Chapter 593

Rory stepped out of her room only to find her mother gazing tenderly at her own belly. She had eavesdropped two days prior her father had pulled strings to have the baby's gender tested. A boy. Even her grandmother, who used to treat her mother with nothing but cold disdain, had suddenly become all smiles. Now she made sure the servants prepared bird's nest soup daily and cooked all sorts of nourishing dishes to "strengthen the fetus." Meanwhile, Rory might as well have been invisible in this house. Yesterday, she'd spent the entire day planting trees up in the mountains, shivering in the back of a bumpy pickup truck. Yet when she returned, not a single soul had asked if she was alright. Her fists clenched. The look she fixed on Aaliyah's belly was venomous, like a viper poised to strike. Aaliyah seemed to sense it. She glanced up, meeting her daughter's gaze, and a chill ran down her spine. But when she blinked and looked again, Rory had already reassumed the docile mask she'd been ta