I Left the Triangle They Thought I Needed Chapter 06

I got up and walked toward the door.

“Mom…”

“Emily, you should be in bed. What are you doing up?”

She rushed over and held me up, her face full of worry.

Natalie stood there, looking calm.

“Emily, name your price. We’ll pay it. But I’m pregnant.”

I almost laughed at how shameless she was.

Was that a threat?

“Natalie, you don’t get to walk away from what you did.”

Her face went pale for a second. But she held firm.

“This whole thing started because you hit me first. James was just protecting me and the baby. He didn’t want more harm to come to us.”

She was clever, covering all her bases, protecting the baby. The perfect excuse.

“Natalie. Do you really think I wasn’t recording that?”

Her eyes went wide, but she told herself it couldn’t be true. There’s no way I had time to record anything.

But I was so glad I’d hit that button.

After all those years of studying law, I knew to keep evidence.

Everything was backed up to the cloud, too. Even if I lost my phone, it was safe.

I played the recording right there.

“Every time I tutored you in math, I made it harder on purpose.”

“You got food poisoning because I served you undercooked pasta and told you it was fine.”

James’s face changed.

Natalie went white.

The recording ended. I looked at James.

“Do you still think this is my fault? She deserved it.”

James stared at Natalie, his voice low. “Natalie. Is it true?”

“You told me Emily and her family treated you badly. You said you’d been so alone. All of that was a lie?”

Tears rolled down Natalie’s face. I couldn’t tell if they were real or not.

“James, I really do love you. The first time we met, I knew you were the one for me. What does Emily have that I don’t?”

My mom couldn’t hold back anymore. She marched up and grabbed Natalie by the arm, her voice shaking with rage.

“Natalie. I treated you like family. Why are you doing this to Emily? Because you’re jealous?”

Natalie tore off the mask and screamed.

“Yes, I’m jealous. Is that a crime? Emily has everything, and she’s not half as good as I am. I just pushed her a little. I didn’t break any laws.”

James grabbed her shoulders. “You made me lose Emily. You ruined us.”

He was calling it a loss.

I watched them and almost laughed.

One of them, the innocent one, had been lying for years.

The other one had been blind for years and was just now seeing it.

And me? I was the idiot who almost died.

“Mom. Let’s go back.”

From outside the room, Natalie screamed.

“Emily, don’t think you’ve won. You’ve lost too. You’ve lost everything.”