Roland Calnan was flat-out stunned.
He really hadn’t expected Vera Blackwell—a woman who always acted like some high-society matriarch—to straight-up slap someone in public.
And not just anyone, but her actual daughter-in-law.
No wonder people in the upper circle kept mocking her for being nouveau riche.
Crude was basically written all over her.
Roland hurried to stop her, but he was already a beat too late—
At the same time, Stella Blackwell’s eyes lit up with excitement, practically waiting for Nina Blackwell to get slapped.
Nina had humiliated her, even dislocated her jaw before.
Stella had been dying for her own mother to teach Nina a brutal lesson—honestly, the harsher the better.
Smack!
Nina lifted her hand and caught Vera’s slap head-on, then clamped down hard on her wrist.
In that instant, Vera felt her whole arm go numb!
“You little bitch, how dare you lay a hand on me?” Vera screamed, furious enough to explode.
“I’m Ethan’s mother!”
“I know,” Nina said coolly.
“Otherwise, do you think you’d still be standing here talking to me?”
If Vera hadn’t been Ethan Blackwell’s mother, Nina would’ve slapped her straight onto the floor already.
Before this, because she had loved Ethan too much, she had swallowed every bit of humiliation.
No matter how her in-laws or that bratty sister-in-law made things hard for her, she endured it all.
She couldn’t bear to make Ethan stuck in the middle, and deep down, she had genuinely wanted to make the marriage work.
But now?
She didn’t even want Ethan anymore, so what the hell did his family mean to her?
Nothing.
If this vicious old woman still wanted to come at her and act all high and mighty, then fine—Nina wasn’t going to play nice.
“Nina, you bitch, let go of my mom!”
Stella’s temper flared so fast she completely forgot the lesson she’d just learned.
She charged over, fists flying, trying to hit Nina.
“Such an idiot.
Seriously, zero memory,” Nina sneered. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Then, just as Stella got close enough, she slipped neatly to the side.
Stella couldn’t stop her momentum at all.
With the force of her swing dragging her forward, she lunged and crashed hard onto the floor!
It was a spectacularly ugly fall.
Roland instantly pulled out his phone and snapped a photo.
This was dirt on the President’s family—no way he was missing that.
“Stella!” Vera cried out, heart aching for her daughter.
She raised her free hand and tried to slap Nina across the face again!
“You slut, I swear I’ll beat you to death today—”
Her stream of abuse cut off on the spot.
The hand she had raised stiffly changed direction midair and slapped down onto her own thigh instead.
“Oh, good Lord, what did I ever do to deserve a vicious daughter-in-law like you?
Disrespecting your mother-in-law wasn’t enough, now you’re even hitting your sister-in-law too…”
Nina Blackwell narrowed her almond-shaped eyes.
She knew this old trick of her mother-in-law’s way too well.
The instant face change, the fake victim act—same old routine.
Sure enough, Ethan Blackwell’s icy voice came from behind her the very next second.
“Nina, what are you doing now?
At an occasion like this, do you really have to make sure the whole family gets dragged into chaos?”
He strode over fast, not even bothering to ask what had happened.
He shoved Nina aside and pulled his drama-queen mother into his arms, lowering his voice to comfort her.
Vera Blackwell pretended to wipe away tears that didn’t even exist, then jumped right into playing the victim first.
“Ethan, I only asked her where she’d been these past few days, and what was going on with that Ferrari she came in.
Then she started laying hands on me and your sister.”
Roland Calnan was stunned all over again.
He was literally standing right there, a whole eyewitness in the flesh, and this woman was lying through her teeth without even blinking?
What, was she betting his status was too sensitive, so he wouldn’t step in and speak up for Nina?
Or was she just that sure that no matter what he said, her son wouldn’t believe him anyway?
“Nina, not to be rude, but how could you treat Mom and Stella like this?”
Tiffany Ashford also put on her gentle, graceful act as she helped Stella Blackwell up from the floor.
The medicine had just been applied, and now the skin’s broken again.”
“Brother’s wife, it hurts so much…”
Stella Blackwell completely ignored Ethan Blackwell’s earlier warning and openly called Tiffany Ashford “sister-in-law” again in front of everyone.
A wild girl from an orphanage like Nina Blackwell had never been worthy of that title anyway.
Only someone like Tiffany Ashford—the daughter of the richest family—was good enough for her brother.
“Mom?” Nina let out a cold laugh, frost practically radiating off her.
“I’ve seen plenty of mistresses, but someone as shameless as you?
That’s a first, honestly.”
“Have Ethan Blackwell and I finalized the divorce yet?
No?
Then where exactly do you get off calling her Mom with that much nerve?”
Tiffany Ashford’s smile froze.
A sharp ache twisted in her chest.
Ever since Ethan Blackwell withdrew the divorce agreement from Congress, she had tried every possible way to get the divorce process restarted.
But Ethan Blackwell kept dragging it out, saying the timing wasn’t right yet.
Her belly was going to start showing soon.
She truly couldn’t figure out what exactly he was still waiting for.
But she didn’t dare push too far.
When Ethan Blackwell looked calm and spoke nicely, it was only because he chose to.
That was it.
A man who had clawed his way from the least favored grandson in the Blackwell family to the presidential seat step by step?
He was the kind with the coldest heart and the harshest methods.
No joke.
“I…” Tiffany Ashford’s lips trembled, and tears dropped the second she wanted them to.
“I shouldn’t have come.
I’ll leave right now.”
She let go of Stella Blackwell’s hand and turned to leave, but Stella grabbed her back in one sharp move.
“Sister-in-law, you’re carrying a Blackwell child.
Why are you leaving?”
Then Stella shot Nina Blackwell a vicious glare, her voice turning sharp as a knife.
“If anyone should leave, it’s this bitch!”