Cross My Tigress Face the Wrath (Stella) novel Chapter 1105

A memory from just a few weeks ago suddenly surfaced in her mind.

It had been a snippet of a conversation between Leslie and Helena. Helena had callously suggested, "Why doesn't your aunt just arrange a marriage for her and ship her off? That would finally force Uriah to move on."

And how had Leslie responded?

"That won't work," Leslie had sneered. "My brother would literally murder the groom before he ever let another man marry her."

Murder the groom.

The terrifying truth was that breaking free from Uriah didn't mean she could safely start over.

Unless she found someone vastly more powerful and dangerous than Uriah, someone who could permanently shatter the invisible chain linking them together.

But even if she did find that kind of protection, she wasn't ready to pull anyone else into her mess.

"If I do that, it's basically using Prof. Yoder as a human shield against Uriah," Tegan murmured.

"Then just treat him as a friend for now. Stop overthinking it and focus on severing your ties with Uriah once and for all," Stella advised gently.

"You think that's best?"

"I do," Stella confirmed.

A sliver of clarity finally cut through the fog in Tegan's mind.

She had to admit, whenever she was drowning in anxiety, Stella always managed to toss her a lifeline.

Almost immediately after hanging up with Stella, another call flashed onto the screen.

She answered it cautiously. "Hello?"

"It's me."

Mrs. Horner's voice crackled through the speaker, dripping with icy condescension and vicious authority.

Tegan had endured that exact tone of pure venom countless times over the years.

To the outside world, the Horner family had been impossibly generous to the poor, orphaned girl.

But only Tegan knew the daily torment of living under their suffocating roof.

To the Horners, her father's sacrifice had never meant a single thing.

Squaring her shoulders, she refused to cower.

Dropping all pretense of politeness, Tegan answered with matching frost, "Can I help you, Mrs. Horner?"

Her flat, defiant tone made Mrs. Horner inhale sharply. "Don’t you dare take that tone with me?"

"What attitude were you expecting? I assume you're only calling to lecture me about Leslie."

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