CHAPTER 417

She sobbed until her words were incoherent.

After learning that Martin had a parent-child relationship with the Whitfields, Sebastian gave the Whitfields a copy of Martin's information that his subordinates had investigated.

It was clearly written in the information that Martin escaped from an underground club.

He was sold to an underground club by human traffickers, and the underground club forced him to serve guests.

Since he was rebellious, he refused to comply and was beaten by the people in the underground club until his body was covered in injuries.

The people in the underground club thought he was about to die, so they relaxed their defenses against him. He then took his last breath and escaped from the underground club. He fled to a sparsely populated place and passed out. At that time, he happened to meet Madeline, who was on a mission, so she saved him.

If he didn't meet her back then, he probably would have been dead for a few years now.

Holding his mother who was unable to stand straight, Andrew asked his father, "What's going on, Dad?" NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

Aidan recalled, "Back then, we were in our hometown when your mother gave birth to your youngest brother. On the night your brother was born, it rained heavily, and there was a landslide outside the village, so everyone who was able to work rushed over there. Ditches were dug outside to protect the

village, and there were only your mother, your mother's cousin, and her mother at home. Both your mother and her cousin were pregnant at the same time. Since they were both shocked, they delivered the two children on the same day…"

Andrew frowned. "Do you mean that Mom's cousin took the wrong child?"

"Did they take the wrong child, or someone purposely switched the babies?" Aidan's eyes were dark. "Even if the two mothers couldn't recognize their child, how could the person who delivered them not know?"

"They must have been switched at birth!" Madeline huffed angrily. "Martin said he wasn't treated well at home when he was young. He was often abused, which was why he left home."

Aidan looked at Martin and inquired, "Did you run away from home when you were young?"

"Yes." Martin nodded and uttered softly, "I can't remember much about what happened when I was young, but from my early memories, my mother never liked me. After I started school, she often accused me of stealing things, beat and scolded me, didn't give me food, and locked me in the basement… I couldn't take it anymore, so I escaped from the house…"

Andrew's mother trembled when she heard it. She felt extremely heartbroken.

With a shivering voice, she inquired, "What's your mother's name?"

Martin answered, "Katrina Pearson."

Andrew's mother gritted her teeth and seethed, "It's her. It's really her!"

She and Katrina were cousins. Her name was Karina Pearson, while Katrina's grandfather was her grandfather's younger brother.

When she was pregnant with her third child, Katrina was also pregnant with her third child, and their due dates were only half a month apart.

As the due date came close, her grandfather passed away, so her husband accompanied her back to her hometown to attend the funeral.

Since her grandfather was just Katrina's distant relative, the latter didn't want to go back and attend the funeral, but Katrina's father ordered her to go home with him. Without a choice, Katrina had to return to her hometown for the funeral.

Two days after her grandfather's burial, she originally wanted to return to Dusktown, but a storm happened all of a sudden. The village chief then gathered everyone to dig ditches outside the village to drain water. Strong men and women went out to help, leaving only her, Katrina, and Katrina's mother behind.

On that day, thunder roared and lightning cracked the sky. She was worried that her husband, who went out to help, would be in danger. She was so worked up that she was about to deliver a month before her due date.

Since it was raining heavily outside, she couldn't go to the hospital. Her aunt, Katrina's mother, helped deliver the child instead.

When the baby was born, Karina almost thought she couldn't hold it anymore, but the moment she heard the baby cry, she relaxed and fainted instantly.

After she woke up, Katrina's mother told her that she had given birth to a daughter, while Katrina gave birth to a son.

She and Katrina delivered their third children at the same time. Her first two were sons, while her third child was a daughter. On the contrary, Katrina had two daughters and now had a son. She always thought they had a perfect balance, so she was happy.

Eighteen years had passed, yet she never doubted that the girl she raised was not her biological daughter to begin with.

Why?

How could Katrina take the wrong child?

Shaking her head in denial, Karina couldn't accept the truth.

She suffered so much to give birth to a child and thought she had given her everything she could for eighteen years, but in fact, her real child was out there suffering for eighteen years.

Aidan was also at a loss. "According to what Martin said, Katrina knows he isn't her biological son. Then why didn't she tell us?"

"Why else?" Sebastian's lips tilted downward. "Because she was the one who switched the babies."

"Why?" Karina sobbed. "Why did she have to switch the babies? How could she bear to switch her biological daughter with my son?"

"Because you gave birth to a son, and she gave birth to a daughter," Sebastian explained. "Martin just said that he has two older sisters. If my assumption is correct, Katrina was in a situation back then where she needed a son. She had already given birth to two daughters before, so she couldn't accept that her third child was also a daughter, and she desperately needed a son. Coincidentally, you delivered a baby boy and fainted after giving birth, and there was only her and her mother in the house. It was great timing for her to swap the babies. With that, she gained a son."

"Yes. Seb is right." Aidan turned to Karina and elaborated, "The circumstances in the Cavendishes are different from ours. In our family, I am the only heir, but in their household, Max has a younger brother. Katrina's first and second-born were daughters and Max's brother had two sons. If Katrina couldn't give birth to a boy, or if her boy's age gap was bigger than that of Max's brother's sons, then Max's father might pass on his assets to Max's brother's sons instead. That put her in an urgent situation where she needed a son, but she delivered a baby girl instead. Seeing how we have another son, she decided to swap the babies…"

Max Cavendish was Katrina's husband.

The Cavendishes were an affiliated family of the Whitfields. They weren't a wealthy family to begin with, but when Karina got married to the Whitfields, the Cavendishes and the Whitfields had an in-law relationship. For the sake of Karina's cousin, the Whitfields also took care of the Cavendishes' business, and their lives gradually flourished.

"How could this happen? How could she do this?" Karina cried hard. "It's fine if she replaced our child, but why did she have to abuse him? That's my child! How could she treat him like that?!"