Chapter 257 Locked Out

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“Who bullied you? Did your mother say something again?” Franklin’s hand brushed away her tears, gentle as if she were the most fragile treasure in the world.

“It’s all right now. I’m here. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

The scenended like a hammer blow against Martha’s chest.

She stood frozen in the doorway, watching the closeness between father and daughter–Franklin’s tender concern, Reba’s reliance. Each nce and touch pierced her like needles.

She had believed Franklin would take her side. She was his wife, the elder. Yet now his eyes held only his daughter’s pain, while she–the one who had been struck–was treated as if she were the viin.

“Franklin!” Martha’s voice shook as she stepped forward. “What do you mean by this? I’m your wife! She hit me, and you coddle her?”

Without turning his head, Franklin said coldly, “Go outside and calm down.”

“Calm down? This is my house!” Martha’s anger spiked. She rushed forward, but Franklin suddenly stood and mmed the vi door shut in her face.

The lock clicked.

Martha froze mid–step, her hand still reaching forward. The cold door blocked out the warm light and the muffled voices.

Inside, she could faintly hear Franklin’s low, soothing words and Reba’s muffled sobs. The sounds wed at her nerves like feathers, soft yet unbearable, but separated from her by an unbreakable wall.

“Franklin! Open the door! Open up!” Martha pounded the wood, her voice breaking with rage and disbelief. “I’m your wife! Let me in! Do you hear me?”

Only the indistinct murmur of father and daughter answered, along with the night wind whistling past.

Under the streemp, her shadow stretched long and thin against the door, like a cruel joke of abandonment.

The drone of a taxi engine shattered the stillness outside the vi.

Martha stumbled into the back seat, mming the door. Through the window, she red at the glowing

house.

Upstairs, Franklin’s shadow leaned protectively toward Reba, forming an unyielding wall that shut Martha outpletely.

“Take me…” Her voice was hoarse, her fingers white from gripping her purse. “Take me to the Lane family

estate.”

The driver nced at her in the mirror but asked nothing.

The wipers swished rhythmically, clearing the windshield but not the blockage in her chest.

Chapter 257 Locked Out

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Finished

The humiliation of being locked out crashed over her again and again. That cold m of the door echoed like a nail hammered into her cars.

Streetlights swept across her face, revealing her twisted expression.

“Scarlett…” She bit out the name, teeth grinding. That foster daughter she had once shaped like y had be a thorn lodged deep in her heart.

She needed a target–someone to unleash her rage upon, someone to remind her she still held power.

Scarlett. Oliver. Anyone from the Joyner family she could still control.

The taxi stopped outside the Lane estate’s wrought–iron gates at one in the morning.

The vast property loomed in the dark like a sleeping beast, rain–damp ivy clinging to the wallsb, /bradiating a damp chill.

Martha drew a breath and staggered out, heels sinking into wet earth. Her cashmere coat dragged through mud, unnoticed.

“Open the gate!” she shouted, pounding on the iron. Her voice echoed sharp in the empty night.

Atst, footsteps approached. A wallmp clicked on, illuminating the stern face of the Lane family’s old butler.

He peered through the gate, frowning when he saw her. His tone was clipped, devoid of courtesy. “What brings you here at this hour?”

“I want to see Scarlett! Call her out to meet me!” Martha lifted her chin, trying to summon her former authority, though her voice trembled.

The butler’s gaze was icy. He didn’t even move to open the gate. “She keeps early hours. No one is allowed to disturb her. Surely you know that.”

Martha stiffened, then snapped, “Don’t lie to me! Step aside, I’ming in!”

She shoved at the gate, but the butler blocked her firmly.

“Show some respect,” he said tly. “The Lane estate is not a ce you can enter at will. She has given orders -not to receive anyone from the Joyner family.”

“She gave orders? That girl I raised? What right does she have to give orders?”

Martha’s whole body shook with fury. “Do you know who I am? I’m her mother!”

The butler’s reply was as sharp as an icicle.

“In the Lane family, she has only one mother–ourdy of the house. As for the Joyner family… she said it herself when she left: she has nothing to do with them anymore.”

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