From Betrayal to Brilliance Her Rise to a New Life novel Chapter 401

**TITLE: Her Rise 401**
**Chapter 401: Seven Years of Lies**

In that moment, Zaden felt as if time itself had come to a standstill, his body rooted in place while his mind raced with a chaos of disbelief and confusion. The world around him seemed to blur, the edges of reality fraying as he grappled with a truth that felt more like a nightmare than a revelation.

Kate stood before him, her gaze steady yet filled with an unspoken sadness that pierced through the fog of his shock. A deep, weary sigh escaped her lips, laden with the weight of secrets she had carried for far too long.

“Zaden,” she began, her voice unwavering but heavy with gravity. “I know this is hard to accept. But you must understand, I orchestrated everything without your awareness. You were completely oblivious to the truth!”

Her words struck him like a cold gust of wind, chilling him to his core. It was as if a hidden truth, buried for seven agonizing years, had suddenly been thrust into the unforgiving light of day.

Zaden staggered back, his heart pounding furiously in his chest, his eyes wide with disbelief. The enormity of what she was saying was almost too much for him to bear.

“Impossible! This can’t be true! How could Teri possibly be—”

Before he could finish the thought, a torrent of memories crashed over him like a tidal wave, dragging him back to that fateful night seven years ago.

He could almost see it now—the blurry silhouette of a figure, the intoxicating thrill of that evening. It dawned on him that every fleeting moment from that night had somehow been etched into the very fabric of his being, explaining the inexplicable familiarity he felt upon first encountering Athena.

Why had he been so irresistibly drawn to her? It was as if an invisible thread had connected their souls, a pull he couldn’t quite comprehend.

Athena carried a scent that was hauntingly familiar, a fragrance that lingered in his mind like a half-remembered dream, teasing at the edges of his consciousness.

“Do you remember that night, Zaden?” Kate pressed on, her voice tinged with an undercurrent of sorrow. “When Maya abruptly walked away from you, leaving you feeling lost and abandoned? You drowned your sorrows in alcohol, slipping into a haze of drunkenness?”

Zaden felt his heart plummet. How could he ever forget that night? The vivid memory of spiraling into a blackout, waking up to the consequences of a fleeting encounter with a stranger—it all came rushing back, raw and painful.

“It was during that very time…” Kate’s voice quavered slightly, revealing the emotional weight of her words. “Athena was facing her own life-altering crossroads. She crossed paths with that man, Lewis, and suffered immensely because of him. I’ve always prided myself on my ability to read people.

“Lewis was trouble from the very beginning. Athena was my brightest student; how could I stand by and watch her life unravel at the hands of someone like him?”

Kate’s eyes darkened as she recalled the moment she witnessed Lewis taking Nina to the hospital, the shocking realization that Nina was pregnant hitting her like a freight train. “I wanted to urge Athena to leave him, but she was deaf to my warnings.

“And then I uncovered Lewis’s schemes. I couldn’t let him succeed.”

Zaden felt a knot form in his stomach as Kate continued to unravel the tangled web of their pasts.

“Having just been abandoned by Maya, I thought perhaps you could be the one to help Athena…”

With calm determination, Kate laid bare the story of betrayal and heartache, each detail piecing together like a puzzle that had long been scattered.

Zaden’s mind raced as he tried to connect the dots. He remembered the fracture with Maya, while Lewis plotted against Athena, all because of Nina.

After Kate learned of the impending disaster, she had manipulated events so that Zaden and Athena would cross paths, leading to an unexpected union that would change everything.

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