Isabella sat there, unmoving.

She kept looking at the peaceful expression on her mother's face and didn't know how to address the turmoil in her heart, how to come to terms with the fact that her mother was no longer with her.

Her hand clasped around her mother's hands, trying to provide warmth so her mother's cold body would warm up again, and she would call her Isa or Bella again.

“Isabella—” The headmaid looked at the girl pitifully.

She could see Isabella was breaking deep inside and was trying her best not to have a mental breakdown.

“She is alive. She just likes to pretend to be dead because she wants to be free from this misery of the life that the heavens have bestowed her with,” Isabella whispered, her voice barely audible.

The head maid stepped ahead and placed her hand on Isabella's shoulders, giving her a light squeeze to comfort her.

“Cry, little one. It's okay to cry and let it out,” the head maid said, hoping Isabella would express her emotions, but the girl's gaze didn't falter.

Isabella kept looking at her mother's form, which looked serene and content for the first time since they arrived in Southern Ville City.

Stop moaning all the time; you are a grown-up.

I won't stay with you for long, Isabella. This sickness will take me down soon.

Do you think I will find peace when I am gone?

I am sorry for being the worst mother. I wish I were dead too.

Her mother's words echoed in Isabella's mind, and her hand trembled.

“Mom! Mom! Where is that girl!” Evelyn's voice could be heard from outside, and Sophia, who knew what had happened, silenced her.

Evelyn narrowed her eyes.

“Why are you shushing me, Mom? You don't know what Isabella did today. She blamed me for playing tricks and—” Evelyn stopped talking when Sophia placed her hand over her mouth.

‘What?’ Evelyn mouthed to her mother, who pointed at Isabella's room with her mother in the store room.

“Emma is dead,” Sophia whispered, and Evelyn raised her brows.

“But she was fine this evening—” Evelyn’s brows furrowed before they relaxed, and her pupils dilated.

She looked at her mother in shock.

“Mom, did you—?” She didn't complete her sentence.

Sophia rolled her eyes.

“Well, how was I supposed to know she was allergic to certain ingredients? I guess her stay was overdue to end either way. It's better that she is out of our way. Now you can take Isabella with you as the perfect servant while you complete your college degree,” Sophia said.

Evelyn paused.

She didn't know what to say. While on the one hand, she was content that Isabella would continue to be with her as her servant and that she would soar higher with her paintings, on the other hand, she felt terrible for the girl as she had lost her mother, and her own mother was indirectly the reason behind it.

Isabella didn't move for a long time before she sat on her knees and kissed her mother's forehead.

“You have finally found the peace you were looking for, Mother. While you left me alone in this hell to suffer, I am glad at least one of us is free,” She whispered before standing from her place.

Her legs wobbled as soon as she stood, and the head maid rushed to help her.

Isabella gave her a weak smile before steadying herself.

She was about to inform everyone and see if they could help her with the funeral when her gaze fell on the bowl in the corner.

“Where did that come from?” She asked.

“Your stepmother had asked one of the maids to prepare the soup for your mother since your mother woke up and was shouting she was hungry,” the head maid answered.

Anyone would have thought Sophia suddenly had a change of heart and did that out of care or just to stop Emma's annoying voice, but Isabella felt her heart thumping at the possibility.

She walked ahead and licked the few drops of soup still in the bowl, her gaze drooping at the realization.

“What happened?” The head maid asked when she saw Isabella's hunched back, looking completely defeated.

“It contains nuts my mother is allergic to. The allergy causes her throat to constrict, and it becomes impossible for her to breathe,” Isabella whispered.

Not many people knew that her mother was allergic to nuts.

Still, in their eleven years of stay, something like this had never happened.

So, was it just a coincidence that her mother was fed a soup with nuts when she wasn't home, and a couple of days after she had said she needed to stay to take care of her mother, not accompany Evelyn to college? Isabella wondered.

A self-deprecating smile appeared on her face.

She wasn't fool enough not to understand what had transpired. Her heart constricted in pain, making her place her hand on her chest to control her emotions.

Tears started streaming down her face, and she quickly wiped them.

Walking out of the room, she looked at the mother-daughter pair whispering to each other.

Evelyn stood there, still shocked by what her mother had done.

Seeing Isabella's tearful eyes as she looked at them as if knowing they murdered her mother, Evelyn gulped.

“What happened, Isabella?” Sophia asked carefully.

Isabella looked at the woman who stood there without remorse and clenched her fists to control her whimpers.

“My mother is no more,” Isabella whispered, speaking to herself more.

“She is no more? Oh lord, what happened?” Sophia walked ahead, ready to show her sympathy, but Isabella smiled in mockery.

Sophia’s pretense only ignited her frustration.

“Why did you have to do it?” She asked.

Her eyes were red as she looked up at Sophia with a wronged expression.

“Excuse me?” Sophia looked offended.

“I have been serving you and your daughter since I arrived here, pretending to be your slave, even signing the contract that sold my life to you. Was it not enough that you had to kill my mother?” Isabella asked.

Her voice was calm, but her eyes raged with suppressed pain as the urge to destroy everything and kill herself after killing these people took over for a minute before Isabella fell to her knees, defeated.

“You could've just warned me that you would hurt my mother if I didn’t do what you wanted, and I would've agreed to everything you had demanded. You didn't just break me. You took away the only person I had. Are you guys happy now?” Isabella asked.

Sophia's expression turned from concerned and pitiful to mocking in an instant.

“You are right. I did it. It had been a long time since I had been feeding that useless cow. Don't you think I had been lenient enough to keep my husband's mistress and bastard child at my home?” Sophia scoffed and clapped her hands.

Her gaze turned sharp.

“Am I the villain here? Your mother willingly stayed here, even making you sign that contract and offering up your blood,” Sophia said.

Isabella nodded.

It was true.

They could have returned to their village and lived happily, but her mother wanted to stay close to the man she had wasted her youth and life on.

She was about to defend her mother when she saw her father, Heath, enter the house with a tired expression.

“What's going on here?” Heath asked as he placed his office bag on the table.

The maid immediately helped him out of his coat, and after loosening his tie, he unbuttoned his upper two buttons.

“Honey, look at your ungrateful daughter. I had done so much for her and her mother, and rather than being grateful, she is blaming me for her mother's death. She was withering and asking for food, and I sent her. Was I wrong to do so? She thinks I poisoned it. Here, let me eat it,” Sophia said.

She ate the soup before everyone else, and Isabella felt helpless.

“Look, I didn't add any poison. How could you—” Sophia started crying in her husband's arms, and Heath sighed.

He was about to reprimand Isabella, still not understanding that her mother was dead from their words, but Isabella interrupted him. “My mother is dead. Will you at least hold a funeral for her?” She asked timidly.

She held little to no hope in her father. If her father ever cared for her mother, they wouldn't have to live like peasants.

However, that was a gone case.

If he couldn't put her mother on a pedestal or an altar of marriage, she wanted to know if he could at least help her cremate her. Isabella looked at her father, hopefully.

Heath felt troubled.

Though it was just an affair, he had spent nine years of affection with Emma, sharing good and bad memories of love and pain. Thus, hearing she was dead gripped his heart.

Seeing how her father took so long to answer, Isabella smiled sadly and turned around to walk into her room.

Heath wanted to follow Isabella and tell her they would hold a funeral for her when Sophia had his hand.

“What will you tell others?” She asked.

The Clark family was one of the most reputable Elite families in Southern Ville City. Her question was important. What was he going to tell others? That he was holding a funeral for his mistress?

With his company soaring higher with his son's hard work, could he afford to put this stain on his reputation? Heath stopped dead in his tracks, feeling defeated.