Try Begging - Chapter 138.1
Engulfed by endless revelations, Grace became numb again.
“I sent her to the hospital because her reliance on alcohol was getting worse by the day.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid you’d be too disappointed. You always see her as a hero and want to see only the best in her. And Mother, feeling ashamed to face you, asked me not to say anything.”
“No matter what…”
Grace choked back her rising emotions and asked,
“So, how did she… pass away?”
Joe closed his mouth. His mouth drooped, and his eyes gradually moistened.
“…By herself?”
As he faintly nodded, Grace buried her face in her trembling hands. Her mother had been her life’s goal. Her words were law, a bible to her. Yet, she had been exploited in the most miserable ways and met a tragic end.
“I decided then.”
Joe, picking up the dropped diary and dusting it off, continued,
“We needed to leave. Before the pressure that crushed Mother could reach me and Martha.”
“So, that was it. I thought you had fallen in love and betrayed our cause and comrades…”
Mistaking her brother’s surrender to harsh reality for disappointment, Grace found herself at a loss for words.
“Yes, that’s why I couldn’t take you with me. Do you still remember?”
“…Yes.”
Grace vividly recalled the day he said he would leave with his lover, Martha, and how emotionally she had lashed out at him. As she realized her own stupidity, a multitude of feelings surged. Now, not just her limbs but her entire body trembled.
“I thought about telling you the truth, but then I figured it was best to wait until you started doubting on your own.”
“All because my fiancé was Jimmy.”
Joe nodded in agreement.
“I was afraid if you knew, you’d tell everything to Jimmy. Then, you would have lost the inheritance mother left you to Blanchard’s group, living in captivity for life, or worse, eliminated.”
Grace lifted her head, looking at Joe with a puzzled gaze.
“And even if you had the inheritance, you’d probably give it away to Jimmy as military funds yourself.”
“Inheritance?”
Joe rummaged through the inner pocket of his worn coat and handed her something. It was the letter envelope that he had brought along with the diary earlier.
“After Father, no, that devil, Jonathan Riddle, died, mother found the wealth he had hidden away and took it away for us. She intended to leave it to us.”
Grace hurriedly opened the letter. Her hands, unfolding the neatly folded letter, began to tremble more as time passed.
“Grace…”
Watching his sister with wide eyes and biting her lip, Joe approached and placed a hand on her shoulder. His touch conveyed both consolation and regret.
“I’m, I’m okay.”
To claim she was okay with such a shaky voice was the least convincing statement possible.
“How could you be? I felt like the world was crumbling under my feet when I found out, and it must be even worse for you. Especially since…”
Joe’s gaze fell on Grace’s stomach. He sighed deeply, cursing under his breath about how he should have just told her everything then.
“Grace.”
He asked her, who was continuing to read the letter.
“You’re leaving Jimmy, right?”
There was a desperate hope in his question.
When Grace nodded, he let out a sigh of relief. In truth, it wasn’t about leaving; she had already been abandoned, but she couldn’t bring herself to say that. Still, she knew she couldn’t keep it hidden forever.
“What are you planning to do about the baby?”
“This child isn’t Jimmy’s.”
Grace, having finished reading the letter, hastily folded it back into the envelope and stuffed it into her coat pocket. Deciding to reveal the truth to him, she looked up to find Joe looking down at her with confused eyes.
“Then whose…”
As a sense of ominous foreboding crept in, Joe asked with a trembling voice. His intuition was likely accurate.
Grace didn’t hold back, summarizing the events that had occurred—from being sent to infiltrate the mansion of a military officer to the honeytrap set up by Jimmy and the leaders once the officer showed personal interest in her, Fred’s betrayal, and the events of today.
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