<h4>Chapter 471: 471-It Is All Getting Messy Now</h4>


    <strong>Hnie:</strong>


    And she would have been sessful, due to my emotions making me lose control over my body, had someone else not arrived in time.


    "What makes you think you can abuse her, Mother?" Kaye hissed at her, his hand holding her. She looked like she had seen a ghost.


    I’m pretty sure Kaye, always wanting her attention, had never raised his voice at her like that before.


    "She called me a piece of shit," she quicklyined, and Kaye looked up from her face to me. It was the kind of look that didn’t need an exnation.


    "What happened here?" he asked me that time as he stepped between me and his mother.


    "Nothing. I just want to go back to my hotel room," I said in a quiet voice.


    I didn’t have a home, so I always had to exin what I was calling "home."


    "Sure, you should go back to where you came from. You shouldn’t havee here in the first ce," she hissed at me. "And don’t look at my son like that. He’s not leaving his brother’s rehearsal dinner for your messy self."


    She kept hissing and almost spit in my face until Kaye moved and blocked me from her sight.


    "And then you wonder why she called you something a little offensive," Kaye hissed back at his mother, who grunted.


    I saw her step to the side so she could see her son’s face, staring at him with a confused look on her own.


    "Now, tell me what’s going on?" Kaye changed his tone, crouching down as he ced his hands on his knees to reach my eye level.


    "I just want to—" I stopped when he refused to ept that excuse.


    "Is there someone else you spotted in the crowd?" he shocked me by guessing the exact reason I wanted to leave. I stared at his face with wide eyes and my mouth slightly open.


    "So I’m right. Who is it? If you don’t know him,e with me and point him out," he said in his rough and aggressive voice, his jaw silently clenching a little too many times.


    "Really? You want her to go in there and ruin your brother’s moment?" his mother jumped in, shocked to see her son interact with me like that.


    "A moment, when there’s a rapist among the people we’re supposed to sit and eat with?" Kaye straightened his back and turned to his mother, his eyes shooting daggers at her.


    "Look at you, you’re actingpletely different. Is that what she’s teaching you? To disrespect your mother?" sheined, barely ncing at me.


    "She’s not teaching me anything. In fact, she always stands up for me, worries about me even when I don’t deserve her worry," his words made his mother gasp.


    I don’t know what she was so shocked about.


    "You wanted to be my favorite son, and now that you have my attention, you want it to die down because of her?" she slid in the idea of him being her favorite just to make him listen.


    But Kaye shook his head. "Took me so long, didn’t it? But Hnie never asked for anything from me. She always stood up for me, no matter what. I never had to be a hero for her to defend me."


    His words didn’t just make his mother cover her mouth—they touched my heart too.


    "As for the moment, I’m sure Norman—" Kaye stopped mid-sentence when he saw his brotherse out of the mansion. Emmet and Maximus seemed to have been looking for me.


    The minute they saw us all together, the smiles disappeared from their faces. Emmet rushed to my side, turning me toward him and cupping my face in his hands.


    "You’ve been crying?" he asked, and from the corner of my eye, I saw his mother’s reaction.


    She looked horrified. That’s why she rushed between us and pushed us apart.


    "Have you gone crazy? What was that?" she yelled at Emmet for how he was behaving with me.


    "Hnie recognized one of the rapists inside," Kaye jumped in to shift the subject, because the way Emmet was ring at his mother made me believe he was about to do something reckless.


    Maximus and Emmet turned to me, empathy clear in their eyes.


    I hated being in this situation over and over again. That awful feeling of "what if they don’t believe me this time?" hung in the air.


    "Who is it?" Emmet asked, while Maximus took slow, steady breaths.


    "It’s no one. She’s ruining Norman’s moment," Darcy hissed, shooting me a look that told me to keep quiet. I wasn’t nning to say anything right then, but her trying to control my life pushed me too far, and I blurted it out.


    "Jessica’s brother."


    They went silent before Emmet grabbed my hand, ready to drag me back inside.


    "He’s not getting out of here alive tonight," Maximus agreed with his brother, and even Kaye started pacing right beside me.


    "No, I won’t let you all ruin your brother’s moment!" Darcy yelled, running to block our path. She stood in our way with her arms stretched wide.


    "Your brother has done so much for you all. All his life, he’s spent every second thinking about you. And now, for once—on the one night that’s supposed to be his—you’re going to ruin it for him? Do you have no shame? No love for him?" she was hissing, tears forming in her eyes.


    "So you want us to go inside and share a meal with the guy who hurt Hnie?" Emmet yelled back at her.


    "I used to think you were selfish, that you only loved yourself. But I also thought maybe it was because you were naive—because you were desperate for affirmation, for proof that you were powerful and loved. But I was wrong. You’re just a cruel woman."


    Emmet’s words were harsh. They pulled a sharp gasp from her.


    But I didn’t want to start a scene here, not among these rich people who would likely take that guy’s side right from the start.


    "I don’t want to confront anyone right now," I said, and they all turned to look at me.