Marrying the Man in the Dark

Chapter 1212 Committing Patricide

Anthony's finger quivered as he leveled it at Jude, his voice carrying a mix of accusation and disbelief. "You!!!"

Jude, defiant and unyielding, met Anthony's accusatory gaze head-on. "You unfilial child!"

"You even went to the extent of setting up your own brother!" Anthony's voice cracked with raw emotion.

"Kenneth's not my real flesh and blood brother," Jude shot back, his tone cutting through the tension like a blade.

Jude's eyes narrowed, his voice cold and calculated. "He's an illegitimate child that popped out of your love affair with some other woman."

"He is not an illegitimate child! He's your brother, for goodness' sake!" Anthony insisted, desperation creeping into his words.

Anthony clenched his jaw tightly, his gaze piercing as he fixed it upon Jude. "You've spent all these years acting this stupid just for that dead woman, didn't you?!"

"Kenneth is the one that's your true brother!" Anthony asserted with fervor.

"What significance do those two from the Lenoir lineage hold?! They don't compare to your actual brother!" Anthony's voice thundered with frustration.

"Yet you've chosen to plot with them, to act against Kenneth, against me of all people!"

"Have you forgotten that Kenneth is the one that's actually related to you?!" Jude regarded Anthony's enraged countenance with icy composure. Suddenly, a smile curved his lips.

He lowered his head, gently intertwining his fingers with Dorothy's. "But Father, when you discovered Phoenix was illegitimate, you never said such things."

His smile hardened with an edge. "Because Phoenix bore the stain of being born out of wedlock, because she was 'tainted' just from being born, you forbade me from being with her."

"Because Phoenix was the only one who existed in the realm of my heart, because I wished to claim Phoenix as my own in this lifetime alone, you dispatched agents to drug me, to cut off Phoenix's oxygen supply."

Jude bowed his head, concealing the depth of sadness in his eyes from the world.

A soft chuckle escaped his lips, his voice tinged with irony. "Why must I be denied friendship with the Lenoir brothers?"

"We stand united against a mutual foe," Jude added calmly.

"But they are not your offspring; they need not carry the burden of patricide." "Since that's the way it is, so be it."

Anthony was taken aback by Jude's words, rendered momentarily speechless. After a pause, Anthony chuckled incredulously. "So you allied yourself with them, conspiring against your own father, all for the sake of that dead woman?"

"Not quite," Jude responded evenly.

Jude's smile was there, yet his eyes held a frosty calm as he met Anthony's gaze. "I orchestrated my meeting with Damien and Cherise, with the intention of drawing them into my plans."noveldrama

"I also proposed to Damien that he come to Yatesville to assist me in confronting the Gray Group."

"All of this was my design," Jude confessed openly to Anthony.

Jude lowered his head with an air of detachment, his hands beginning to knead Dorothy's shoulders gently. "Mr. Anthony, there are moments when I am filled with both anger and sorrow. I am angry that you refuse to acknowledge the reality."

"The Gray family and its operations are no longer within your grasp, and Colin and I have long shed our youthful naivety."

"As we matured, we came to understand the truth, we saw the nature of people, and eventually... we glimpsed at the real you."

"I'm saddened because, ultimately, you are my father, and our relationship cannot be undone."

Anthony seethed with such fury at Jude's words that he felt on the brink of exploding.

Never had he imagined that the younger generation of the Gray family would push him to such limits!

Clenching his fist, he demanded, "If you acknowledge that blood ties cannot be broken, why then treat me with such disdain?"

"Because you have caused harm to another woman whom I love dearly," Jude replied calmly.

Jude lifted his hand, tenderly caressing Dorothy's arms. "In this lifetime, Phoenix was the only woman I wanted to wed. My love for her is that of a man for a woman, a love that spans the breadth of our years. I envisioned growing old with her, and my only wish for this lifetime is to share this deep and enduring love exclusively with her."

"Mother is the woman I hold in the highest regard in this life. My love for her is akin to a baby fawn instinctively following its mother. I yearn to witness her happiness and to see her revel in the tranquility of her old age."

"Yet such simple happiness," Jude continued, his voice tinged with sorrow, "you have destroyed."

Jude bowed his head slightly and offered a faint smile. "Tell me, Mr. Anthony, after all of these, am I not justified in despising you?"

"But I distinctively recall Mom's instructions-I am forbidden from raising a hand against my biological father."

Anthony's body began to quiver visibly with fear. "Therefore... you roped in Damien and joined forces with Colin... to confront me?"