A Ruling Passion – Chapter 1630

Mark strutted to the dining table and stared for a beat, not taking his seat.

Then, with one furious swing, he swept every single dish on the table to the floor. Amid the cacophonic clamor, he bellowed, “How could you?! I don’t give a f**k if you threaten me, but why must you do the same to Arianne?!”

Shelly was so taken aback by his sudden outburst that she gave up looking for her cane, opting to rise as steadily as she could with the help of her chair. “M-Mark, my dear! W-What have you done?! I’ve poured my heart over that for the entire evening... I... It’s Arianne, isn’t it? She told you, didn’t she? That little snitch!”

Mark whipped his face to Shelly’s direction, his eyes as cutting and deadly as knives. “What in hell do you want from me? You bereft me of my wife and son, and now you’re explicitly denying me whatever little chances I have left to see my family? She is the love of my life, and he the fruit of my loins! How could you? How could you be so inhumane? You’ve lived a crapsack life for decades, so now you’ve made it your mission to make sure no one else lives a tad happier than you did, isn’t it?! Get a grip! Your pathetic, terrible life wasn’t my doing, so stop taking it out on me! I’ve had it with you deluding yourself with this dramatic bullsh*t about how... sacrificial you’ve been to me. I wish I never knew my birth mother at all!”

Shelly pressed her hand against her chest, where a stab of agony had left. Her eyes were glinting with tears. “How... How could you say all of that? You would say these hurtful things to your own mother just for Arianne, wouldn’t you? Are you really blaming me for all the suffering I endured over the first half of my life, Mark? Do you understand my struggle, the tribulations I’ve fought with my tooth and nail? Do you know I’ve walked through hell just to return to you?... No, you don’t. You don’t understand it, do you?"