Chapter 10 - Serena finally said the part guilty people usually keep buried
Serena entered the wine lounge because she thought Michael was out on the west lawn with a contractor and Catherine was still alone.
She closed the doors behind her.
“You need to leave this house,” she said.
Catherine looked up from the records. “You first.”
That ended whatever performance Serena had left.
She started pacing, voice rising, no longer elegant or strategic. Catherine had seen many people become careless when control slipped, but Serena’s rage was almost childlike in its nakedness.
“You were supposed to back off,” Serena hissed.
“After you stole from my son and crept into my room?”
Serena’s face changed. “You have no proof.”
“I have enough.”
That was when Serena said the sentence that later destroyed her any chance of partial denial.
“I SHOULD’VE MADE SURE YOU NEVER WOKE UP!”
Catherine, who had spent days preparing emotionally for lies, had not expected open admission—not a legally precise confession, but the emotional truth of one. Serena immediately followed it by insisting Michael would never believe her, which only clarified what she feared most.
Belief.
Then came the slap, Catherine’s one physical act in the entire story.
She did not later glorify it. It was not necessary. Serena was not actively attacking her in that second. Catherine acknowledged to Alan later that the slap was retaliation born of outrage, not self-defense. She regretted the loss of control, though not the confrontation itself.
What mattered was what came after.
“CALL MY SON—AND TELL HIM WHAT YOU DID TO ME!”
Catherine wanted Serena pinned to her own words while the panic was fresh. She wanted no more private reinterpretation, no more tidy distortions.
Serena froze because she knew exactly what version of herself Michael had not yet fully seen.
The woman who could scheme, manipulate, spend, and betray him was one thing.
The woman who could stand in a room and say she should have made sure his mother never woke up was another.
Michael heard raised voices before either woman could move further.
May you like
And when he entered the wine lounge, the family story finally lost the possibility of being contained privately.
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