After Rebirth, I Refused to Be Their Scapegoat Chapter 06

After Rebirth, I Refused to Be Their Scapegoat Chapter 06

After Nathan walked out, I pushed my steak away and leaned back in my chair, utterly exhausted. 

Ethan noticed I was completely zoned out and swiftly took care of the check. Half an hour later, his car pulled up in front of a stunning standalone house in a high–end neighborhood. 

Ethan pushed the car door open and tossed a set of keys with a brass entry fob into my hand. “This is my surprise for you.” 

I blinked in confusion. “Didn’t we agree on that modest apartment you were helping me rent?” 

“I unilaterally canceled that lease. Starting today, you‘ re staying here.” 

Instinctively, I tried to hand the keys back, wanting to refuse such an expensive piece of real estate. “Ethan, 

this is way too much. I can’t accept-” 

“As your attorney, it’s my job to ensure my client is in a completely safe, undisturbed environment,” he 

interrupted firmly, his tone carrying an 

unquestionable professional authority. “Plus, you’re my friend. You don’t get to say no to this, Audrey.” 

Later that night, under the cover of darkness, I decided to sneak back to Vivian’s musty old house. All I needed was to pack a few changes of clothes and the last remaining keepsakes of my parents, and then I would be done with that place forever. 

However, the moment I stepped onto the porch, the sound of a vicious argument bled through the crack in the door. 

“Why should all of us chip in to cover a half–million- dollar gap? Chloe was the one who stole it to buy a damn Porsche!” 

“She did it to hook a rich guy and secure our whole 

family’s future! Now that she’s facing prison time, you’re just going to abandon her? If you won’t cough up the cash to plug the hole in the trust fund, we might as well all jump off a building tomorrow!” 

Several distant relatives were tearing into Vivian. 

Their hysterical shrieking was more repulsive than rats fighting in a sewer. None of them actually cared about Chloe rotting in a holding cell; all they saw was an insurmountable debt. I let out a cold laugh, completely abandoning the thought of pushing that door open. Instead, I turned around and slipped back into the night. 

Early the next morning, violent pounding on my front door jolted me awake. 

“Audrey! Get your ass out here!” 

I pulled the door open to find Vivian, Greg, and a handful of relatives blocking the bottom of the steps. They had somehow tracked me down. When Vivian saw the luxurious house behind me, her already contorted face flushed a deep, violent red with rage and sheer jealousy. 

“Ahal I knew you did this on purpose!” she shrieked, pointing a shaking finger right at my nose. “You planned this all along, didn’t you? You frame Chloe and send her to jail, just so you can run off and live in some rich man’s mansion! You call the cops and drop those charges right now! Since you’ve climbed the social ladder so well, you’re the one who should pay 

back that half–million she owes!” 

Hearing this spectacular leap of twisted logic, I clenched my fists. “I pay it back? What on earth makes you think I’d do that?” 

“Because we raised you!” Vivian suddenly flopped down onto the pristine lawn and started wailing at the top of her lungs, drawing the attention of neighbors out for their morning jogs. “Your parents died when you were ten! We took you in and raised you! And what kind of monster did you turn out to be? 

“When Chloe missed her senior exams, you swore up and down you didn’t break her alarm clock! When she dropped out and almost bled to death getting a sketchy abortion, you refused to admit you were the 

one who talked her into it! And now, you’re so vicious you’re sending her to prison! How did our family raise such an ungrateful backstabber?!” 

It was their classic playbook. Whenever I failed to meet their unreasonable, exploitative demands, they would dredge up the stupid mistakes Chloe had made herself, force the blame onto me, and use their “grace of raising me” as emotional blackmail. 

But this time, I wasn’t going to bow my head and take it. 

“Your so–called raising me consisted of embezzling the 1.8–million–dollar settlement from the car crash that killed my parents,” I stated, staring down at them with icy contempt. “It consisted of dressing me in Chloe’s tattered hand–me–downs and forcing me to work three jobs at once just to pay my own college tuition!” 

“One point eight million?!” 

“Vivian, you told all of us her parents were entirely at fault for the crash and left behind massive debts! You two swallowed that entire fortune yourselves?!” 

“No wonder you were able to buy that old house in all cash and send Chloe to all those ridiculously expensive private tutors!” 

“And now that the trust fund went belly up, you actually have the nerve to ask us to scrape together cash to cover your mess?!” 

A collective gasp rippled through the group of relatives. The pointing fingers and judgmental whispers of the neighbors instantly shifted direction, raining down on Vivian and Greg with pure disgust. 

Vivian and Greg never expected me to know about that top–secret settlement money. 

Having a secret they had buried for over a decade exposed in broad daylight drained all the color from 

their faces. They panicked, stammering without being able to form a single solid sentence of rebuttal. 

Flying completely off the handle out of sheer humiliation, Greg lunged forward and raised his hand, 

aiming a vicious slap at my face. “You lying little bitch-” 

“If you so much as lay a finger on her, I guarantee you‘ Il spend the rest of your pathetic life rotting in a cell. 

An incredibly intimidating voice cut through Greg’s 

momentum like a blade of ice. 

Ethan stood there, holding two bags of warm 

artisanal French breakfast in one hand. With his other hand, he naturally and firmly gripped my shoulder, pulling me safely to his side.