Chapter 1724: A battle won, but not the war.
"I found out I wasn’t Naylani and Enzo Pierson’s son. I was just a child they were raising... because they thought I was theirs."
Penny held her breath, disbelief and shock flickering in her eyes. She just stared at him, opening and closing her mouth, but no words came out.
Seeing her reaction, Zoren let out a faint, bitter laugh. He shrugged weakly and leaned back against the headboard, resting the back of his head on it. His eyes drifted ahead as he thought back to how he’d learned the truth.
"In my first life, while I was investigating your case, I found out I wasn’t actually their son," he muttered. "To mock Naylani even further, Nathalie swapped her son with another. According to Nathalie..."
He paused, recalling the exact words that woman had spat at him during their confrontation.
"You should’ve seen Naylani’s face when I told her that kid of hers... is long dead," he quoted. "That I cleared his innards and used her child as a bag to smuggle some things. She was livid—it was a sight to behold."
Penny’s breath hitched. She didn’t know whether to shudder from the cruelty or recoil from the horror of it. Her heart clenched as she focused back on Zoren.
’Just... how could she...’
Her chest rose and fell slowly, heavily, as her gaze remained on him.
Nathalie being that cruel shouldn’t surprise her—and yet, she couldn’t help but wonder how Zoren endured it. She hadn’t known him personally in their previous life, but even now, she knew how much he had respected and looked up to Enzo.
She clutched the bedsheet tightly, her throat going dry.
Zoren exhaled again, forcing a faint smile. "So that’s why I couldn’t accept that he died saving a kid he thought was his—"