"Does Vernon not realize what he's doing will make me fall for him? It's not fair, because I know that he's only using me as a toy. After all, he just wants a new experience…"
Chloe didn't like thinking about this growing feeling when she was working here. But she couldn't help it, at least not when Vernon showed an ounce of kindness to her, her heart would skip because she always wanted to be treated so gently by her ex-husband.
"I'm already past my expiry date… I shouldn't have felt this way…" Chloe tried to tell herself to know her place, so she would never dream about loving Vernon.
'Know your place, Chloe. Know your place.'
**
Vernon's eyes were lingering in the direction of the laundry room. He felt weird that Chloe tried to hide something from him.
He shifted his attention to Mackie who was eating her breakfast joyfully. He got the idea that Mackenzie had been trained to ignore her Mommy's problem, even tried to hide it from others.
Unable to cage his curiosity, he finally brought up the topic, "You know about what happened with your Mommy, right?"
"Um? Un!" Mackie nodded without hesitation.
"Then, you must tell me about her problem. Why is she so thin, and why does she refuse to eat anything?"
…
"I can't tell you, Uncle," Mackie said.
"Why not?"
"Because Mommy said so," Mackie replied. "Mommy said that Mackie shouldn't tell anyone about it. I don't want Mommy to be sad if I told you."
…
Unable to extort any information from his little niece, Vernon tried to twist his words a bit, hoping the little girl would be fooled by his question;
"I see. So Mommy won't let you tell anyone about her problem?"
"Yup!"
"What if I want to help her instead?" Vernon said. "Your Uncle is a strong man, you know. I can help to solve her problem. So, why don't you tell me about what happened to your Mommy?"
Mackie slowly turned her head towards her Big bad Uncle and stared at him with her unblinking doe eyes.
"W—What?" Vernon swallowed his saliva. For an unknown reason, he felt the innocent doe eyes were judging his intention. Which was impossible, because Mackie was just a seven-year-old little girl.
"I can't tell you, Uncle."
"Because I know that you will hurt Mommy," Mackie said, she kept staring at Vernon with her innocent doe eyes that unknowingly felt so intimidating for Vernon. "You hate Mommy, and you want her to be sad. Mackie will protect Mommy no matter what, so I can't tell you about what happened to Mommy, Uncle."
Vernon couldn't believe that he got judged by a kid. No matter how smart Mackie was, she was just an ignorant kid! Of course, she couldn't know whether Vernon hated Chloe or not.
Besides, Vernon didn't hate her. He was just… fueled with rage… for ten years straight.
Vernon tried to ignore the complicated feeling of love and hate in his heart, then pettily retorted, "Do you think your Daddy is a saint? Do you think your Daddy doesn't hate her?"
"No, Daddy doesn't hate Mommy," Mackie claimed, again, without hesitation both from her mouth and in her eyes. She was so certain that her Daddy never hated Mommy.
Vernon didn't know about the relationship between Chloe and Vincent since he was absent for ten years. But the fact that Vincent was so angry with Chloe leaving him, Vernon was convinced that his Big brother despised Chloe.
Vernon assumed that Chloe and Vincent's relationship were very similar to his parents'. They were cold to each other but tolerated each other's presence. Vernon assumed that Vincent could freely cheat as long as he gave Chloe all the money he had, and Chloe spent all the money buying unnecessary expensive stuff, just like his mother, Dorothea.
It was a dysfunctional family, Vernon realized that after he left for Europe to study and befriended a few normal people. They told him a thing or two about their families, and it blew his mind because they had normal families.
But Vincent grew up under the strict watch of the Gray family, so it wasn't surprising if he thought the issue between their parents— Vaughn and Dorothea Gray was a normal problem.
Vernon stared at Mackie for a while, trying to make sure that he didn't get affected by Mackie's words just now.
'Yes, I despise her but that doesn't mean that I'm the only one who hates her. Obviously, both my Big brother and I hated her, right?' Vernon asked himself.
He felt a sense of crisis in his heart. He always thought both of them brothers hated her, but if he was the only one who hated Chloe, that meant…
'There's a chance she might return to Vincent…' Vernon predicted, which actually made him nervous.
'I need her… I mean— I need her to be my pawn. If Chloe returns to my Big brother, then I can't use her for my plan in the future,' Vernon thought, trying to justify the feeling of crisis in his heart. Even though he knew that he had another reason why he didn't want to let her go.
'I'll have to confirm this to my Big brother. I have to make sure there's no chance for them to get together.'
"Uncle!"
"Huh, what?" Vernon snapped out of his daze when Mackie raised her voice.
Mackie pouted annoyedly, "Uncle, did you know where my Daddy is?"
"And what if I do?"
"Um, will you meet him soon?" Mackie asked again.
…
"What's the matter? Do you need something?" Vernon had to tread carefully about this topic. He had no intention of bringing Mackie to her father.
He didn't want his Big brother to discover about Mackie and Chloe in his apartment, because he wasn't done with his mission to bring him down.
Mackie seemed to think for a moment, and uttered her request, "Uncle, can you tell Daddy when will he bring Mommy and Mackie back to our old home? I miss him already."
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺