Dad, Mom, Grandpa, and Grandma were all here. Right behind them, the elders of the Thornton and Simpson families rushed in, nearly running.
The first to speak was my grandma. She turned to Jacob’s grandmother, Dorothy Thornton.
“Madam Thornton… do you remember the promise you made when you begged us to let Jacob marry Belle?”
The most powerful voice in the Thornton family had always been Dorothy.
The moment she saw me, wrapped in a camo jacket and covered in wounds, her face went ghost-white.
She staggered back, unable to stand.
Jacob rushed to help her, but before he could touch her, she slapped him hard across the face and screamed, “Unfilial brat! You’ve destroyed our family!”
Jacob froze.
He looked at my entire family, panic in his eyes.
“Grandma, who exactly is Isabelle?!”
Dorothy opened her mouth, but no words came.
It was lan who answered, face blank.
“She’s a Zimmer. Of course, she’s the Zimmer family heiress.”
Like a stone dropped in a still lake.
Like water splashing in boiling oil.
Gasps rippled through the room. Whispers followed.
“The Zimmer family? That Zimmer family?”
“It has to be. The top-tier Zimmer family! The one with terrifying power behind the scenes…”
The whispers around me exploded like thunder in my ears.
I clutched lan’s jacket, nails digging deep into my palm.
Fold Up
<
A Thousand Needles for Love
We grew up on the outskirts of the city-surrounded by flowers, farmland, a big dog, and a fat white goose.
Mom and Dad were rarely home. It was just me and lan, raised by our grandparents. We were the kids left behind.
“lan, didn’t we grow up in the countryside?” I asked quietly.
“That was Grandpa and Grandma chasing the simple life,” he said.
Jacob’s face went even paler than the shattered glass on the floor.
He stumbled toward us, eyes wild.
“Why?! If you’re the Zimmer family’s heiress, why didn’t you tell me?! You just wanted my family to be a joke, didn’t you?!”
lan turned his body, shielding me as he stepped aside.
I looked at Jacob. The love I once held-deep and desperate-had finally burned to ash.
“So what you’re saying is,” I said calmly, “if someone’s born rich, they deserve respect. But if not, they’re just trash to you?”
lan let out a cold laugh. His boot crushed Jacob’s fallen lighter.
“Great manners, Thornton family. I’m impressed.
“We’re not settling this today. But Jacob, remember, anyone from the Zimmer family is off- limits to you.”
“As for Ms. Simpson-back then, I let you go for spreading filth about my sister, out of respect for your family. This time, you’re not getting off so easy.”
Marcella’s parents and brother stared at her, stunned.
The voice of her father, Ryan Simpson, cracked. He turned sharply.
“Marcella, what does this have to do with you? Why would you spread those rumors?!”
Marcella’s eyes filled with tears. She clutched Ryan’s sleeve.
“Dad, I don’t know anything. I didn’t… I didn’t do it…”
Ryan turned quickly to lan.
“Mr. Zimmer, there must be some misunderstanding. Marcella has always been a sweet girl.”
lan’s voice was light.
“Is that so?”
Fold Up
He looked down at me with tenderness-but every word he spoke to the Simpson fa.
like a blade.
“Sweet?
“One week ago, Ms. Simpson told Jacob to drain my nephew’s bone marrow and then had his body dumped in a trash can. That’s your definition of sweet?
“If you’ve got time, Mr. Simpson, maybe get to know your precious daughter a little better.”
The words hit like a bomb.
The room froze-until the scream of Marcella’s mother, Cathy Simpson, shattered the stillness.
Ryan slapped Marcella hard across the face.
“Is it true? How the hell did we raise a daughter this cruel?!”
Dorothy raised her cane with trembling hands. Again and again, she struck Jacob.
“You monster! You even hurt your own son! How could the Thornton family give birth to a monster like you?!”
I wanted so badly to watch those two get beaten, I peeked out from lan’s arms.
The camo jacket slipped slightly, exposing the small red birthmark on my shoulder.
And just then, my gaze met Cathy’s. She froze and then suddenly lunged toward me.
Her fingers nearly reached my skin before they stopped, half an inch away.
She stared, voice shaky.
“Ms… Ms. Zimmer, the birthmark on your shoulder…”
My mom’s face changed a bit, she walked over quickly and grabbed Cathy’s shaking hand.
“This little red mole is a birthmark Belle had since she was born, Mrs. Simpson, do you have
anything to say?”
Cathy was shaking like a leaf in the autumn wind.
After a while, she shook her head, tears streaming down her face, and turned to look at Ryan.
Ryan stumbled back half a step, his eyes darting crazily between me and Marcella.
Marcella’s face instantly turned as white as paper. She gripped her skirt so hard her nails almost dug into her skin.
“Mom! Dad! What are you looking at? It’s just a mole!”
I remembered what Marcella said in the villa basement before, though it was only half a sentence, the meaning was clear:
I looked like Cathy when she was young.
Fold Up
<
A Thousand Needles foI LOVE
Could it be…
No, impossible!
***
Top private hospital.
My shoulder blade and finger bones were put in a cast again.
The doctor said my shoulder blade was okay, but my finger bone was a comminuted fracture.
Even if it healed, it would be hard to do complicated movements, let alone play the piano.
The worse part was the infection in my abdominal wound.
The anesthesia wore off earlier than expected, and the sharp pain when the dead flesh was pulled out with tweezers made me crush the bedsheet.
In a daze, I just remembered someone walked into the operating room, held my hand tightly, and the warmth of their palm was so hot it almost made me cry.
When I was wheeled out of the operating room, my whole family was waiting at the door.
“It was my fault…”
Grandma was the first to tear up.
“Back then I saw you secretly hiding Jacob’s photo, and then the Thornton family came to propose… I just wanted to make your wish come true…”
“It’s not your fault, Grandma, I was just blind.”
I forced a smile, which pulled at the wound on my stomach and made me suck in a sharp breath from the pain.
“This is my fault, insisting on raising you tough, saying stuff like ‘adversity builds character’… I ruined you…”
Grandpa suddenly turned his back, his voice muffled in his chest.
“It’s our fault, we were busy with the family business for years and weren’t there for you…” my parents said.
“I didn’t protect you well. I won’t do it again,” lan said.
The whole family rushed to take the blame. I suddenly wanted to cry.
It wasn’t like when I was with Jacob and cried because I felt wronged, but I wanted to cry because I was happy.
lan was the closest to me, so I grabbed his hand and pressed it to my face.
Fold Up
<
A Thousand Needles for Love
“You guys were the best family in the world, it was me who wasn’t good enough…”
“You’re just a girl, why try so hard? I’ll protect you from now on!”
The warm atmosphere was interrupted by the gynecology director knocking on the door.
