Always Blinded by Jealousy

Chapter 9: The Truth Behind Michelle

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By the time I reached the hospital, the snow had turned into a violent storm.

My ankle throbbed with every step, but I barely noticed the pain anymore. All I could think about was my mother lying somewhere inside that building, fighting for her life because of the same disaster that had killed her in my previous life.

A nurse rushed toward me the moment I entered the emergency department.

"Miss Cooper? Your mother has been taken into emergency surgery. The doctors are doing everything they can."

My knees nearly gave out.

"Will she survive?"

The nurse hesitated before answering.

"She's lost a lot of blood. The next few hours are critical."

I pressed my lips together and nodded.

Critical.

That single word dragged me back into the nightmare of my previous life.

I remembered sitting outside another operating room, waiting for news while my brother stood beside me with a blank expression. I remembered the doctor walking out and quietly shaking his head. I remembered screaming until my throat went raw.

This time, I refused to let that ending happen.

I sat outside the operating room and stared at the red light above the door.

Nathan arrived shortly afterward.

He didn't come alone. Two security guards followed him, along with his butler.

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

His gaze dropped to my injured leg, then moved to the blood staining my clothes.

"Mia..."

I looked up.

For the first time since I had been reborn, I saw something resembling regret in his eyes.

"I was wrong," he said quietly.

I laughed bitterly.

"You were wrong?"

He lowered his head.

"The police confirmed everything. There really were intruders at your estate. They found blood on the bedroom floor, broken furniture, and several pieces of evidence. Your mother was stabbed while protecting you."

"I know."

"I should have believed you."

I stared at him without saying anything.

In my previous life, I had spent years wondering why the people who loved me had refused to believe me when I needed them most.

Now I finally understood something.

Some people didn't need proof to believe you. They needed to care about you first.

Nathan took a step closer.

"Mia, I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me."

My voice was exhausted.

"Go apologize to my mother. If she survives, maybe she'll decide whether you deserve forgiveness."

He looked stunned, but I turned my face away.

Then my phone vibrated.

A message had arrived from an unknown number.

"If you want your mother to survive, stop investigating Michelle Peterson."

My heart tightened.

I immediately took a screenshot and sent it to the police officer handling the case.

This was exactly what I had been waiting for.

In my previous life, I had never questioned Michelle's suicide note. Everyone had accepted her accusations against me as the truth.

But this time, something was wrong.

Michelle had supposedly been isolated in the countryside when the attack happened. Yet somehow, her accusations had perfectly reached my brother, and James had immediately believed them.

There had to be someone feeding her information.

And someone had wanted my family destroyed.

I opened the photographs I had secretly taken before leaving the estate.

One picture showed the security control room.

Another showed the schedule for every bodyguard assigned to our family.

And in the corner of the final photograph, I noticed something I had missed before.

A name.

The person who had accessed the security system hours before James took every guard away was not an outsider.

It was someone with authorization.

My heart began pounding.

I called the police officer immediately.

"Officer, I think I found something."

He arrived less than twenty minutes later.

After examining the photograph, his expression changed.

"This access code belongs to someone inside your family company."

"Who?"

He zoomed in on the image.

"Ethan Cole."

I froze.

Ethan was my father's most trusted executive.

He had worked for our family for more than fifteen years.

He was also the person who had strongly encouraged my father to put James in charge of the company after his graduation.

Why would he help the intruders?

Before I could think further, another message arrived.

This time, there was an attachment.

It was a photograph of Michelle.

She was standing beside a man I had never seen before.

The location tag showed a private hotel outside the city.

The timestamp was three days before the meteor shower.

My breath caught.

Michelle was supposed to have been preparing for her countryside trip with James during that time.

Instead, she had been meeting someone secretly.

Then another photograph appeared.

The man beside her was Ethan Cole.

Everything suddenly clicked.

Michelle hadn't accidentally become the center of my family's destruction.

Someone had deliberately positioned her there.

Someone had manipulated James's obsession with her, convinced him to abandon our family, and made sure every security guard left the estate on the same night.

And if Ethan was working with Michelle, then the suicide note from my previous life might never have been what it seemed.

Maybe Michelle had never died.

Maybe the entire thing had been staged.

I stared at the photograph until my fingers went cold.

"Find out where she is," I whispered.

The police officer nodded.

Just then, the operating room doors opened.

A doctor stepped outside.

I stood so quickly that pain shot through my injured leg.

"Doctor?"

He removed his mask and looked at me.

"Your mother survived the surgery."