Chapter 3A Masterpiece of Revenge

Aunt Clara went completely mad, screaming hysterically.

"I'm her aunt! She's framing me! You can't arrest me!"

Her answer was a click.

Cold handcuffs locked onto her wrists.

"Sophie Summers, Curator of Grand Era Gallery, National Level 1 Art Restorer."

The officer verified my ID. Every word hammered into Aunt Clara's heart.

The color drained from her face, and she collapsed.

The woman who was throwing a tantrum seconds ago was now muttering blankly.

"Impossible... this is impossible..."

"A little girl... how can she be the curator..."

The shock of reality shattered her mind.

Tyler was even more wretched.

The moment the handcuffs clicked, a foul stench spread.

He had peed his pants in fear.

"Not me! It was Sophie! She told me to cut it!"

He pointed at me, snot and tears streaming down his face.

"Officer, my mom can testify! She instigated me!"

This woke Aunt Clara up.

She jerked her head up and crawled to my feet.

"Sophie! My good niece! Auntie was wrong! Auntie isn't human!"

She cried while slapping her own face.

"Let your cousin go! He's still a child, he can't go to jail!"

"If he goes to jail, his life is ruined!"

A security guard nearby couldn't help but mutter, "Still a child? He's twice my size."

Aunt Clara glared at him viciously, then immediately switched back to sobbing.

"We're family! Flesh and blood! How can you be so cruel!"

Family?

Laughable.

When she pushed my mother down, causing her to bleed, did she mention family?

When Tyler stepped on my mother's hand, maliciously grinding it, did she think about flesh and blood?

I coldly pushed her hand away and stepped back.

"Auntie, it's too late for that."

"From the moment you laid hands on my mother, there was nothing left between us but the law."

My voice was soft, but it stopped her crying instantly.

She looked at me in disbelief, her eyes filled only with venom.

"Sophie! You have a cruel heart! You'll get your karma!"

My father, David, finally recovered from his immense shock.

He looked at his handcuffed sister and nephew. This honest man's face was full of pain.

His lips moved, wanting to beg for mercy.

"Sophie..."

I cut him off directly.

"Dad, Mom's head is still bleeding."

I helped up my silent, weeping mother. Without another glance at the mother and son, I walked past them.

Behind me came Aunt Clara's hysterical curses.

"Sophie! You heirless wretch who deserves to die horribly! I won't let you go even as a ghost!"

I didn't stop.

A ghost?

Fine.

But before that, you have to survive hell on earth.

Dad and I took Mom to the hospital.

The doctor said the wound wasn't deep, but she had a mild concussion and needed observation.

After settling Mom in, Dad sat by the bed sighing, wanting to speak but afraid to.

I knew he wanted to persuade me.

Blood is thicker than water; forgive and forget.

I didn't give him the chance.

A call came in. From the police station.

They told me Aunt Clara was throwing a tantrum at the station.

Insisting it was a family dispute and demanding a private settlement.

She was even calling every relative to cry and complain.

Exaggerating how her niece was heartless and cruel.

Trying to send her own aunt to jail over a painting.

As soon as the call ended, my phone started vibrating wildly.

The family group chat exploded.

Uncle Bob: [Sophie, your aunt says you're suing her? It's New Year's, don't make it so ugly.]

Aunt Helen: [Sophie, Tyler is your cousin. He's immature, just let it go.]

[It's just a painting, let them pay for it!]

Uncle Mike was the most direct, tagging my dad:

[David! Control your daughter! She's shaming the Summers family name!]

Dozens of people in the group. Not one asked about my mom's injury. Not one cared about the truth.

All lecturing me.

These words were like dull knives cutting my father's heart.

His lips trembled, wanting to defend me, but he couldn't type a single word.

I remained expressionless.

Unlocked my phone, found the full surveillance video.

And threw it directly into the family group.

The video wasn't long, but it recorded all the ugliness.

Aunt Clara's tantrum, Tyler smashing the figurine.

Aunt Clara throwing money to cut my mom's face, Tyler stepping on my mom's hand.

How they smashed my gallery stuff, pushed my mom until she bled.

Finally, how they cut the painting in front of me and framed me.

In the video, the faces of that mother and son were nauseating.

The group chat that was spamming messages a second ago went dead silent.

For a full five minutes.

Aunt Helen cautiously popped up: [This... how could Clara treat her sister-in-law like that?]

Uncle Bob: [Tyler is an animal! Hitting an elder!]

The wind changed instantly.

The people who were advising me to be generous started condemning Aunt Clara and her son.

Uncle Mike: [David, this is Clara's fault. Do what needs to be done, we won't interfere.]

Aunt Helen: [Right, who needs relatives like that!]

My father looked at the chat history and let out a long sigh.

He never mentioned pleading for them again.

Clara, Tyler.

You will pay the price for what you've done.

The next day, my legal team officially stepped in.

Intentional destruction of property, theft, intentional injury.

Multiple crimes punished together.

Tyler faced prison time.

Aunt Clara, as an accomplice and instigator, couldn't escape either.

The lawyers moved fast, applying for property preservation immediately.

The court ruling came down quickly.

Aunt Clara's old apartment downtown? Seized.

The wedding house she bought for Tyler? Seized.

All bank accounts in her name? Frozen.

When the news reached the detention center, Aunt Clara went crazy on the spot.

She banged her head against the bars, screaming that the house was her life.

Cursing me, her niece, for being heartless and trying to kill her.

Tyler, hearing this in the interrogation room, completely collapsed.

His arrogance was gone. Snot and tears covered his face as he slumped in the chair, shaking like a leaf.

To reduce his sentence, he started frantically biting his own mother.

"It was all my mom! She made me do it!"

"She said Sophie's family is rich, breaking things doesn't matter!"

"She said there was gold in the painting and told me to cut it open!"

"Officer, I was the one tricked! I'm the victim!"

The police relayed the confession verbatim to Aunt Clara.

The mother and son who were usually so close turned against each other completely.

Aunt Clara couldn't believe it.

Her precious son, whom she had pampered for thirty years, sold her out completely to save himself.

She cursed in the detention center, calling Tyler an ingrate, a beast she raised in vain.

Separated by cold walls, the mother and son tearing at each other became the biggest joke in the detention center.

And I watched it all with cold eyes.

My father held the materials submitted by the lawyer, looking at the astronomical compensation figure, his hands shaking.

"Sophie, do we really... have to go this far?"

He was soft-hearted after all.

I didn't speak. I just took out a thick stack of IOUs from my bag and slapped them in front of him.

"Dad, look at these."

Each one was evidence of Aunt Clara borrowing money from us.

Game console for Tyler, $500.

Sponsorship fee for school, $8,000.

Car for him, $15,000.

Wedding house, $30,000.

Totaling over $80,000.

Item by item, page by page, all his soft-heartedness and indulgence.

Aunt Clara never intended to pay back this money.

Whenever my parents mentioned it, she would throw a tantrum, scolding my dad for not caring about his nephew, calling us rich and heartless.

"Dad, have we helped her little over the years?"

"She took our kindness for granted, our concessions for weakness."

"Today she dared to let Tyler step on Mom's hand. Tomorrow she'll dare to stab us with a knife."

"Why should we be soft-hearted to such an ungrateful vampire?"

My words, like hammers, struck his heart.

He looked at the yellowing IOUs, then turned to look at my mother on the hospital bed, still dizzy and nauseous from the concussion.

The hesitation in his eyes was finally replaced by heavy guilt and anger.

He picked up the pen and, on another document prepared by the lawyer, solemnly signed his name stroke by stroke.

No more hesitation.

It was a lawsuit to recover all debts with interest.

Old debts should be settled with new hatreds.

My mother stayed in the hospital for two weeks.

During this time, Aunt Clara and Tyler were formally arrested and transferred to the prosecutor's office.

The relatives who had clamored in the group chat disappeared completely. No one dared to visit.

Good. Saved my mom the trouble.

The day she was discharged, she had lost weight, but her eyes were clearer than ever.

She looked out the window for a long time, then suddenly spoke.

"Sophie, I used to think taking a step back meant peace in the family."

"Now I understand. With some people, the more you retreat, the more they think you're easy to bully."