The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 351

Chapter 351 Three Against One

Ethan’s POV

The woman who looked like Mama wasn’t Mama.

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I knew it the moment she bent down to buckle Alexander’s seatbelt. Her hands moved wrong–too careful, like she was handling something fragile instead of my brother who squirmed and kicked during every car ride. Real Mama would have already said “Alexander, stop wiggling” in that voice that meant business.

This woman just smiled behind her mask and patted his head.

Alexander was chattering like he always did when he was nervous, his words tumbling over each other in his excitement to fill the scary quiet. “Are we going on an adventure, Mrs. Victoria? Is that why Mama came to get us? Where are we going? Can we get ice cream?”

Victoria sat in the front passenger seat, not looking back at us. Her shoulders were tight under her expensive coat, and she kept checking her phone like she was waiting for something important.

“We’re going somewhere safe,” the fake Mama said. Her voice sounded like Mama’s voice, but the words came out too smooth, like she’d practiced them. “Somewhere you’ll all be together.”

Madison sat between Alexander and me, so small I could feel her shaking through her winter coat. She hadn’t said anything since we left school, just stared at her mother with big eyes that looked more scared than happy.

I touched her hand. Her fingers were ice cold.

“Madison,” I whispered, quiet enough that the adults couldn’t hear. “Are you okay?”

She looked at me and shook her head just a little. Then she looked toward the front seat where Victoria was still typing on her phone, and back to me.

“Something’s wrong,” she mouthed without making any sound.

I already knew that. The question was what to do about it.

The car turned off the main road onto one of those long driveways that rich people had, with trees on both sides that made it feel like driving through a tunnel. Alexander pressed his face to the window, his breath making fog circles on the glass.

“Wow,” he said. “This house is really big.”

It was big. Bigger than any house I’d ever seen, with windows everywhere and columns like the pictures of government buildings in our social studies books. The driveway curved around a fountain with stone animals spouting water.

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Chapter 351 Three Against One

“I’ve been here before,” Madison said quietly. “When Daddy was alive.‘

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The fake Mama turned around to look at Madison with eyes that were too interested. “Really? You remember this place?”

Madison nodded but didn’t say anything else.

The car stopped in front of the huge house. Victoria finally put her phone away and got out, slamming her door hard enough to make us all jump.

“Come on, children,” the fake Mama said in that practiced voice. “Let’s go inside where it’s warm.”

Alexander’s POV

The house was like a castle from my picture books, except not as colorful and kind of scary. Everything was white and gold and too clean, like nobody actually lived here. My shoes made clicking sounds on the floor that echoed up to the ceiling that was so high I had to tip my head all the way

back to see it.

“Can we call real Mama now?” I asked the lady who looked like Mama but smelled wrong–too much perfume instead of the lavender soap Mama always used. “To tell her where we are?”

“Soon,” she said, but she was looking at Victoria instead of at me.

Victoria was pacing back and forth in the big room with the fancy couches, her heels making angry sounds on the floor. She kept checking her phone and making those huffing noises that grown–ups made when things weren’t going the way they wanted.

“Is Mrs. Victoria okay?” I asked Madison, because she knew her better than me.

Madison was holding onto Ethan’s hand and looking around the room like she was trying to remember something. “She’s upset,” Madison said in her small voice. “She gets like this when she’s mad about things not being fair.”

“What things aren’t fair?”

“Everything,” Madison said, which didn’t help me understand but sounded very sad.

The fake Mama and Victoria went into another room to talk, leaving us standing by ourselves in the giant room. I could hear their voices through the door, but they were talking too quiet for me to understand the words.

“Ethan,” I said, “why does that lady look exactly like Mama but act different?”

Ethan was doing that thing where he touched his eyebrow and thought really hard about stuff. “I don’t think she’s supposed to look like Mama,” he said. “I think she’s pretending.”

Chapter 351 Three Against One

“But why would somebody pretend to be our mama?”

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“I don’t know yet.” Ethan looked around the room, studying everything like he was making a map in his head. “But we need to be very careful.”

Madison tugged on my sleeve. “Alexander, when the grown–ups come back, don’t ask about calling your real mama anymore, okay?”

“Why not?”

“Because asking might make them angrier.” Madison’s voice got even smaller. “And when my mommy gets angry, bad things happen.”

I didn’t understand what she meant, but Madison was smart about scary grown–up things because she’d lived with Victoria before. If she said not to ask questions, maybe I shouldn’t ask questions.

But I really wanted to call Mama. Real Mama, who would know exactly what to do and would come get us and make everything okay again.

Madison’s POV

The house smelled like sadness and expensive flowers. I remembered this smell from before, when Daddy would bring me here to visit the Whitmore grandparents during holidays. They never really talked to me much, just patted my head and told me to sit quietly while the grown–ups discussed boring things about money and business.

But Daddy would always take me to the kitchen afterward, where the cook would give us cookies and let me help stir cake batter. The kitchen was the only place in this whole house that felt warm.

Now there was no cook, no cookies, no Daddy. Just my mother pacing around like a trapped animal and the woman who looked like Mia but had mean eyes behind her mask.

Alexander kept wanting to ask questions, but I could tell from the way Mommy’s shoulders were getting tighter that questions would make everything worse. When Mommy got frustrated, she did things that hurt people. She couldn’t help it–something inside her was broken, and the broken part got angry when things didn’t go exactly right.

“The children can stay in the blue room upstairs,” the fake Mia was saying to Mommy as they came back from their private talk. “It has everything they need.”

“Good.” Mommy finally looked at us, but her eyes were strange and bright in the way that meant trouble. “Children, you’re going to stay here for a little while. It’s like a sleepover.”

“How long is a little while?” Alexander asked before I could stop him.

Mommy’s smile got sharp around the edges. “As long as it takes.”

Chapter 351 Three Against One

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“Takes for what?” Ethan asked. He was using his careful voice, the one that meant he was trying to get information without making the grown–ups mad.

“For things to be fixed,” Mommy said. “Things that got broken because of people who don’t understand.”