her parents had simply eloped, would they truly have needed to disappear sopletely? Unless someone had been searching for them all along—and had eventually found them.


    “You knew they had gone to Wront back then,” Maia said quietly. “You even sent people to speak with them, didn’t you?”


    Her voice was not raised, yet every wordnded with crushing force.


    Dominic froze. His expression shifted drastically, his pupils contracting in sudden fear—the unmistakable panic of someone whose secret has beenid bare.


    Outside, lightning tore across the night sky and flooded the room with harsh, unforgiving light. It illuminated both their faces at once, exposing the terror in Dominic’s eyes and leaving him nowhere left to hide.


    Dominic let out a hollowugh, as though thest of his strength had drained from him. “You really are just like your mother,” he murmured.


    He lifted his clouded gaze to Maia. “There’s nothing I can hide from you.”


    Though Maia had never lived through those years herself, her understanding of human nature was unnervingly precise. Faced with that piercing insight, Dominic abandoned all pretense.


    “Yes. I admit it,” he confessed.


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