Chapter 215

"Donald, it was thanks to your cleverness back then that you swapped Betty with your wife’s child and got rid of that worthless brat. It's just a shame that brat is still alive and now ruining Betty’s life.”

Jenny’s voice was soft and seductive. She traced circles on Donald’s chest with her hand.

“Betty is our daughter, so naturally, I’m looking out for her. Don’t worry, as long as I’m around, Betty won’t suffer any injustice. Whatever burdens Betty's facing now, I’ll make sure she gets revenge one day.” Donald enjoyed Jenny’s sweet talk.

Their conversation hit Maelis like a bolt of lightning. She couldn’t believe the Betty she had raised was actually her husband’s mistress’s daughter.

Unable to accept this truth, Maelis collapsed to the floor, her face terrifyingly pale.

“Impossible…” she murmured hoarsely, her throat feeling sore.

No woman could accept that the daughter she raised and spoiled for over a decade was actually her husband’s illegitimate child. Maelis felt like she was losing her mind.

Sofia and the others didn’t know any of this. Hearing the audio, they also felt a surge of fury.

From the conversation in the surveillance video, it was clear that Zinnia was the one swapped by Donald.

Maelis had been completely in the dark before. Now, learning that Donald cheated, and suddenly realizing he was behind swapping the two children, she lost all composure and couldn’t recover for a long time.

Jackson said, “Maelis, Betty is the daughter of Donald’s mistress, and your real daughter, Zinnia, was deliberately swapped by Donald so that his mistress’s child could live a wealthy life.

“Over the years, Donald has favored Betty because she is the child of him and the woman he loves.

“Do you know why he dislikes Zinnia and why he pushed for you to send Zinnia away? Because he feared Zinnia would threaten Betty’s position in the family.

“Do you still think everything is Zinnia’s fault? Everything has been wrong from the start. Zinnia’s return only uncovered Donald’s shame.

“If Zinnia hadn’t come back, you would have kept raising the child of your husband and his mistress, worrying over her, planning for her, and hurting your real daughter.

“Donald and Betty have seen all this. They purposely drove a wedge between you and Zinnia, and you foolishly believed them. They must be thrilled seeing you argue with Zinnia, saying all those harsh things, even breaking ties with her for their sake.

“And you and your three sons happily live as one family with Betty.”

Seeing Maelis unable to respond, Jackson’s expression remained cold as he stated everything step by step. Henry and the others silently listened.

“It’s impossible. I don’t believe it. You’re all lying to me,” Maelis said. “You’re all trying to get back at me for Zinnia.

“Was it Zinnia who put you up to this? She’s a jinx. She’s already destroyed my life, and now she wants to destroy everything I have.”

Hearing Jackson reveal the painful truth, Maelis completely fell apart. She screamed, beating the ground with her fists knotted so tight that her knuckles turned white.

She couldn’t accept that Betty was Donald’s illegitimate child. There was no woman who could easily handle her own husband’s betrayal–much less the painful realization that the child she had nurtured with all her love was a symbol of his betrayal.

Maelis felt she was going mad; her emotions were on the edge of collapse. Whatever she was hearing now was more unacceptable to her than all the struggles the Shaw family had gone through recently.

In the adjacent box, Yannis reached over and ruffled Zinnia’s hair. “Zinnia, you poor thing.”

The two of them could hear everything from the neighboring room, naturally, because Yannis had used his influence to disable the soundproofing.

As he listened to the heated exchange, Yannis sighed inwardly.

“I’m not poor. I have my master. You’re the poor one.” Zinnia held her orange juice and looked up at him in protest. Yannis always liked to tousle Zinnia’s hair; she was afraid he’d soon scrub it all away.

“Alright, you’re not poor,” Yannis smiled. “Zinnia, you’ll be the happiest person in the future. All these obstacles will disappear, and your future will be filled with light.”

Noticing Zinnia ignoring the conversation next door and bickering back at him, Yannis couldn’t help but break into a small smile. His voice was lazy, yet a bit serious.

Zinnia snorted and took another sip of her orange juice. She chewed on the bouncy pulp while tilting her head to listen in on the conversation again. Yannis sat beside her and straightened the messy hair she had gotten all knotted up.

Zinnia couldn’t pretend Maelis’s hurtful words hadn’t gotten under her skin. She messed up her little braids in a nervous tug.

So Yannis called the internal phone and asked for a glass of orange juice to be brought in. That seemed to ease Zinnia enough to let go of her braids.

Jackson furrowed his brows. “You still don’t believe it?”

He hadn’t expected Maelis to be this obsessed – unwilling to face reality and insisting on putting all the blame on Zinnia. Jackson sighed and shook his head. It was hard to wake someone who didn’t want to be woken up.

But Jackson insisted that Maelis face the truth. Otherwise, she’d keep causing trouble for Zinnia. All of this was Donald and Betty’s fault; it should be them who suffer the consequences.

He walked over to the door and opened it. A plainly dressed woman stood outside. She came in quietly.

“Please tell everyone the truth about the children being switched back then,” Jackson said to her.

For the past few days, Jackson had been investigating what really happened when Zinnia was switched.

Seventeen years ago, surveillance hadn’t been well developed. Maelis was close to her delivery date when she went with Donald to a small town for an inspection.

The bumpy journey made Maelis, who had been delicate and sheltered all her life, go into labor suddenly, and she ended up delivering in a small town hospital.

The town’s hospital was poorly equipped, and there were no surveillance cameras there. When Maelis was delivering, Jenny was also in labor in the same hospital. That was because the town Donald was inspecting was Jenny’s hometown.

More than a dozen years had passed, and the hospital’s doctors and nurses had come and gone. Back then, surveillance was far from universal. It took Jackson a lot of effort to find the nurse who had assisted in delivery that day.

The nurse was elderly now and already retired, staying home to care for her grandchildren. When Jackson’s men first came to find her, she was afraid and kept silent, worried it might be some kind of trouble.

But Jackson’s men assured her there was no danger. They promised to guarantee her safety and pay her a sum of money afterwards, as long as she honestly revealed the whole story. Later, they safely brought her back to Jinston.

Chapter 215

The nurse was found and brought back just yesterday. Jackson hadn’t gotten a chance to bring up this story to Maelis yet, but now...