Chapter 392: Chapter 392: Cousin Brother
Everyone present froze for a mont.
Then they saw the person knocked down by Mrs. Loomis land softly on the nearby lawn, without even a sound.
Once his face was clearly seen, Adam Jennings couldn’t help but shout out first,
“Kingston!!”
Chase Jennings also froze upon hearing his voice. The two of them quickly stepped forward to pull Mrs. Loomis, who was still pressing down on Kingston’s legs, aside and helped him up from the ground.
Mrs. Loomis finally snapped out of it at this mont. Seeing the frail young man being helped up, she instinctively opened her mouth, “Kingston… aren’t you that mute from the Jennings Family…”
She didn’t even get to finish the word.
Adam’s cold and sinister glare suddenly shot toward her.
With just that one look, Mrs. Loomis felt as if soone had gripped her throat tightly, rendering her completely silent.
The security guards nearby paled at the sight of Kingston being knocked down. Without hesitation, one of them rushed forward and brutally grabbed Mrs. Loomis.
The grip was so strong that she couldn’t help but cry out in pain.
But this ti, she couldn’t escape at all.
The commotion at the entrance had long reached inside the Jennings household. The butler rushed out, only to see the Loomis couple being escorted away by the security guards.
Then he looked over to the frail young man being supported by Adam and Chase and his expression changed drastically.
“Young Master Kingston! What happened? Did you hurt yourself when you fell? Wait—I’ll imdiately go fetch the family doctor!”
He spoke quickly and dashed off in a hurry.
Scarlett Jennings was still standing in place, staring. It wasn’t until then that she realized who the young man in front of her was.
Kingston.
The one mber of the Jennings family she had never t before—her “cousin.”
The eldest son of the second branch, and also Adam’s biological older brother.
It was said that he had been extrely ill since childhood, having to spend ten months of every year in the sanatorium.
Additionally, he was mute.
Compared to the other children of the Jennings family, Kingston was so transparent that he barely seed to belong to them at all.
Precisely because of his fragile health and obvious disability, Michael Jennings and Odessa rarely ntioned him.
As a result, even though Scarlett had returned ho, all she knew was that the second branch had another child—but she was entirely ignorant of everything else about him.
It was clear that he was truly frail. Just now, after that fall, his face visibly paled.
At the mont, supported by the two, he barely managed to stand upright, shakily and precariously.
Adam, seeing that Kingston had steadied himself, brusquely withdrew his hand and stood to the side, his face stiffened, as though he were entirely unfamiliar with his elder brother.
Kingston didn’t seem to mind, keeping his head lowered as he drew his other hand out of Chase’s grasp. He nodded slightly in thanks and then raised his eyes to look in Scarlett’s direction.
The mont their gazes t, Scarlett vaguely sensed that sothing about him was off. Yet, due to their blood connection, she couldn’t discern the entirety of his features.
anwhile, Chase had already pushed the Loomis couple out of his mind, directly addressing Kingston,
“Why have you suddenly returned alone? Where are your dical staff? Your driver? What were they even doing?”
Kingston was a year younger than Chase. Coupled with his childhood illness and introverted personality, Chase naturally established an older-brother deanor toward him.
Kingston pulled out a large-screen phone from his hand, tapped rapidly on it with his fingers, and a robotic male voice soon emitted from the device,
“The car broke down upon entering the park. I walked here.”
Chase begrudgingly accepted this explanation and, seeing Kingston heading toward the house, prepared to follow him.
Adam glanced at Kingston’s retreating figure and, after a mont, spoke in a cold tone, “I have to report back to school. I’m leaving.”
Chase flashed an annoyed glare at him, “What are you rushing off for? You can’t even wait half a day? Your brother just ca back—co inside the house with !”
He then turned to Scarlett, but refrained from speaking to her with the sa tone he’d used on Adam,
“Well, this is Kingston, your third cousin. If you’re not in a hurry to get back to school, you can stay an extra day.”
For once, Scarlett didn’t argue against Chase’s words and stepped forward to follow them into the Jennings house.
It wasn’t because she listened to Chase.
Rather, it was because her curiosity was piqued about Kingston, whom she was eting for the first ti.
The three individuals who were originally scheduled to leave that day remained because of Kingston’s sudden return.
The butler also called Michael Jennings.
Previously, due to the incident involving Chase and the Jennings matriarch, Luca, Donovan, and the others hadn’t gone to the office for so days. It was reaching a point where skipping another day would be unacceptable, so none of them were ho now.
However, upon hearing of Kingston’s return, both the matriarch and Old Sir Jennings specifically ca to see him.
The incident involving the Loomis couple at the entrance had already reached their ears. Still, such trivial matters didn’t warrant Old Sir Jennings’s personal involvent, and the matriarch wasn’t sure how to face the Loomis family anymore.
In her heart, she knew they were innocent, but it was hard not to harbor resentnt.
Ultimately, she didn’t wish to strengthen ties further with her maternal family.
She was afraid.
Though she wasn’t particularly close to Kingston as a grandson, she genuinely pitied him.
A bright-eyed child who, since birth, had been plagued with illness, eventually losing his voice entirely—sothing that had led the matriarch to cold-shoulder Odessa for quite so ti.
In her perspective, a child’s poor health was a direct consequence of Odessa’s inadequate care during pregnancy and her negligent childcare afterward.
Odessa had already faced resistance within the Jennings family over her marriage into it, hadn’t secured her footing yet, and was further criticized by the matriarch because of Kingston, leaving a shadow of resentnt toward her own child.
On most days, she simply relegated Kingston’s care to the nanny.
Yet the most profound reason for Odessa’s indifference toward Kingston lay in Donovan’s wife.
Donovan’s wife, Scarlett and Donovan’s mother, still played an influential role back then. Before Scarlett was born, her presence lood large over the household. Out of pity for Kingston and as the Jennings family’s primary daughter-in-law, she naturally paid special attention to the boy.
Even when Kingston was very young, he seed to perceive who treated him kindly and who didn’t. On most days, he preferred to be close to his aunt-in-law.
This struck a sore spot in Odessa’s heart.
She felt the man she loved preferred Donovan’s wife, and even her own child seed to favor that woman. How could she possibly be fond of Kingston?
Kingston was delicate and sensitive by nature; after losing his voice, he beca even more withdrawn, choosing not to seek out his mother’s affection, knowing she didn’t care for him.
Over ti, the mother-son relationship grew colder and colder.
Just a few days ago, Odessa finalized her divorce from Michael Jennings and prepared to travel abroad for her “studies.” Old Sir Jennings had suggested bringing Kingston back so he could at least bid farewell to his mother.
But Kingston had declined.
Michael Jennings wanted Odessa to visit Kingston once at the sanatorium before leaving, but she had also refused.
In the end, right after Odessa walked away from the Jennings family, Kingston chose to return on his own.
“Before, when we sent people to fetch you, you wouldn’t co back. Now that you’re here, you didn’t even let us know beforehand. What are the sanatorium staff even doing?”
The matriarch muttered so complaints, but seeing Kingston only lower his head without a word, her gaze suddenly shifted to Scarlett, standing nearby.
Thinking for a mont, she stiffened her expression and spoke awkwardly,
“Scarlett, you—you co over and say hello to your cousin.”
Reviews
All reviews (0)