The Don's Kryptonite

Aurora examined herself in the mirror for the umpteenth time, adjusting the folds of her emerald green dress with a mixture of excitement and nervousness. Today was supposed to be a joyous occasion, a meeting with her fiancé, Jason, to discuss their upcoming wedding. She couldn't wait to marry him, to start a new chapter of her life filled with love and happiness. With a final glance in the mirror, she dashed out of the room, eager to see Jason.

As she made her way to the hotel room Jason had arranged for their meeting, Aurora's mind wandered back to her past life, to the memories of her suffering and anguish. But as quickly as the memories came, she pushed them aside, unwilling to let anything dampen her spirits.

Arriving at the fourth floor of the hotel, Aurora walked down the corridor, her heart pounding with anticipation and excitement. But as she reached Jason's room and prepared to knock, a strange noise from within gave her pause. Confusion furrowed her brow as she hesitated, her hand hovering over the doorknob. Curiosity got the better of her.

Turning the knob slowly, Aurora pushed open the door, the smile fading from her lips as she took in the scene before her. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw Jason, her beloved fiancé, entwined with Jenny, her stepsister, on the bed. Anger and betrayal surged through her veins, threatening to overwhelm her.

Jason scrambled to cover himself with the sheet, his eyes wide with panic as they met Aurora's. "What... what are you doing here?" he stammered.

Aurora choked back a sob, her gaze shifting from Jason to the smirking figure of Jenny on the bed.

"How could you, Jason? I trusted you!" Aurora asked, her voice breaking. The sight of her stepsister's betrayal fueled the flames of anger within her, and before she knew it, she was charging towards Jenny, her fists clenched in fury and ready to strike.

Before she could reach her, Jason intervened, grabbing her arm and holding her back. "Let go of me now, Jason!" she screamed, her voice trembling with rage and hurt.

Instead of letting go of her arm, Jason held her firmly in place, while Jenny squatted in a corner of the room, looking pitiful.

"Aurora, it's not what it seems like..." Jason's voice wavered with desperation.

"Oh, spare me the excuses! I walk in here, expecting to see my fiancé, and what do I find? You, in bed with my stepsister!" Aurora lashed out, her words laced with venom and her eyes blazing with fury. For a split second, Jason trembled slightly from the fury emitting from her. To him, Aurora had always been gentle, meek, and soft-spoken, but maybe it had all been a lie.

"Aurora, please, just hear me out..." Jason pleaded, releasing her arm.

"There's nothing left to say, Jason. You've made your choice," Aurora said, taking a step back, her voice breaking.

"It's not that simple, Aurora. You don't understand..." Jason's voice was strained, his eyes filled with regret.

"What don't I understand, Jason? That you've been lying to me this whole time? That you've been sneaking around behind my back?" Aurora's hands trembled as she struggled to contain her anger and suppress her hurt.

"It's not like that..." Jason tried to explain one more time, his voice cracking.

"Then what is it like, Jason? Enlighten me, please!" Aurora's voice was cold, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Jason heaved a sigh and moved to sit on the bed. He rubbed his hand over his hair in sheer frustration and regret, but he knew he owed her at least an explanation and needed to set her free with the truth.

"I... I can't do this anymore, Aurora. I can't pretend to be something I'm not," Jason finally admitted, his shoulders sagging in defeat.

"What do you mean?" Aurora's eyes widened in shock. She wasn't expecting that from him.

Jason raised his head to look her deep in the eyes. His voice turned harsh as he replied, "What do you expect me to do? You refused to let me touch you. Hell, I can't even kiss you, and the only thing I am permitted to do is hug you. What will you have me do?" He yelled the last words out, demonstrating how frustrated he was at the turn of recent events.

"But you agreed to wait. Our wedding is happening next month!" Aurora's heart ached with betrayal. She had thought for a long time that Jason was okay with their decision.

"So? I didn't plan for this to happen, but since it has, there is nothing I can do. I'm sorry, Aurora. I am. But I can't go through with this wedding. I want to be with Jenny." Jason sighed heavily.

"You are willing to throw away five years of us being together?" Aurora asked, her voice masked with emotion.

Jason didn't bother to give her a reply, but his silence was loud and clear enough. After getting the answer she needed from him, Aurora finally moved her focus away from Jason and her gaze landed on Jenny, who was still squatting on the floor with a deceitful look. If it had been when they were still young, she would have believed that Jenny was truly remorseful, but she knew better that Jenny was just a pretentious woman.

"Jenny...?" Aurora called her voice barely a whisper.

"Aurora, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen." Jenny spoke up tearfully, cutting off Aurora's words.

"How could you, Jenny? How could you betray me like this?" Aurora's voice was filled with disbelief.

Faced with Jason's piercing eyes, Jenny's eyes brimmed with tears. "I know I messed up, Aurora. But I love him..."

"What about me, Jenny? What about your sister?" Aurora's voice cracked with pain.

"I never meant to hurt you, Aurora. I swear..." Jenny's voice was pleading; her expression one of sorrow, but the minute Jason had his back to her, her face contorted to one of mockery and smirk. Her gaze bore into Aurora's, letting her know Jason now belonged to her.

Noticing her deceitful pleas, Aurora's gaze turned hard, and she didn't let Jenny finish her utterances before cutting her off with her own. "Well, congratulations. You've succeeded."

"Aurora, please... I know this is hard to understand, but..." Jason's voice was urgent.

Aurora cut him off, her irritation mixed with fury. "Save it, Jason. I don't want to hear another word from you."

"Jason..." Jason and Aurora both turned towards Jenny as she called out weakly. "Plead with her on my behalf. I am sorry this happened; it was all my fault for falling in love with my sister's fiancé. I am sorry, Aurora."

"This isn't your fault, Jenny. I love you as well." Jason responded as he walked to the corner where Jenny squatted and carried her towards the bed to sit. Unable to stomach the scene anymore, Aurora turned swiftly and walked out of the room.

The picture of their betrayal kept playing in Aurora's mind as she walked away from the hotel. It took all her strength to refrain from hitting Jenny and Jason. She kept blaming herself for their breakup. As she strolled into her living room with tears on her face, she was stopped by her father and stepmother.

"How dare you lay your filthy hands on Jenny!" Daniel's roar echoed through the room.

Shocked, Aurora looked from her father to her stepmother, confusion written all over her face.

"It is my fault, Daddy. I didn't mean to fall in love with Jason, but it happened, and Aurora is angry with me," Jenny confessed, her voice filled with false innocence.

"So? She wants to kill you because of a man?" Daniel's eyes blazed with fury.

"I didn't touch you..." Aurora's voice was desperate.

The words had barely left her lips when her father's palm connected to her right cheek. "You ungrateful child, you dare lie?"

Tears pooled in Aurora's eyes from the physical and emotional pain she was suffering. She wished she hadn't walked away calmly from them earlier and had beaten Jenny. She wouldn't have been angry over being lied to.

"It has been decided, Jenny and Jason's wedding is fixed. You had better get used to that." Daniel's voice was cold.

"I thought..." Aurora's voice was a whisper.

"One word from you and I will throw you out of this house, you bastard child. I don't want to see your face. Because of what you did today, there will be no dinner for you, and you will return to the basement for the night." Daniel's voice was filled with finality.

The tears that she had been trying to hold back since she caught Jason and Jenny in bed suddenly let loose. She wept as she walked to the basement with a broken heart.

As she lay on the cold floor with no dinner or any warmth on her body, she snuggled in a corner, dragging the worn-out blanket over her body to protect herself from the cold night and a grumbling stomach. It wasn't as if the blanket could protect her much, but it was better than having nothing over her body. She shivered in the cold room as she lay in the stillness, praying for sleep to come, but the worms in her stomach decided to hold a party there tonight.

Aurora kept tossing and turning on the cold tiled floor with the events of the day plaguing her dreams. She kept seeing Jenny and Jason entangled, and her father's actions thereafter. As she struggled to sleep, she sat on the cold floor and allowed misery to take over her mind.

"I have become a slave in my own home, a home I was born into. What was my offense? I was not the cause of..." she thought.

"Aurora, you bastard child," she heard the voice that she feared most, pulling her out of her thoughts. Quickly, she scrambled to her feet as she dreaded what was coming her way. She needed no soothsayer to tell her all would not be well because the anger in that voice showed that all was not well.

"Where are you, devil child?" Sandra shouted. Aurora hurriedly left her room for the living room, where her father, Daniel, stood in the center of the room, and Jenny sat beside her mother.

"I am here, mother," she said weakly. She had barely finished speaking when she felt the sting on her left cheek. Her father, Daniel, had just slapped her. Moving her eyes swiftly, she saw her father in front of her with a deranged look. If looks could kill, she would be lying on the floor lifeless.

"She is not the mother to a bastard," he bellowed. Aurora shrank from his outburst, looking for an escape route, for she knew better than anyone that it wouldn't stop with just the slap. Just as she had predicted, she felt a kick that brought her down to her knees on her left rib.

"Don't you ever..." Another kick landed on her arm: "Call her..." and "Your mother!" Another kick landed, this time on her torso. She lay on the floor sprawled out as she welcomed the assault for what seemed like a century, but it eventually stopped, and she watched from her peripheral as her father walked back to the center of the room and started pacing. He was muttering to himself, and she could pick out what he was saying.

Ever since her mother died along with her brother, her father had always said to her face that she was the daughter of a bastard, as he was not her biological father. He claimed Aurora's mother wasn't faithful to him while they were married, and she was a child of one of her scandals. In her younger years, she didn't understand this, but now that she was older, it hurt Aurora whenever he insulted her mother.

She had been wondering, "If he claims I am not his biological child, why hasn't he conducted a DNA test to prove this?" She had at one point wanted to carry out a DNA test but was scared to find out the truth. "What if he was right?" She trusted her mom, though she was faithful, but she wasn't ready to know the result either. It was a split emotion that she had been battling with; despite his maltreatment, she still craved a family, and he was the only one she knew and had left.

"You will be coming with me tomorrow to meet with a client." He said as he cast a glance toward her. "Sandra, darling, please make her a bit presentable; we wouldn't want Lorenzo to see her this way, not that he would care though."

"Lorenzo?" she asked weakly. Ignoring what she had said, he approached Sandra, and they spoke in hushed tones. All the while, Jenny was seated right there, throwing a smirk in Aurora's way. Suddenly, she stood and walked toward her. Aurora unconsciously moved back, as she didn't want any pretentious accidents from Jenny.

She bent down slowly and whispered to Aurora, "I can't wait to see you destroyed, bitch."

"Why do you hate me this much?"

"Why? It has always been you; from our high school to college years, you've always been the chosen one. You even took Jason from me, but as you know, I took him back from you. I will ensure you are destroyed, and I will take everything from you."

"You have everything already, including my father's love and Jason. What else do you want from me?"

"I hate seeing your face; I hate hearing you talk. I just want you dead, bitch. Just die."

"To think I have never been bad to you, yet you are always bringing me sadness; now you want me dead?"

"Now that I think about it, I don't want you dead. I want to see you suffer."

Just as she finished speaking, Jenny fell off her own volition and screamed, holding her ankle. Aurora frowned at the sudden change of events, as she could sense what was to follow her shenanigans. As expected, Daniel and Sandra rushed to Jenny's side, concern etched deeply into their faces.

"What happened to you, darling?" Sandra's voice trembled with worry as she gazed at Jenny, tears streaming down her face.

With a sharp intake of breath, Jenny pointed accusingly at Aurora. "I was trying to talk to her, but she pushed me," she sobbed, her voice trembling with feigned pain.

Aurora's heart pounded in her chest as she watched the scene unfold before her. The weight of Jenny's betrayal bore down on her, threatening to crush her spirit once and for all. She was left shocked; "Why?" she couldn't say. She was not supposed to be surprised, as she was aware of Jenny's antics and shenanigans, but still, she was amazed at how fast her plan was concise.

"You ungrateful wench, how dare you lay your filthy hands on her?" Daniel thundered. He moved towards her with great anger, ready to devour her.