Chapter 132: Linda Carter 2

Linda stood there, in scrubs still stained with her daughter’s sickness, and felt her marriage die right there on the porch.

She didn’t cry. Didn’t scream. Just looked Edward in the eye and said, "You’ll never touch him again," she’d told Edward that night, her voice steady despite the terror racing through her veins. "You’ll never even look at him again. If you want a divorce, fine. If you want me gone, fine. But if you ever—EVER—try to hurt that child, I will destroy you."

’And I meant every word. I would’ve killed him with my bare hands before letting him hurt Peter.’

Then came the offer. A neat little deal tied with blood money: two million dollars if she walked away, no noise, no fight.

Everyone told her to take it. Her family. Her friends. "Two million dollars, Linda! Are you out of your mind? For what? Some junkie’s bastard who isn’t even yours?"

But that was the thing.

’He was mine. From the second he wrapped his fingers around mine and called me Mama, he was mine. Not for sale. Not for trade. Not for anything.’

The years that followed weren’t just hard—they were a slow-motion car crash stretched across a decade. Lincoln Heights wasn’t a new start, it was exile. Three babies under two. No childcare. No support. No sleep. No fucking room to breathe.

She worked two jobs, sometimes three, shuffling between double shifts at the hospital and online nursing classes on a cracked laptop while the kids screamed in the next room.

Dinner? Crackers and coffee. Sometimes just crackers. Laundry? She wore the same damn scrubs until they could stand up on their own, because that $5 at the laundromat? That was diaper money. That was formula. That was survival.

Her mom helped—when she could. But her father? He’d practically cut her off. Said she’d "thrown her life away" over a kid who wasn’t even blood. Family gatherings turned into witch trials. The same aunts who used to brag about her being a Sterling now barely looked her in the eye.

Let them look. Let them whisper.

’I knew what I had. And I’d burn in hell before letting them shame me for it.’

When her mom died, everything got louder. The silence. The panic. The math that never added up. She remembers sitting in their ratbox apartment, 2 AM, one twin coughing up a lung, Peter burning up with a fever, trying to stretch twenty bucks over six days like it was magic.

And yeah—there were moments she wondered. Moments when she stared at the ceiling and thought,

Did I fuck it all up? Would Peter have been better off with a nice suburban couple who could afford things like organic milk and goddamn peace of mind?

But then he’d look at her with those giant, haunted eyes and say "I love you, Mama," and it was like getting hit in the chest with sunlight. She’d crawl through fire all over again just to hear it one more time.

Every sacrifice was worth it for moments like that.

And now? Now he wasn’t just surviving. He was

thriving

. This boy, this miracle, this barely-five-pound newborn with a mother who OD’d giving birth and a father who didn’t even exist—he was

thriving

.

Sarah and Emma never flinched. Never once treated Peter like a guest star in their family sitcom. They loved him, protected him, backed him like blood. More than blood. Blood can betray you. Blood had. But the girls? They knew what mattered. They knew who their brother was.’

’I raised them right,’ Linda thought, watching them argue over leather seats like they hadn’t grown up splitting one happy meal three ways.

Watching Peter grow up had been her greatest joy—and her most terrifying obsession. He was too smart for his own good. Too aware. Too

tuned in

. He knew. He always knew—about Maria, about the drugs, about the way people whispered behind his back like he was some walking cautionary tale.

She’d taught him to keep his chin up anyway. To take the slurs, the doubt, the side-eyes and turn them into fuel.

Every extra shift she picked up, every busted heel she duct-taped together just to afford tutoring—

that was love

.

That was motherhood.

Not DNA. Not last names. Not goddamn Sterling money.

She wanted him to know he wasn’t a burden. He was

wanted

. Fought for. Chosen.

Then came the teenage years. The cracks. The walls. The rage. That phase where everything hurt him and he hated her for not being able to stop it. But he never lashed out like Edward. Never used pain as an excuse to destroy. He went quiet. Cold. Calculating.

And through it all, Linda saw it—this flicker of something fierce and brilliant inside him. Not just genius.

Goodness.

Empathy. The kind that couldn’t be taught. The kind you’re either born with or never get.

Now, sitting in this spaceship of a Mercedes SUV, she could barely process what she was looking at.

Peter, relaxed, radiant, explaining high-stakes investment strategies like he was born for it. Madison nodding, completely locked in. The twins bickering like heirs to a legacy instead of two girls who once shared a mattress on the floor.

Linda sat there and

felt it hit

. Sixteen years. Every mile. Every heartbreak. Every penny stretched until it screamed.

This beautiful, brilliant man in front of her—he used to sleep curled into her side like a scared animal. He used to say, "Don’t worry, Mama, I’ll protect you," like he actually could.

’And now he

does

. He’s not just protecting me. He’s

changing our lives

.’

The tears hit hard. Hot. Ugly. No control. Not from sadness—she didn’t have room for sadness anymore—but from a pride so deep it made her dizzy.

All those people who told her she was insane? Who said Peter would ruin her life?

They were right. He

did

ruin it.

And thank God he did.

Because this version of her? This steel-spined, take-no-shit, ride-or-die lioness who raised three phenomenal humans without compromise?

She never would’ve met that version of herself if she’d played it safe.

Peter noticed her tears. Still her protector. Still her boy.

"Mom? What’s wrong? If you don’t like the car, we can—"

"No, baby," she said, grabbing his hands like a lifeline. "I’m crying because I’ve never been so proud in my entire goddamn life."

’My miracle. My son. My greatest

fuck-you

to the world.’

She looked into his face and saw

everything

—the baby who needed saving, the boy who’d held her hand through darkness, the man who would now take her to the light.

This is what love looks like, she thought.

Not a fairy tale. Not perfect. But

real

. And sharp. And earned.

And sitting there, wrapped in butter-soft leather, surrounded by wealth she never even dreamed of, Linda Carter knew: walking away from Edward’s money wasn’t just the best thing she’d ever done.

It was the reason she had

everything

that mattered now.

Because she didn’t raise a Sterling.

She raised a

Carter

.

And that made all the difference.