I understood her fear. To her, I was nothing more than a homeless, broken stranger—someone who might lash out in vengeance against her children.
The woman's apology was not for me; it was for her children. She was protecting them.
Would my mother have done the same for me if she were still here?
Thinking of my mother, I instinctively reached for the jade pendant around my neck. It was the only thing she had left me—a small reminder of her love.
However, there was nothing around my neck.
Panic surged through me. My body went numb as I realized the pendant must have fallen when I was shoved out of the Hall family villa earlier, my clothes in disarray.
If Yvette got her hands on it...
The thought sent me into a frenzy. Without hesitation, I turned back and sprinted toward the Hall family house.
When I arrived, the gates were locked.
Desperate, I crawled through the dog hole by the side of the house—a passage that held bittersweet memories. Whenever I was kicked out, Jameson used to secretly unlock the small metal gate to let me back in.
Over the years, weeds had grown over the hole, but the gate remained ajar, frozen in time from the last time I’d been thrown out.
I snuck into the house and went straight to the room. There it was—my jade pendant, dangling from Yvette’s hand as she toyed with it.
“Yvette, that’s my pendant! Give it back!”
She looked at me with disdain. “You say it’s yours, so it’s yours? I’d say it’s just some trash I picked up.”
“You can’t talk about it that way!” I angrily retorted.
“Oh, I’ll call it trash—and I’ll call you trash too. What can you do about it?” She sneered.
With that, she leaned out the window, holding the pendant precariously.
My heart leapt to my throat. My fists clenched so tightly that my knuckles cracked, but I forced myself to stay calm. I couldn’t risk her damaging it.
Lowering my voice, I pleaded, “Yvette, please. Give it back. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Her lips curled into a triumphant smirk, her eyes sparkling with malice.
“Alright,” she drawled, “kneel and kowtow to me three times. Apologize sincerely. Maybe then I’ll return your little trinket to the beggar it belongs to.”
I froze, my body stiff with humiliation.
At that moment, Jameson appeared at the door.
“Yvette, why are you still up this late?”
“Jameson,” she said sweetly, “Lauren is accusing me of stealing. She claims this pendant is hers.”