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My Stepsister Sold My Luxuries, So I Sued Her in Court!
NovelShort
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완결
My foster mother and stepsister took my luxury goods to sell off, and in the end their greed pushed them far enough to go after my mother's keepsakes. In a fit of anger, I took the two of them, mother and daughter, to court, laying out the evidence to put them behind bars for good. When my husband, who was overseas at an important major conference, found out, the man who had never once bent his rules for anyone did the unthinkable and dropped his whole team of executives to rush back home.
챕터 (4)
第1章
My stepmother and stepsister took my designer things to resell, and in the end their greed reached all the way to my mother's keepsakes.
Furious, I took the two of them to court, laid out the evidence, and made sure they'd rot behind bars.
My husband, in the middle of an important summit overseas, heard about it, and the man who had never once bent his own rules for anyone dropped everything, left the executives behind, and flew home.
He hired the best lawyers to overturn the case for my stepsister and her mother, and even claimed that all those designer things were bought by him, so if my stepsister could use them, so could I.
Slapped in the face in front of everyone, I said the word divorce.
That was when my husband finally panicked. He left my stepsister and came chasing after me to smooth things over.
"Come on, honey, don't be angry anymore."
"Whatever Gwyneth Cooley took from you is all secondhand to you anyway. I only helped her because I didn't want outsiders calling you cruel and vicious, didn't want people talking behind your back."
To show he was sorry, he took me to the most luxurious mall in the city and booked out three whole floors of designer counters so I could buy whatever I wanted.
"Honey, those few pieces of clothing and jewelry are lovely. Only someone as elegant and refined as you could carry them off."
Right then, he had the staff snip off the tags so I could go in and try them on.
But when I came out from the fitting room, he was gone.
I waited until the store was nearly closing, and still he didn't come back.
With no other choice, I got ready to pull out a card and pay.
Only to find that the cards inside my bag were gone.
……
1
"Ma'am, will you be paying by card or by phone?"
I spent more than ten minutes reaching for a card. No, to be exact, I stood there frozen for ten minutes.
I remembered putting several different cards in my bag before I left the house. Why were they all gone?
The one who was supposed to be paying was Albert Farley, and he was nowhere to be found.
I made a full hundred calls, and every one sank without a trace.
Right now it felt like a mountain of stone was pressed against my chest. It sat wrong in me.
The saleswoman was the kind who read the room. From the earlier bowing and flattering, she'd moved on to rolling her eyes.
"Ma'am, our store has already stayed open past closing for you."
"Past closing is the least of it! There's also the money you said, with your own mouth, for booking out three floors. That still hasn't been paid."
Manager Lambert, the man in charge of the mall, came in with a good number of security guards.
They sealed off every exit, as if afraid I'd seize the chance to run.
I couldn't help but feel contempt. I, Belinda Cooley, had been born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Whatever I wanted, I got.
Why would I ever run from a debt like some pauper?
But the person who'd announced she was booking three floors really was me. Albert wanted to give me the standing to do it, wanted me to declare it in front of everyone so he could show what a doting husband he was.
And now? Now I couldn't even find Albert.
I set down my bag and stood up, lifting my head to meet the impatient stares of the saleswoman and Manager Lambert.
"Watch how you speak to me. I'm not skipping out on a bill."
"By phone!"
But when I got to the counter to pay, the transfer wouldn't go through.
I froze, tried again a few times, and got the same result every time.
The account linked to my phone was tied to Albert's card, and now the card was frozen.
The saleswoman didn't bother being polite. Her face fell flat as she said, "Ma'am, so what do we do now?"
"You cut the tags off three seasonal outfits worth forty million, and now your card's gone and your phone won't pay either."
"What are you going to use to make good on it?"
"Plus the money for booking out three floors, that's fifty million total."
"You're the wife of Mr. Farley, the richest man in New York. You can't manage a little money like this?"
The words had barely left his mouth when a shrill burst of cheering rose from downstairs.
"Wow, Miss Cooley is so lucky! Mr. Farley gave her a full thirty million in jewelry."
"Oh my God! This is the kind of thing I only dream about. I never thought it could happen for real."
Woven through that grating noise was Gwyneth's smug voice.
"Albert said he couldn't stand seeing me always wearing the junk my sister throws away, so he felt bad and gave me such beautiful jewelry."
"Oh my God, so Gwyneth's had it that hard."
"She's a stepdaughter, but she's still a Cooley heiress! And she's stuck using Belinda Cooley's castoffs."
"Sounds like Belinda Cooley's been throwing her weight around, keeping her down at every turn."
Right on cue, Gwyneth put on that wounded look, the one that said she had so much she couldn't bring herself to say, and it only made the outsiders more certain that everything they'd just said was true.
My hand curled into a fist before I knew it. I started for the stairs, only for Manager Lambert to block my way.
"Mrs. Farley, you haven't paid your bill yet! Where do you think you're going?"
第2章
"Manager Lambert, don't worry."
"I'm not trying to run off. I'm going downstairs to get my husband so he can settle the bill."
"You can't just block me here. That solves nothing."
Manager Lambert thought it over, then finally dropped his arm and followed me, trailing me all the way down to the next floor.
Even from a distance, I saw Albert lift a ruby bracelet and, with the gentlest motion, fasten it around Gwyneth's pale wrist.
The onlookers beside them couldn't help sighing in envy.
"Gwyneth, is there anything else you want to buy?"
"No, this is plenty."
"I don't want too much luxury. It breeds arrogance in a person."
"God, Gwyneth is so sensible!"
"Anyone else would've just kept buying and buying."
Watching it, something in me went cold.
Gwyneth was still my stepsister, yet Albert was trying on jewelry with her in that intimate, suggestive way, right out in the open.
The moment I walked over, the voices around us fell abruptly silent.
"That's Mrs. Farley."
"Don't say anything. She's petty as they come."
Albert didn't turn to look at me. He stayed focused on fastening the clasp for Gwyneth.
Gwyneth suddenly shivered and pushed Albert away, putting on a frightened, uneasy face.
"Sister!"
Albert's face darkened at once.
"If you had any sense of propriety, you'd know to keep a proper distance from your sister's husband, no matter the time or place."
"Not wait until I show up to understand it."
My voice dropped a degree too, and I turned to look at Albert.
"Weren't we agreed that you'd apologize to me, book out three floors of counters, and let me take my pick of the luxuries? So why did you bring her here?"
The air went taut as a drawn bow, and no one around us dared make a sound.
Albert didn't answer my question right away. Instead he reached out and took Gwyneth's hand.
As if to give her all the backing she needed, enough that she wouldn't have to fear me.
"Belinda, I'm not one of your Cooleys."
"I'd advise you to watch your tone when you speak to me. Be more polite."
"After all, your Cooley family only survives because of me."
Someone couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. It was aimed at me.
"What's this?"
His sudden coldness caught me off guard.
"Nothing. I just wanted you to get a taste of what it feels like to be accused of stealing luxuries."
My pupils gave a violent shudder, and a wave of unease rose in my chest.
From coming with me to the mall, to my cards vanishing, to his disappearing act right when I needed him.
To avenge Gwyneth, he'd set out to spitefully turn all of it on me.
I frowned, at a loss, and held his gaze.
He only laughed easily. "Looking at me like that won't change anything."
"Wasn't it you who wanted three floors booked and the tags cut off?"
"Since you did it, you're the one who pays."
The moment he finished, the people around us let out a breath.
"No need to panic, everyone. Turns out Mr. Farley doesn't love her the way the rumors say."
"Tsk, as arrogant and rude as she is, I wouldn't dare marry her either, if I were a man."
"If he treats Mr. Farley this way, he'll treat her stepsister even worse."
The strangers' words fell into Albert's ears, and no doubt they only made him pity Gwyneth more.
Right then, Gwyneth pulled her hand free of Albert's, walked straight over, and slapped me across the face.
"Sister, I was always so afraid of you. But to get justice for my mother, I've decided to teach you a lesson."
第3章
Her freshly done rhinestone nails raked across my face and opened a cut. Blood welled up.
The slap caught me completely off guard.
I turned my head back toward her, slowly, and regretted my own stupidity from all those years ago for the third time.
Seven years ago, Gwyneth wasn't a Cooley. Her name was different then.
Thrown out by her own father, drifting on the streets, until I found her and brought her home.
My mother had planned to hand them a little money and send the two of them on their way. But that woman knelt down and begged to be taken in, swearing she'd work like a servant, whatever it took.
I couldn't bear it. I asked my mother to keep them.
Later, that woman crawled into my father's bed, made sure my mother caught them in the act, and in the fight that followed my mother fell down the stairs and died.
Later, my father married Diane Abbott as his second wife. Once she was the second wife, her true nature came out.
"Belinda, remember this."
"Whatever else she is, my mother is your mother too. You don't have to acknowledge her, but you don't get to humiliate her."
I caught her wrist just as she raised her hand to hit me again.
"Mother? Is that a joke?"
"A woman who threw away every shred of decency to climb into her benefactor's husband's bed. She's not fit to be my mother."
"If you won't acknowledge her, then we're done. No more father and daughter."
My father came over with his arm around Diane, who was sobbing.
"Belinda, how could you call the police on your own mother?"
"You've gone too far."
Everyone else raised their hands and pointed at me too, looking me up and down, picking me apart.
The wound on my face and Albert's cold indifference made me look wretched beyond words.
I swallowed the ache down hard. I would not show them a single crack.
"Why shouldn't I call the police on them? My door was locked. They got someone to force it open. Taking what isn't yours without asking is stealing."
"I didn't. We really didn't take anything of yours."
"I only went in to be kind, to tidy your room. You'd said you didn't want those pieces, and it seemed such a waste to throw them out like junk, so I kept them to wear." When Diane finished, gasps ran through the crowd. "No way! She's the lady of the Cooley house!" "And she'd stoop to wearing the castoffs somebody else threw away."
Listening to it, the fury on my father's face only grew.
"Freeze this animal's card for me—"
"Dad, don't get worked up."
"I froze her card long ago."
"If she isn't taught a lesson, she'll never learn how to respect people."
Diane and Gwyneth traded a quick glance, the nasty little smiles hard to hide at the corners of their mouths.
But to protect the good-woman image she'd built, she turned to my father with a guilty tone and begged him to go easy on me.
"Honey, don't be like this, either of you."
"Can't we just go home and raise our child properly? Why criticize her in front of all these outsiders?"
"I may be the second wife, but I've thought of her as my own daughter for a long time."
Hearing that, my father tightened his grip on her hand, pleased and aching for her all at once.
Gwyneth shouted at me: "Sis, aren't you coming over to apologize to Mom?"
Albert pressed me the same way, as if I'd be shipped off to prison the moment I refused to apologize.
Thinking back, he hadn't seemed to like Diane and her daughter before.
Every time my father cursed me because of those two, Albert would win it back for me.
Because he treated me so well, I went to my grandpa and asked him to quietly throw his full weight behind the Farleys.
That was how the Farleys shot up to become the richest family in New York.
Because my grandpa believed only a strong Farley family could protect his granddaughter.
When Albert said my life, my death, whether I sank or survived, all rested on the Farleys, I truly felt nothing but contempt.
Facing the scorn coming at me from every side, I decided I was done with Albert.
"Belinda, are you deaf?"
"Get over here and apologize to your mother, now."
第4章
"My mother died the day she caught the two of you together." "And you want me to call a murderer my mother? Do you really think that's reasonable?" My tone didn't waver, and the crisis in front of me couldn't crush it. Albert and my father wore looks black as thunder. But Diane didn't get angry. Instead she stopped Gwyneth. "Gwyneth, don't be rash." "Belinda misunderstands me so deeply, but she's still my child. I'm willing to wait for the day she calls me mother." Gwyneth glared at me, seething. "Belinda, you see that? Even now Mom is still taking your side."
Albert stepped forward, as if his patience had run out.
He looked at me, and those bottomless cold eyes I knew far too well. He never stopped until he got what he wanted.
"Since you refuse to admit you were wrong, then don't blame me for being ruthless."
He laid down the threat right there, a warning to every person present, and everyone who could shop in a place like this was either rich or powerful.
"Anyone who helps Belinda is going against the Farleys."
"Today, I'll make her kneel and apologize to Gwyneth and her mother in front of everyone. No exceptions."
Even though I'd told myself I didn't want him anymore, hearing him turn on me so cruelly with my own ears still sent a pain through me, cold and cutting to the bone.
"Albert, you're really set on stripping your own wife of every last shred of dignity in front of all these people?"
"Yes!"
"If you still won't repent, the Farleys can always find another daughter-in-law."
Hearing that, Gwyneth's eyes lit up.
Get me thrown out, and she could marry Albert.
So she pressed further, not content with an apology, twisting the knife.
"Sis, if you can't pay the bill, you're going to prison."
"If you don't want to go to jail, then kneel and kowtow to us three hundred times, and say your mother was a whore."
Hearing her insult my mother, I couldn't stop myself. I raised my hand and struck her across the face.
I didn't expect that slap to be the spark. Albert rushed over and shoved me away.
I couldn't keep my footing and fell straight to the floor.
The people around me watched my humiliation with the most mocking eyes, the great Mrs. Farley, the eldest Cooley heiress, now in such a sorry state she wasn't worth a single hair on her stepsister's head.
"Belinda, I can see you won't cry until you're staring at your own coffin."
"You won't back down until you've been taught a lesson."
"Manager!"
Manager Lambert came forward, trembling. "Mr. Farley, what can I do for you?"
"Make her pay the bill right now. Don't give her any time to stall."
"If she can't pay, don't hold back on my account. Send her straight in for a good long stretch."
His cruelty severed the last thin thread of feeling I had left for him.
Every person there was watching to see how I'd end up, and not one was willing to step forward and help me.
It wasn't that they didn't want to. They didn't dare.
"Albert, let me ask you just one thing."
"When did you fall in love with Gwyneth?"
I really did want to know. Before Albert could answer, Gwyneth walked over, a smug smile on her face.
"In bed! Too bad you were fast asleep."
"Sis, satisfied with that answer?"
"If you are, then hurry up and pay the bill! You're just like that whore mother of yours, dumb as a pig."
With that, she turned away in contempt and went back to Albert's side.
Manager Lambert's face darkened at once as he walked over, his manner toward me foul.
He no longer called me Mrs. Farley. He used my name straight out.
"Belinda, kindly pay your bill now."
He knew perfectly well my cards were frozen, that I had no money to pay at all.
"No money to pay? Then there's nothing for it but to send you to prison."
"Somebody, the clothes on her back haven't been paid for either. Strip them off her and take her down to the station."
"Yes, sir!"
I knocked down the first one who reached for me with a single slap.
"What's the hurry? Who said I couldn't pay?"
My father sneered at me, his face still cold. "You animal, we froze all your cards. Everything you have you owe to us. Where would you get the money to pay?"
"And if I do have it?"
"If you can pay this bill, I'll do what you've always wanted and give you your mother's company back."
"Words are cheap. Why should I believe you?"
"If I go back on my word, may lightning strike me down."
Gwyneth moved in to kick me while I was down too. "If you can't afford it, then sign your shares over to me."
Then she pulled out a share-transfer agreement and threw it at me.
I smiled, and the smile ran deep. "Too much arrogance always comes back to bite."
Everyone looked at me with contempt, sure I was still putting on an act with the noose already around my neck.
Just then a notification came through on my phone. Smiling, I tapped it open.
"Manager, don't listen to any more of her nonsense, just arrest her and get her to prison—"
But Gwyneth's words died in her throat, her eyes going wider than lanterns.
"One... one billion..."
Albert jolted hard, his voice going sharp all at once. "Belinda, where did you get one billion dollars?"