Outcast Queen: Her Return from Hell novel Chapter 13

"Phoenix! Prescott!"

Warren and Vanessa, who had walked in right behind her, gasped at the sight of the wreckage.

Vanessa recognized the zeros behind the price tags of the ruined items, her vision going dark from the financial ache. "Oh my god! I... I bought these for you..."

Phoebe spun around, tears falling on cue like pearls off a broken string. She threw herself into Vanessa's arms, weeping with miserable humiliation. "Mom! Dad! Can I even stay in this house anymore? Should I just leave?"

"Nonsense! Who dares say that? The Prescott family is your home! It always will be!" Vanessa's heart broke for her, fury shooting straight to her head.

Warren instantly locked onto the culprit, his eyes blazing. "Phoenix! You psycho! How dare you—"

Click. Click. Click.

The crisp sound of heels striking the stairs echoed like a slow, deliberate drumbeat, hammering against everyone's frayed nerves.

Phoenix descended the steps.

Her simple, perfectly tailored outfit made her posture seem even more commanding.

Even though she was walking down to their level, an invisible, suffocating pressure draped over the room, instantly silencing their furious screaming.

She finally stopped next to the scattered debris. Her gaze swept over the devastated Fiona, the trembling Warren, and the venomous glare of Vanessa holding Phoebe. Finally, she looked down at the dress Phoebe used to parade around in.

A cold smirk slowly curved her lips.

"I was just clearing the trash out of my room," she said, her icy gaze landing lightly on Phoebe's pale face.

"What?" she tilted her head slightly, as if asking about the weather.

"Do you have a problem with that?"

Hearing this, Warren and Vanessa felt a chill shoot from the soles of their feet straight to their skulls, trapping the breath in their chests.

Phoebe, looking like a kite with a snapped string, let out a wretched wail and charged up the stairs like a madwoman. "My room!"

She slammed the door open.

Phoebe froze in the doorway.

Empty.

It was so utterly empty that she couldn't even find a single strand of her own hair.

Dead silence.

A suffocating, heavy silence.

Lawrence's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty. Cold sweat instantly soaked the back of his shirt. The lazy, soul-freezing gaze from the woman downstairs terrified him far more than the furious patriarch in front of him.

He mustered half a lifetime of courage to speak in a voice as faint as a mosquito, though everyone heard him clearly.

"...Sir... I think... perhaps... we should first... discuss this... with Ms. Prescott... downstairs..."

He didn't finish the sentence, but his trembling body and bowed head gave them all the answers they needed.

"What did you just call her?" Warren looked as if he had heard the most absurd joke in the world, every inch of his face twitching and twisting. "Lawrence! Have you lost your mind?! The heir to the Prescott family—past, present, and future—only goes by one name, and that is Phoebe!"

He took a massive stride toward the butler, his red, furious face practically touching the man's nose.

"I'm sparing you only because you've worked for this family for thirty years!" Warren yelled, his voice cracking. "But let me tell you this—you have one hour! Just one hour!"

"You! And all the blind, useless trash standing downstairs!" His finger swept toward the ashen-faced maids huddled near the staircase, wishing they could melt into the walls.

"If Phoebe's room isn't restored in one hour—" he glared with vicious toxicity. "Every single one of you is fired! Get out!"