I'm Her Family

"Fine. I will pay your medical bills," Hector spat through clenched teeth, his face a tight mask of restrained fury and panic.

Sutton casually tossed a sleek silver pen right onto his lap. "Sign the agreement first. I cannot have you crying to the police later, claiming that I blackmailed you."

Hector hunched over the paper, his expression murderous. He knew Weston's law firm represented the asylum, and Weston had personally ordered him to make sure Sutton learned her lesson. He had tried to use that leverage, but this woman was utterly terrifying in her unyielding stubbornness. Terrified that exposing his illegitimate child would bring the wrath of his powerful father-in-law down on his head, Hector gripped the pen hard enough to snap it. He scribbled his signature before pulling out his phone. Moments later, a notification pinged on Sutton’s screen. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars, transferred directly to her account without another word.

Sutton checked the balance, turned on her heel, and walked away. The exact moment she stepped past the park's wrought-iron gates, she pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts. Hector thought he had just bought her silence. He was dead wrong. Without a shred of hesitation, she drafted a message detailing his hidden lovechild and hit send, delivering the explosive secret straight to Hector's wealthy wife.

She slipped the phone back into her pocket, her eyes cold. She sneered to herself. That money was never hush money. It was bare-minimum compensation for the hell she had endured. She was absolutely determined to expose the dark, hidden secrets of Elmridge Mental Hospital to the public and tear down Hector's corrupt empire piece by piece.

Miles away, Weston stepped off the elevator of his high-rise apartment building. He held a cup of Sutton’s favorite iced vanilla latte from the expensive café downtown. He genuinely hoped the small gesture would smooth things over after the tense day. Just thinking about how happy Sutton would be with the coffee made a faint smile touch his lips.

But his hopeful, handsome smile vanished instantly.

The hallway outside his front door was completely barricaded. Dozens of cardboard boxes were stacked haphazardly, towering so high they nearly blocked the expensive mahogany door. One of the cheaper, flimsy boxes near the bottom had soaked through entirely. A foul-smelling puddle of rotting takeout food and cheap, tangled clothes leaked onto the pristine carpet. Sutton had mercilessly dumped all of Lydia’s belongings straight out of her property.

An icy, suffocating frustration gripped Weston's chest. He stared at the foul-smelling mess, his jaw tightening. Lydia had only stayed at Elmridge for a month, and he had personally made sure she bypassed the actual harsh rehab programs. He truly believed Sutton was not the type to hold a petty, vindictive grudge, but looking at this disaster, he was convinced otherwise.

He pulled out his phone and immediately called his assistant, Declan Booth. "Get over here right now," Weston barked, his voice echoing in the foul-smelling corridor. "Find a new place for Lydia and Stella fast. Tonight. I am not having them out on the street."

Within an hour, Declan arrived with another colleague from the law firm, Sienna, to help manage the disaster. They quickly secured a unit in the adjacent luxury complex and started hauling the trash.

Sienna wrinkled her nose as she picked up a taped-up box. "Mr. Hayes, I heard Stella was hospitalized today," she said, her voice dripping with open pity for the fragile woman. "What a poor kid. Seeing her mom get knocked around like that, no wonder the girl developed severe autism."

She leaned sideways, trying to peek past the barricade into the apartment. Assuming Sutton was inside, she deliberately lowered her voice. "Isn't Sutton taking this way too far? Kicking Lydia and her sick daughter out into the hallway like this is just heartless."

Weston’s posture stiffened instinctively. "That apartment belongs to Sutton."

Sienna scoffed openly, adjusting her grip on the cardboard. "So that gives her the right to act like a tyrant and bully others?" She bent down to lift another box, completely missing the dangerous warning signs flashing in Weston’s eyes. She kept running her mouth. "She has no family and zero background. If you had not taken pity on her, she would have stayed stuck at the bottom of the food chain forever."

Lawyers held a special social image in the city, much like doctors or cops. They brought hope when people hit rock bottom, and Weston, with his high-profile wins for the underdog, was viewed as heroic. To Sienna, the job was a ladder. She fully believed that without Lydia stepping away years ago, a woman like Sutton would have never gotten a chance to marry a man of Weston's elite caliber.

Weston’s eyes instantly sharpened into deadly daggers. He stepped forward, his towering frame casting a dark shadow over the hallway.

"Sienna." His voice was a vicious, ice-cold whip that immediately cut off her gossip. "Sutton is my wife. I am her family. Do not let me hear you speak about her like that again."

Hearing that, Sienna turned pale as a ghost. Her mouth snapped shut, and she muttered inwardly, shocked that Weston would actually defend Sutton when everyone assumed he was still hooked on Lydia.

Declan quickly stepped between them to break the thick tension. "Alright, let's keep it moving. I have already made two trips down to the truck. If we drag this out any longer, Stella is going to be discharged from the hospital before we even finish."

Sienna hurried into the elevator with her box, fuming silently. She sneered in her mind, disgusted that a woman fresh out of an asylum dared to throw a tantrum at Weston Hayes. The moment the elevator doors opened in the lobby, she carelessly dropped the box. The wet cardboard tore open instantly. Greasy takeout containers and trash rolled out across the floor, splashing onto her shoes.

"What the hell is wrong with her?" Sienna complained, kicking the ruined box hard. "Declan, I got my clothes tainted with this garbage. I am going home to change."

Once the hallway was finally cleared of the mess, Weston sat alone inside his car in the underground parking garage. The silence of the vehicle amplified his deep exhaustion. The massive corporate case he had been working on recently was a nightmare, and he had deliberately left Sutton in Elmridge a few extra days just to deal with the overwhelming paperwork. The second he caught a breather, he had brought her home and even asked the maid to cook her favorite dishes.

He honestly did not get it. He had explicitly promised that once Lydia and Stella settled down, he would hand over the rest of his salary to Sutton. He could not understand why Sutton still threw a tantrum like this over a woman who had nothing.

His boiling anger violently overflowed. He could not fathom Sutton's extreme hostility toward a woman he viewed as utterly harmless. Just because he took Stella to the hospital, Sutton dumped Lydia’s things? Lydia had been through enough abuse already, and Stella had serious autism.

He glared at the untouched, expensive coffee sitting in the passenger seat. His jaw clenched tight. Without a second thought, he snatched the cup, rolled down the window, and fiercely hurled the drink straight out into a concrete trash can.

Across town, Sutton sat in a cramped, budget hotel room. The space was tiny and smelled faintly of cheap industrial cleaner. Her own apartment was currently a massive disaster area, awaiting extensive repairs and professional repainting to scrub away the lingering stench and damage Lydia had left behind.

She sprawled across the stiff mattress, her mind firmly set on executing a swift, clean divorce. To her, men were nothing more than unnecessary seasoning in life, but money was the main course. She would not drag this legal battle out. She calmly browsed online job listings on her phone, looking for tutoring gigs since her old administrative positions were scarce during the summer break.

After a grueling month in Elmridge surviving on one pitiful meal a day, her stomach was no longer used to full portions. She had eaten too much during lunch, forcing her to relocate to the cramped bathroom.

Sitting on the toilet, she continued scrolling through her phone. Her focused search was abruptly interrupted when a fresh Instagram notification popped up on her screen.

Lydia had just posted a new update.

Sutton clicked the alert. The image loaded on her screen, and she let out a dry, amused breath. It was a highly provocative photo showing a messy, unmade double bed. Resting front and center on the rumpled white sheets was a deliberately unopened condom, perfectly placed to catch the viewer's eye. In the blurred background of the shot, a man sat on the edge of the mattress. His face was out of focus, but the broad shoulders, the distinct posture, and the profile undeniably belonged to Weston.

The nauseating caption beneath the picture read: *Grateful for you. My dreams do come true.*

Sutton was completely unfazed by the blatant psychological warfare. The pathetic display did not even make her heart skip a beat. She lazily tapped the comment box and typed out a biting, sarcastic response:

*Thanks for collecting the trash.*

She hit send. Less than ten seconds later, her phone screen lit up with an incoming call from Weston.

She answered, holding the speaker an inch from her ear.

"Sutton!" Weston’s furious voice blasted through the line. "You threw out Lydia's things into the dirt, and now you are publicly mocking her online? Are you deliberately trying to push her and her fragile daughter over the edge?"

Sutton rolled her eyes, a cold smirk touching her lips. "Oh, speaking of throwing things out, I will send you the photos of my apartment later. Lydia completely trashed my home. Since you are the one who played savior and let her move in, you can pay for the undeniable damage." She paused, her tone dripping with lazy sarcasm. "And how exactly did I mock her?"

"You commented on her post!" he snapped, ignoring her financial demands. "Because of your stupid, vicious comment, she is crying her eyes out. Stella is terrified out of her mind!"

"She posted a public photo," Sutton retorted smoothly. "Wasn't that the whole point? For people to view it and leave a comment?"

"Sutton, stop being difficult—"

"Weston, shut up and listen to me," Sutton cut him off sharply, her voice dropping to a freezing register. "Just transfer the compensation money to my account immediately, and let's get this divorce finalized soon. Otherwise, I have plenty of creative ways to make Lydia's life absolutely miserable."

"I am not agreeing to a div—"

Sutton hung up the phone before he could even formulate the rest of his refusal, tossing the device onto the bathroom counter.

Back in the brand-new, Weston-funded luxury bedroom in the adjacent complex, the atmosphere was thick with manufactured grief. Lydia sat on the edge of the plush mattress, wailing loudly. She dramatically clutched a trembling Stella to her chest, using the small, silent girl as a physical shield. Stella just stood there, frozen and trembling faintly from sheer terror.

Weston tilted his head back, shut his eyes for a moment to gather his fragmented patience, and dragged himself back into the bedroom. He was exhausted to his very bones, drained by the endless conflict.

When she saw Weston walk back in, Lydia sniffled, trying to suppress her loud sobs while feigning complete innocence over the provocative photo. "Wes, I swear it was just one photo! I didn't mean to provoke Sutton at all. I just wanted to capture the moment, you know? I wanted to remember feeling safe."

Weston sighed tiredly, his anger at Sutton completely blinding him to the obvious manipulation right in front of him. He excused Lydia’s actions, believing she was just a fragile victim lashing out from trauma.

"Sutton didn't mean anything harsh by it. Do not overthink the internet," Weston muttered softly, handing Lydia a fresh tissue from the nightstand. "It is late. You and Stella should get some rest. I will come back tomorrow and sort this out."

"Thank you, Wes," Lydia whispered, looking up at him with wide, watery eyes.

Weston turned around to leave for the night, his heavy footsteps moving toward the bedroom door.

The absolute moment his back was completely turned and he could no longer see them, the helpless tears instantly vanished from Lydia’s face. A dark, malicious glint violently flashed in her eyes. Her expression twisted into one of pure, venomous irritation.

Without a single second of hesitation, she raised her hands and violently shoved the terrified child hard against the floor.