?Chapter 292:


    Inside the banquet hall, Katie watched Brendon with growing impatience. “Why aren’t you out there mingling, making connections?” she inquired, her eyes narrowing as she caught him scanning the crowd yet again. “Why do you keep ncing around like that?”


    Brendon shook his head, his voice distant. “It’s nothing,” he muttered, though his gaze kept drifting, searching for Christina’s familiar face that stubbornly refused to appear.


    Katie’s lips tightened. “Are you looking for Christina?” She struggled to refrain from uttering harsh words.


    “You’re overthinking things,” he replied, his tone clipped.


    With a sigh, Katie’s frustration seeped into her words. “Brendon, after everything Ynda’s done for us, you can’t just turn your back on her now.”


    He opened his mouth to answer, but the sharp trill of his phone interrupted. He snatched it up, his expression shifting as he listened. “What? Ynda’s back in the hospital? Another rpse?” His voice jumped, allposure gone. “I’ll be there right away!”


    Without another word, Brendon bolted from the banquet hall, leaving Katie staring after him, stunned.


    Christina stepped briskly into Kitaso Hospital’s lobby, only to be brought to a halt by a voice she’d know anywhere.


    “Well, well. Weren’t you supposed to be in Dorfield?” Yvonne Jones sneered, arms folded, her voice sharp enough to cut ss. “What brings you crawling back?”


    Christina didn’t bother shifting her gaze. That icy tone, soaked in disdain, was all the identification she needed.


    Yvonne was the Jones family’s biological daughter, while Christina was merely their adopted one.


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    Back then, Mack Jones and Liza Lee had been two years into marriage and desperate for a child. Both were healthy, yet no child came. On someone’s suggestion, they’d turned to adoption, taking in baby Christina to fill the silence in their home.


    But fate had a cruel sense of timing. When Christina turned five, Liza gave birth to Yvonne—their own flesh and blood.


    Once Yvonne arrived, the Jones family’s warmth toward Christina vanished like morning mist. Kindness gave way to cold stares, scolding shouts, and cruel hands. And it wasn’t just Mack and Liza. Even little Yvonne, five years Christina’s junior, had quickly learned to humiliate Christina, delighting in her own superiority.


    The fleeting affection Christina once knew had fadedpletely, teaching her to cling tightly to the rare people who showed her real kindness.


    At just ten years old, Christina had been shipped off to a brutal overseas training camp. The Joneses had imed it was to prepare her for the family business. In truth, they hoped to erase her—quietly and permanently.


    That first year had nearly killed Christina. But she endured and wed her way through the agony, refusing to disappear from the world in this way.


    Ironically, when Christina was fighting for her life in a foreign hellhole, the beloved daughter back home—Yvonne—had fallen desperately ill. A mysterious disease had stolen her vitality, leaving her dependent on powerful drugs just to make it through the day.


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