CHAPTER 429: BEHIND THE SCENES

"Are you alright?" Alwin asked his wife, who was busy baking fresh bread for the party. He came on a fresh citrus run for the BBQ, but seeing his wife’s expression, he knew something was troubling her despite her cheerfully engaging with the guests.

"Al," Mary uttered in surprise, then clutching her husband’s wrist, she confided, "Honey, my heart has been restless for a while now. Something doesn’t feel right. I think you should go check on the kids."

"Relax, I bet they are having a blast at Ms. Janice’s party. I’m sure they are fine and not up to no good. After all, Mrs. Martin is chaperoning them. I have met that woman once. She is a looker... *Ahem* Just one look from her can make a dog’s tail straight. Let alone our kids. They are in great hands," Alwin assured his wife, but seeing Mary still looked worried, he proposed, "If you’re still not convinced, just video call Lyra. I got to go. If our batch of BBQ is less tender than the Martins or Lorens’ batch because I didn’t deliver these citrus in time, Dan will never let me hear the end of it."

Alwin kissed his wife on the forehead before heading back outside. Mary frowned, wondering if she should go check on her kids herself, but seeing the crowd of guests increase as people heard about the party while complaining about the sudden forced storm evacuation, which got booted after realizing the storm alert was a false alarm, she couldn’t deny she was needed here so she decide to settle with video calling her irresponsible daughter who still doesn’t know to act her age.

"Hello, Mom," Lyra reluctantly answered her mother’s video call while Mandy played party music on her phone.

"What’re you doing? Where’s your brother?" Mary immediately asked, skipping the small talk.

"I am in the basement with Mandy," Lyra said, facing the screen toward Mandy, who greeted, "Hi, Mary."

"Mandy, where is Ace?" Mary asked while acutely observing her facial expression. However, Mandy was a pro. She lied without even battling an eye, "Ace? Right about now he should be getting an earful about treating women with the respect they deserve from Mrs. Martin after she is done lecturing her daughter to stop being boy-crazy and have some respect for herself. Honestly, that girl needs to take a hint."

"What gives her the right... You know what? I don’t care. Ava is a great girl. I hope her mother isn’t too hard on her," Mary said, calming her nerves about someone questioning her son’s upbringing before arbitrarily asking, "One more thing, why didn’t you guys invite Danny to the party?"

Mary liked Ava a lot. If it were up to her, Ava would be her daughter-in-law. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible in this day and age. She felt so strongly about Ava because what happened that night after the charity event showed her that Ava would stand up for her son anytime and anywhere, no matter what, just like she would. However, her son wouldn’t know a diamond even if it fell on his head.

"We forgot," Mandy lied again, but didn’t forget to take a shot at her nephew, "Besides, Janice is only serving salad over here. I think he will prefer the BBQ over there."

"My God, sometimes, you kids can be a bit too much, you know that. One of you better come over and take Danny to the party or I am coming over. Got it?" Mary threatened, because clearly even though Danny didn’t say it, she could see he felt left out. Therefore, despite Pam specifically advising her to stay out of it, she meddled anyway.

"Mary, this party is dead. We are planning to join the BBQ—" Mandy tried to sell that the party thrown by the ’Janice Jane,’ was lame and failed horribly as Mary cut in saying, "Fine, I better see all of you over here in five minutes otherwise..."

"Fine, I will send Lilith over to fetch fatty," Mandy said, knowing that only Lilith could leave the house at will.

Yes, Janice didn’t trust Mandy and Lyra to stay indoors, so she had taken appropriate measures and didn’t forget to strip Lilith’s authority to bring guests in and out of the house.

"Damn it, Mandy. Forget I asked. Now I know why Pam said I should stay out of it. I can see you two girls pulling a stunt like this, but Ace too. What happened? I thought those two were inseparable..." Mary hung up the video call, muttering curses in frustration over how disappointed she was in her kids.

Back when she was young, if one of her siblings or friends wasn’t invited to a party, together they would boycott that party. And here were her kids, they would rather abandon their cousin than miss a celebrity party serving grass to their guests.

"Phew, that was close," Mandy said, sinking into the couch, getting comfortable.

Mandy purposefully belittled Danny at every turn she got so that Mary would take a hint and stop trying to force her to bring him over as there was no party over here like the adults were led to believe. They were fucking locked in this manor and had no idea what was actually going on outside.

"When did you get so good at lying?" Lyra asked with an impressed nod, but she abruptly warned, "Just remember to act similarly in front of Ace and others when they return."

Mandy was about to comment snarkily but just nodded, feeling the grim gazes of Fujin and Fumetsu observing her closely. Later she remarked, pointing at them, "Do they have to glare at me like that? Like I swindled all their family’s wealth."

"What you did is worse than that. You should be ashamed of yourself. You tricked me into revealing everything about the hidden world. Now, put your best act together if you don’t want to get our ears chewed out by Ace," Lyra stressed in astonishment, seeing Mandy not only trick her but also make it her fault for getting tricked. This was why she bullied Mandy, but considering the strength difference between the two of them, she couldn’t even do that right now.

It was frustrating to be the strongest one in the room but not be able to use it. Maybe this was what the great sages were talking about when they said, ’It gets lonely at the pinnacle.’