For a brief moment, Theodore’s face flickered with a flash of rage. His jaw tightened, and his eyes darkened, but he quickly regained his composure, his lips curling into a slight, controlled grin. Claudia’s anger was exactly what he had been anticipating, and it pleased him more than she could know.
"Go ahead," he challenged her coldly. "Give the footage to the cops. I have nothing to fear. I didn’t kill O’Neil."
This was the truth. Theodore had only tortured O’Neil but hadn’t killed him. He had only ordered Hugo to bury him alive. Besides, the video Claudia had shown him only captured the torturing part, but it did not show that he had killed him.
Theodore initially feared that the video would be sufficient to put him jail. But his most trusted men, Skyler and Hugo, had covered up things so well that no one could ever find out that Theodore had been involved in killing O’Neil. They had even arranged things in such a way that the suspicion would go to Franklin squarely.
’Tit for tat,’ he mumbled inwardly, confidence brimming in his demeanor.
"Really?" Claudia snorted, disgust rolling in her guts. "You tortured him to death and now you’re trying to act all innocent? Don’t think for a second that I’ll back down. Once I hand the footage over to the cops, you’ll be behind bars."
"Who is stopping you? Go ahead and hand it over. But before you do, maybe you should take a look at something first." He set the file down on the coffee table with a deliberate motion, his gaze unwavering as he nodded toward it.
Claudia’s instincts flared with suspicion. She eyed the file, trying to decipher what kind of trick Theodore was playing this time. Her mind raced, but her curiosity got the best of her. Slowly, she walked over and snatched the file from the table, her fingers trembling slightly as she opened it.
The moment her eyes landed on the contents; the blood drained from her face. Gina’s paternity test result was glaring up at her, bold and undeniable.
Claudia staggered, her hands holding the file shaking. "How?" she mumbled in a daze. "How did this happen?"
She had been extremely careful about keeping this a secret, not even telling Gina the truth. She had endured the pain of keeping herself away from her own daughter, stifling the urge to hear that one word – mother – from Gina’s lips. Yet, through every pang of regret, she had remained resolute, unyielding in her decision. No one knew, not even Gina.
But the truth was still revealed despite all her efforts to keep it secret. Unfortunately, it was Theodore who had found it out – the very person she had never wanted to know about it.
She lifted her eyes at him. "How did you know about it?"
Theodore smirked, taking in her flustered appearance. "You can’t hide the truth forever, Claudia. Truth finds its way to reveal itself."
Her expression hardened, and with a sharp snap, she closed the file. "What do you want?" she grunted out through her clenched teeth.
"The deal is very simple," Theodore said casually, leaning back to the sofa. "Hand me over the footage and your secret will be safe with me. Gina will never find out about the truth. But if you try to trick me, you will lose everything."
"Are you threatening me?" Claudia hissed.
Theodore nodded grimly. "Yes...I am dead serious. Accept the deal, or I’ll give Gina the report. Imagine her shock – to learn that her mother abandoned her right after her birth. Despite being so close to her, she never even can call you mother. How will she react when she finds out that you lied to her all those years? Will she forgive you? Can she take the blow that Franklin is her biological brother?"
"You!" Claudia’s face flushed with rage, her finger trembling as she pointed at Theodore. She had guarded the truth so fiercely, for so long, that the shock of its exposure struck her like a physical blow. She had never imagined it would be Theodore standing here, holding her darkest secret in his hands, ready to wield it against her.
Before she could react, Theodore surged forward, ripping the file from her hands. His face was twisted with contempt as he looked down at her. "You never should’ve crossed me," he hissed. "Did you really think you could manipulate me? Break me?" He let out a bitter laugh, cold and merciless. "I’ve had my suspicions about you for a long time, Claudia."
He pointed a finger at her. "You conspired to kill me to hide the fact that Franklin is not blood-related to the Reids. The hospital had already notified me of the DNA results before the accident. But unfortunately, I was in a coma for six long months after the accident. You should have made sure I didn’t wake up. Now that I know the full truth, you’ll pay for every deceit, every scheme. And your precious children will suffer along with you."
His words struck Claudia like a hammer, and she stumbled backward, her breath catching as dread coiled in her stomach. She was exposed, unraveling every layer of her carefully constructed life.
He took a step closer, his voice brimming with unrestrained contempt. "You manipulated my father, lied to him, wrecked his marriage for your own gain. And you thought the lies could stay buried?"
He shook his head, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. "You betrayed not only him but your own daughter. Gina’s been mourning her ’dead’ mother for years, completely unaware that the very person she grieved stood right in front of her. How cold can you be? You cared more about wealth than you did about her."
"Shut up!" Claudia roared, her voice trembling in rage. The torrent of emotions nearly overwhelmed her.
"You can’t shut me up now." Theodore’s eyes were steely. "You are exposed. And soon, you’ll be stripped of everything the Reid name ever gave you. Your bank accounts? Frozen. The houses you so carefully amassed? Sealed. You have nothing left."
He paused for a moment. "But there’s still a way out," he continued, with a chilling casualness. "Hand over the footage, leave the country quietly, and I might even spare Franklin from prison. You have a choice. The choice is yours."
Claudia’s jaw tightened, a flicker of defiance sparking in her eyes. She was backed into a corner, but the last thing she would do was surrender to him. She still believed that she could turn the table. "Why would I ever trust you?" she spat. "The second I give you that tape, you’ll turn on me – drag me through the courts and ruin Gina’s life along with mine. I won’t let you destroy her."
She straightened her back. "I accept your challenge. Do whatever you want. I’d love to defeat you."
With that, she stormed out.
Theodore’s cold gaze lingered on her retreating figure. His lips curled into a slow, triumphant smirk, satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. "Exactly as planned," he muttered. "Run to the cops, Claudia. Walk straight into my trap."
As soon as Claudia stepped out of the villa, her defiant mask crumbled, and her rage dissolved into a wrenching sob. She slipped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind her, and buried her face in her hands against the steering wheel. Her shoulders shook as a wave of helplessness washed over her.
She had indeed challenged Theodore, but she didn’t know how to face Gina. Her bravado faded, replaced by dread and shame. How could she possibly explain the truth to her son – that the girl he had grown up thinking of as his cousin was, in fact, his sister?
The delicate web she had spun over the years had unraveled in a single confrontation. The future she had so carefully envisioned – lay in tatters.
"How could it all fall apart so quickly? How could I have miscalculated this badly?" she cried out desperately.
She was close to achieving her goal, but everything had been taken away. How was Keith going to react? He would be definitely mad at her. What if he refused to take her back? Where would she go?
But as despair threatened to drown her, raw anger flared back in her. "It’s all because of Theodore," she muttered, wiping her tears away. She composed herself, thinking that it wasn’t time to whine. "I have worked on this for years. I can’t accept defeat easily. Theodore, you pushed me into this. Now, don’t blame me for being heartless."
She dialed Keith’s number. As soon as the call connected, she said with a grave tone, "I am going to the farmhouse. Meet me there. It’s urgent."
Without waiting for his reply, she ended the call and drove away.
Keith looked down at the phone in his hand with a frown on his brow. "What’s wrong?" he mumbled.
He had spoken to her only a few hours earlier, urging patience, yet now she was summoning him to the farmhouse with an urgency that unsettled him.
Keith was not at all happy. But he couldn’t ignore the seriousness of her tone. He decided to go there and find out what was happening. Rising from his chair, he took his suit jacket from the hook and walked out of the study.
As he walked down the hallway, he saw Gina in the hall, doing something on her phone. "Gina, I have some urgent matters to attend to," he said, managing a brief nod. "I won’t be back until tomorrow."
Gina lifted her eyes at him, beaming with a smile. She was excited that her father wouldn’t be at home the entire night, allowing her to sneak into the study and search for the videotape.
"Alright. Take care."
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