Exposing My Toxic Mother and Her Lover

I was reborn on my eighth birthday.

My dad, Edward, had secretly bought me a cheap, seven-dollar grocery store cake.

Just as he lit the single candle, my mother, Victoria, looked at him and laughed coldly.

Edward, why are you pretending to be a loving father? Lily isn't even your child.

The lighter slipped from my dad's hand, falling right into the white frosting.

The tiny flame died with a soft hiss.

The dining room fell dead silent.

We were in a private room at a high-end steakhouse.

The long table was filled with our relatives and top executives from my dad's company.

No one dared to breathe.

In my past life, it was at this exact birthday dinner that Victoria threw the word "bastard" at my dad and me.

Devastated and humiliated, my dad had rushed out of the restaurant, completely losing his mind.

He was hit by an oncoming truck and died on the spot.

Afterward, Victoria held his portrait at the funeral, weeping and telling everyone that my greed for a birthday cake had killed him.

And I believed her.

I spent my entire life tormented by guilt and regret.

It wasn't until after her death that the man she had hidden for years showed up at my door with her will, demanding a share of my inheritance.

Only then did I realize that my dad and I had lived our entire lives inside her massive lie.

But this time, I didn't cry. Instead, I let out a cold laugh.

"You're right, Victoria. I'm probably not Dad's child. After all, you forced me to secretly call your secret lover 'Daddy' a long time ago!"

The smirk on Victoria's face instantly froze.

Everyone at the table looked like they were being choked. Their forks remained suspended in mid-air.

My dad's face turned deathly pale. His body swayed.

I knew exactly what he was going to do next.

In my past life, this was the moment he stood up in despair, knocked over his chair, and stumbled out of the restaurant.

He never came back.

This time, I jumped off my chair and tightly wrapped my arms around his leg.

"Edward, don't leave. Please."

He looked down at me, his eyes terrifyingly bloodshot.

Victoria finally snapped out of her shock. Screaming, she lunged at me.

"Lily! Say another word, and I swear I'll kill you!"

She grabbed the cake from the table and slammed it right into my face.

The sweet frosting instantly blinded my eyes.

The sharp edge of the birthday candle scraped across my cheek, leaving a burning red welt.

A collective gasp echoed through the room.

But Victoria wasn't done.

She grabbed my hair and slammed my face down toward the edge of the table.

"Eat it!" she shrieked.

"Weren't you begging for this pathetic cake?"

"Your father sneaked it in behind my back. You felt so proud, didn't you?"

"You just wanted to prove that you're more important to him than I am!"

My eight-year-old body was trembling from the pain.

But inside, I was only laughing coldly.

Seven dollars.

My dad was worth hundreds of millions, yet he had to hide a seven-dollar grocery store cake in his briefcase just to give it to his daughter.

Because Victoria had decreed that every single cent of the family's money had to go through her.

When my dad bought me sketchpads, she claimed he was favoring me to humiliate her as a stay-at-home mother.

When my dad took me to the dentist, she locked herself in the bathroom and took sleeping pills, crying that we were conspiring to exclude her.

And when my dad wanted to throw me a birthday party, she publicly claimed I wasn't his daughter.

She wasn't angry.

She was executing us.

She wanted my dad to know that if he dared to love me, she would plunge a knife straight into his heart.

"Victoria, you've lost your mind! She's your daughter! How could you do this to her?!"

My dad finally snapped. He snatched me away from her and pulled me protectively into his arms, his heart breaking as he saw my face.

Victoria's sister, Chloe, was the first to defend her.

"Lily, how can you speak to your mother like that? What a toxic little brat. No wonder Victoria was driven to this point."

Her brother, Julian, snorted in disgust.

"An eight-year-old accusing her own mother of cheating? Someone clearly coached her."

He looked directly at my dad.

"Edward, have you been wanting a divorce all this time? Is that why you're using this child to throw dirt at Victoria?"

The company executives lowered their heads, pretending to be invisible.

Nobody dared to look at my dad.

And nobody dared to say a single word to defend me.

I wiped the cream from my eyes, reached into Victoria's purse resting on the chair next to her, and pulled out a phone from the side pocket.

In my past life, I only found this phone when I was clearing out her belongings after her death.

That was when I discovered the secret she had kept her entire life.

Before Victoria's horrified eyes, I quickly unlocked the phone and forwarded three photos to the family group chat and the company executives' WhatsApp group.

The first photo showed Victoria kissing a man at the entrance of a luxury hot spring resort.

The second was a screenshot of a transaction where she had transferred $50,000 to the man, with the memo: Annual Wellness & Healing Package.

The third was a security camera screenshot of her leading me into a private studio.

In the image, the man was kneeling in front of me, handing me a plush toy.

Below that was an audio transcript of Victoria's voice.

"Lily, be a good girl and call him Daddy Damian. He understands Mommy much better than your father does, and he'll love you even more."

The group chats instantly exploded.

Every drop of color drained from Victoria's face.

"How... how do you know about this phone?"

"You little bitch! Did you steal my phone when I wasn't looking?!"

I grinned at her, showing my teeth.

"Victoria, didn't you say I wasn't Dad's child? Then let's check."

"We can do a DNA test, audit the bank accounts, and find out whether your Wednesday visits to the luxury estate in the hills are for 'wellness' or for hooking up."

Victoria raised her hand to strike me again.

But my dad was faster. He grabbed her wrist with a grip of steel, his eyes burning with pure fury.

Victoria froze.

She probably never expected that the man who used to apologize to her just for spending seven dollars would ever lay a hand on her.

Tears instantly streamed down her face.

"Edward, are you hitting me for this bastard?!"

My dad's lips trembled, unable to form words.

But he didn't let go of her wrist.

I raised the phone and dialed 91

"Hello, I need to report an assault."

"Someone is publicly defaming a minor at a birthday party, physically abusing me, and is suspected of forging paternity documents and embezzling family assets."

"The address is the Steakhouse on 5th Avenue, private dining room three."

Victoria lunged to grab the phone.

I immediately ducked behind my dad.

She missed and fell hard onto the carpet.

The next second, she sat on the floor and began to wail at the top of her lungs.

"I don't want to live anymore!"

"I sacrificed eight years for this family, only for my husband and daughter to drive me to suicide!"

"Edward, do the two of you want me to die right here to be satisfied?!"

I watched her cry, feeling absolutely nothing.

In my past life, this crying had kept me on my knees for decades.

This time, I gently tugged at my dad's sleeve.

"Edward, don't feel bad for her. She'd never kill herself. She just wants to make us too afraid to live."

By the time the police arrived, Victoria had already styled herself as the victim.

She had a shallow red scratch on her wrist.

She had made it herself using a piece of a broken wine glass. It wasn't deep, but it looked dramatic.

Chloe was holding her, crying hysterically.

"Officer, look at what they've done to my sister!"

"Her husband got rich and abandoned her, and he brainwashed their daughter. She's only eight, and she's already accusing her own mother of cheating!"

Julian pointed directly at my face.

"A child like this needs to be sent to a juvenile boot camp, or she'll grow up to be a menace to society."

My dad's body stiffened.

I knew he was about to fall back into his old habit of blaming himself.

In the past, whenever Victoria's family ganged up on him, his first instinct was always self-reflection.

Was he too busy with work?

Did he fail to support Victoria emotionally?

Did he make his wife jealous by being too nice to me?

I didn't give him time for self-doubt. I spoke up immediately.

"Officer, there are security cameras in this dining room."

"My mother just told everyone I'm not my father's child, threw a cake at my face, and pulled my hair."

"I have a burn mark on my face from the candle, and my dad has scratch marks on his face from her."

Victoria's sobbing paused.

The lead officer was a woman named Officer Miller.

She glanced at me, then at the ruined cake and the white frosting smeared on my face. Her expression instantly hardened.

"Let's check the security footage first."

Victoria panicked.

"This is just a family matter! Is that really necessary?"

Officer Miller replied coldly, "Publicly humiliating a minor and physically abusing a child is not a 'family matter.'"

Victoria's face turned white.

She quickly shifted her expression, clutching her chest and leaning weakly against Chloe.

"I... I only said those things out of anger."

"I was in so much pain. Edward only cares about our daughter, never about me."

"I just wanted him to show me some affection."

I let out a laugh.

"So your way of getting affection is calling your own daughter a bastard?"

She glared at me. Her eyes were filled with pure venom.

Suddenly, as if remembering something, she pulled a document from her purse.

"You want proof? I have it!"

She slammed the papers down in front of my dad.

"Edward, see for yourself."

"Is this precious daughter you've raised for eight years actually yours?!"

Just as my dad's hand reached for the report, I slapped my hand over it.

"Don't look."

Victoria shrieked, "Are you scared now?!"

I ignored her and looked up at Officer Miller.

"I suspect this report is forged."

"There is no official lab registration number, no photos of the sample collection, and no signature from a legal guardian."

"The agency listed is 'Anhe Wellness Consulting.' They aren't even certified to perform legal DNA paternity tests."

Julian's face tightened.

"What does an eight-year-old know about this?"

"I might not know, but the police do. And Dad does."

I turned to my dad.

"Edward, tomorrow we will go to a certified forensic lab. You and I will do a proper test on the spot."

"If I'm not your daughter, I'll accept it."

"But if I am, you must sue her."

My dad stared at me. His lips trembled, but he couldn't speak.

I squeezed his hand.

"Edward, even if it's just for me, don't let it go this time."

"Mom... no, Victoria is a bad person. I don't want her to be my mother anymore."

Something in my dad's eyes shattered completely in that moment.

And then, a new light slowly gathered in them.

After a long silence, he said hoarsely, "Okay."

Victoria bolted upright. "No!"

Everyone in the room turned to look at her.

Realizing she had reacted too quickly, she immediately began to weep again.

"I am her mother! I won't allow her to go through such trauma."

"She's only eight years old! How can you bear to draw her blood?"

I raised my arm.

"It's a cheek swab, Victoria. No needles."

Victoria: "..."

Officer Miller almost cracked a smile.

For the first time, my dad looked at Victoria with cold, dead eyes.

"When you called her a bastard, you didn't care that she was only eight."

"Now that we want the truth, you suddenly care?"

Victoria's face went completely pale.

I picked up the phone and typed a message into the family and company group chats.

"Tomorrow morning, 9:00 AM, at the State Forensic Identification Center."

"At the same time, I request the company's financial team to audit Victoria's personal accounts, secondary cards, company reimbursements, and consultant contracts over the last eight years."

"She claims all her expenses were for the family's image. Let's let the bank records speak for themselves."

The group chat remained silent for three seconds.

Then, my dad replied:

"Do exactly what Lily says."

Marcus, the Chief Financial Officer, replied:

"Understood. We will begin the audit as soon as Edward signs the authorization."

My uncle, Richard, also replied:

"Since things have come to this, we must investigate."

Victoria stared at her phone, her tears completely dried up.

She glared at me, her eyes burning with a raw, murderous hatred that she no longer bothered to hide.

The next morning, before I could even reach the forensic lab, I went viral on TikTok.

Victoria and her family had blocked the gates of my school.

She was wearing a white dress, her wrist wrapped in layers of gauze, looking as pale as a corpse.

Behind her, Julian and Chloe were holding up a massive banner:

[Eight-year-old daughter defames mother; billionaire husband drives wife to suicide.]

Next to it was a cardboard sign.

It had my photo pasted on it.

And underneath my face, written in giant, red letters, was the word:

BASTARD.

Parents and students were crowding around, filming with their phones and whispering.

"Is that her?"

"The kid looks so creepy."

"She drove her own mother to her knees. How heartless."

Looking at that cardboard sign, my fingers clenched into tight fists.

Eight years old.

She had plastered the word "bastard" under an eight-year-old's photo for the entire world to see.

She had done the exact same thing in my past life.

After my dad died, she had hugged me and cried, saying:

"If you hadn't been so greedy for that cake, I wouldn't have gotten angry, and your father wouldn't have died."

Later, when I ranked first in school, she said:

"What's the point? Your father isn't alive to see it."

When I had a 104-degree fever, she said:

"Your father is dead. How do you have the face to ask me to take care of you?"

Guilt was the leash she used to control me my entire life.

And today, she wanted to slip it back over my neck.

When Victoria saw my dad's car, she immediately ran over and threw herself onto her knees in front of us.

"Edward, I beg you."

"Don't do the test."

"Don't audit the accounts."

"Lily, Mommy will beg you on her knees, okay?"

She actually began to bow her head toward the ground.

The crowd's cameras immediately zoomed in on my face.

Chloe screamed, "Lily! Your mother is on her knees! Do you really want to kill her?!"

I stepped out of the car.

And then, before the entire crowd, I fell to my knees too.

I bent down and pressed my forehead hard against the pavement.

Thud.

The impact sent a sharp pain through my skull.

"Victoria, I beg you too," I sobbed loudly, my voice echoing through the schoolyard.

"Please stop calling me a bastard."

"Please stop hitting Dad."

"Please stop transferring Dad's money to Damian."

"Please stop forcing me to call him Daddy Damian."

With that, I pulled out my phone and played the audio file I had backed up from Victoria's secret phone at maximum volume.

Victoria's voice, sickly sweet and tender, echoed through the speaker:

"Lily, when you see Damian, you have to call him Daddy."

"Your father only knows how to make money. He doesn't know how to love."

"Only Damian understands how much Mommy suffers."

Immediately following was a man's low laugh.

"What a good girl. Daddy Damian will buy you a toy castle."

The entire school gate went dead silent.

Victoria's face turned white as sheet. She lunged forward to grab my phone.

But my dad stepped in, shielding me.

"Don't touch Lily."

Victoria screamed, "Edward! You'd rather believe a lying child than me?!"

My dad looked at the banner behind her, and then at the word "bastard" under my photo.

His eyes slowly filled with tears, turning completely red.

"She is your daughter, and you are her mother. How could you do this to her?"

Victoria shook her head, sobbing, "I was forced into this by both of you!"

Just then, Officer Miller arrived with several police cars.

The moment she saw the banner and the cardboard sign, her face hardened.

"Who organized this?"

The relatives immediately looked away, pretending they had nothing to do with it.

Officer Miller ordered her colleagues to record the scene and warned them to stop harassing a minor and disrupting school order.

The surrounding parents began to whisper.

"So the mother actually made a banner to harass her own kid?"

"That is messed up."

"I almost believed her. What a psycho."

Hearing this, Victoria's face twisted in rage for a split second.

But she quickly went back to her act, clutching her chest and collapsing into Chloe's arms.

"My chest... it hurts..."

I immediately spoke up.

"I already called an ambulance."

"The hospital bill will be charged directly to her personal account."

Suddenly, her chest didn't seem to hurt as much.

At the forensic lab, the staff verified our IDs, took photos, and collected cheek swabs.

When my dad signed the authorization form, his hand was still shaking.

Victoria sat in the corner, her glare sharp enough to cut skin.

I pushed a document in front of her.

"Sign this."

She sneered, "What kind of game are you playing now?"

"If the test results prove I'm not Dad's biological daughter, I will make a public apology to you," I said calmly.

"But if I am, you must publicly admit to your defamation, delete all the videos you posted, and pay damages to Dad and me for destroying our reputation."

Victoria mocked, "You're just a kid, yet you've learned such disgusting tricks."

My dad pushed another pen toward her.

"I will sign it too."

"If the test proves Lily is my daughter, I will immediately file for divorce and sue you to recover every single cent you've transferred."

The smug smirk on Victoria's face finally crumbled.

Julian whispered urgently beside her, "Victoria, don't sign it."

I immediately chimed in, "Oh, so you don't dare?"

"Doesn't that prove you've been lying from the very beginning?"

Victoria could tolerate anything except losing.

"I'll sign it!" she spat, grabbing the pen and scribbling her name.

"You want to know if you're really his daughter? I'll tell you right now."

Suddenly, she leaned close to my ear and whispered a few words.

My pupils contracted instantly.

During the three days we waited for the results, Victoria didn't stay idle.

She edited the video of the incident at the school gate and posted it on TikTok.

In her version, the video only showed her kneeling before me while I stood there with a cold, unbothered expression.

My kneeling, the audio recording, the banners, and the cardboard sign were completely edited out.

The caption was designed to stir up outrage:

Eight-year-old daughter forces mother to kneel; billionaire father watches coldly.

The comment section exploded.

"Are kids these days really this evil?"

"Being a stay-at-home mom is a nightmare."

"Edward got rich and now he's trying to get rid of his wife."

"The father clearly brainwashed the daughter."

Soon, people doxed my school.

Someone threw rotten vegetables at the school gates.

My desk was filled with nasty sticky notes.

"Bastard."

"Ungrateful brat."

"You killed your own father."

When I read the last note, a chill ran down my spine.

In my past life, Victoria was the only one who ever said those words to me.

She was already setting the stage.

If my dad died again in this life, she would once again pin the blame on me.

I took photos of every single note and sent them to Arthur, our family lawyer.

Arthur was an old friend of my dad's. He had rushed back from an out-of-town business trip the night before.

After reviewing the photos, he simply said, "Keep collecting evidence."

"Don't engage with her online."

"If she wants a stage, we will build her a courtroom."

That evening, Victoria started a livestream on TikTok.

She sat in a dimly lit room, with a bottle of sleeping pills clearly visible on the table next to her.

She wept softly, looking incredibly fragile.

"I admit, I lost control of my emotions and said things that hurt my child."

"But nobody knows how lonely I've been all these years."

"When Edward comes home, he only has eyes for Lily. He never looks at me."

"He bought her a cake, but he forgot that I need to be loved too."

The chat scrolled by at lightning speed.

"Stay strong, sister! Don't do anything stupid!"

"Being a stay-at-home mom is so suffocating."

"The husband and daughter are both trash."

She began to justify her spending.

"I bought luxury bags to maintain his image at business dinners."

"I took wellness courses because this house drove me into depression."

"I attended high-society galas to build networks for Edward's company."

I watched her hands on the screen.

Her wedding ring was gone.

I immediately looked up at my dad. "Edward, she is going to meet Damian tonight."

My dad froze. "How do you know?"

"Every time she meets him, she takes off her wedding ring," I explained.

In my past life, it was on this very night.

After her pity-party livestream, she went to Damian's luxury apartment to drink champagne and celebrate.

When Damian came to claim the inheritance later, he had played me a recording of that night.

Victoria had laughed and said, "Edward died at the perfect time. Otherwise, getting this money wouldn't have been so easy."

I still remembered those words. Every single syllable felt like a knife.

Arthur quickly tracked down a property in the prestigious neighborhood of the city. The title was under Victoria's name.

The purchase had been made using my dad's secondary credit card.

Coincidentally, the property management had just filed a report about a water leak, requiring the owner to open the door.

At 9:00 PM, my dad, Arthur, the property manager, and a plumber arrived at the apartment.

Before the door opened, my dad's face was as gray as ash.

I squeezed his hand.

"Edward, if there's no one inside, we'll just go home."

"But if there is, you are not the one who should feel embarrassed."

The moment the door opened, a strong scent of expensive perfume wafted out.

Victoria's high heels were discarded on the living room floor.

A man's laughter echoed from the bedroom.

"You put on a great show tonight. You're number one on the trending page."

Victoria's lazy voice replied, "Edward is an idiot. He's so easy to manipulate."

"He's probably sitting at home right now, blaming himself for being too harsh on me."

Damian asked, "What if he actually audits the accounts?"

Victoria sneered, "He wouldn't dare."

"He had to sneak around just to buy a seven-dollar cake. You think he has the balls to cross me?"

My dad stood in the entryway, completely frozen like a statue.

The next second, the bedroom door opened.

Victoria walked out wearing a silk negligee.

Damian followed her, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.

Their eyes collided.

The smirk on Victoria's face shattered instantly.

"Edward..."

Damian reacted quickly.

"Edward, this is a misunderstanding. I'm Victoria's emotional therapist. She was in a dangerous mental state tonight, and I was performing a crisis intervention."

I looked at the bright red lipstick mark on his neck and let out a laugh.

"Do you usually strip down to a towel for 'crisis interventions'?"

Arthur immediately raised his phone to take photos and videos.

Victoria screamed and lunged forward, "Stop filming!"

My dad finally raised his head.

His voice was very quiet. But it was as cold as ice.

"Victoria, we are getting a divorce."

She froze.

And then, she laughed.

"Edward, you can't survive without me."

"Without me, you don't even know what medication you're supposed to take."

"If you dare divorce me, I will make sure the whole world knows you're a monster who drove his own wife insane."

My dad remained silent.

So I spoke for him.

"Then let's show the world who the real maniac is."