I was cast out by my blood familly but returned back powerful for revenge - Sea Breeze and Four Little Lives

Six years had passed since that snowy night when Margaret lent Aria her coat. Winter in Brightwater bit straight to the bone. The damp, salt-laced wind peculiar to this port town slipped through the cracks in the walls of their drafty apartment. Outside, fat snowflakes continued to fall, as if being drawn into the dark sea. Aria Greyson tried hitting the broken radiator with a blanket again tonight. Of course, there was no response. The thermometer on the wall read thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit—three degrees Celsius. "Good grief... this is rough." Seeing her own breath turn white, she let out a small sigh. Now twenty-eight, her black hair was tied back simply at her waist. Her hazel eyes had grown sharper, deeper than before. Her cheeks were hollow, her jawline far more angular than six years ago. Her lips were chapped and slightly cracked. This was the second floor of "Seabreeze Court," an old apartment building two blocks off Harbor Street. Rent was six hundred fifty dollars a month. Even that stretched Aria's salary to its absolute limit. On the worn-out sofa in the small living room lay a mountain of colorful blankets. No—looking closer, it was four children. The eldest, Emma, had a short black bob. Even in sleep, her narrow gray eyes seemed to be staring intently at something. The second daughter, Sophia, had loosely waving dark brown hair. Every time she turned over, her peach-colored cheeks would scrunch up adorably. The third child, Luca, was a little smaller than the others, with chestnut curls. He caught colds easily, so Aria always wrapped him in the thickest blanket. The youngest, Leo, had jet-black hair inherited from his mother. And his strong-willed gray eyes—a trait only Aria knew came from his father. The five-year-old quadruplets slept huddled together against the cold. Aria took off her own coat and gently laid it over them. The familiar cold wrapped itself around her body. (*The children will freeze at this rate.*) Fear reared its head in her heart. But this was no time for crying. With trembling fingers, she picked up the old smartphone on the table. The name "Margaret" glowed on the screen. The one and only name at the very top of her contacts. The phone rang twice. "Hello, Aria? What's the matter at this hour?" That familiar, slightly hoarse voice from the other end of the line. Just hearing it, she felt her frozen tear ducts begin to thaw. "Margaret... the heater's broken again. I've put every blanket we have on the children, but the room is still as cold as a refrigerator..." Her voice trembled. She didn't want to show such a pathetic sight, but the words wouldn't come out right. "Alright, I understand. I'm coming right over. Don't you dare move a muscle!" The call ended. In less than fifteen minutes, the sound of a car engine came from downstairs, followed by a rough knock at the door. "I'm coming in!" Beyond the door, which burst open with a bang, Margaret Chen stood with a bright red nose. She was barely five feet tall, bundled up in a thick down jacket, looking exactly like an overstuffed penguin. Her black hair, streaked with gray, was tied up in its usual bun on top of her head. Her narrowed brown eyes shone with a light that made it impossible to tell if she was angry or worried. "What in the world! My freezer at home is warmer than this!" No sooner had she said this than Margaret marched right into the room, peering into the faces of each of the quadruplets sleeping on the sofa. She placed a hand on their pale sleeping faces and sniffled. "Oh... they've gotten so cold. And you too, Aria! Come on, wake the children. You're all staying at Granny's house tonight. As if I could leave you in a place like this!" "But... I couldn't possibly impose on you like that." As Aria tried to hold back, Margaret put her hands on her hips and launched into a tirade. "What are you talking about, you fool! Adults can put up with a little hardship. But these little ones can't. A child's body is much smaller than an adult's. Now do as I say! What are you going to do if they catch pneumonia?!" Faced with her vehemence, Aria couldn't say a word. Margaret's words were always right. Aria nodded silently and gently shook the children awake. "Emma, Sophia, Luca, Leo... wake up, okay? We're going to Grandma Margaret's place." Luca rubbed his eyes sleepily. "Grandma's place...?" "That's right, I'm treating you to some warm cocoa! And tonight, we'll all sleep together in Granny's fluffy bed." At Margaret's words, the youngest, Leo, suddenly lit up. "Cocoa! With marshmallows on top?" "Of course! I'll pile them high with marshmallows." Small smiles returned to the children's faces. Seeing this, Aria felt a tightness deep in her chest. Her own inadequacy and Margaret's selfless kindness pierced her heart at the same time. Wrapped in blankets, the four little bundles were shepherded into the car for a five-minute drive through the snowy night town. Facing Harbor Street was a small seaside café called "Tidal." The second floor was Margaret's home. The room was filled with the sweet, slightly burnt scent of coffee and cinnamon. Faded photographs of fishing boats decorated the walls, and shelves were crammed with old books and hand-knitted trinkets. A wood-burning stove in the center of the living room crackled and blazed. "Alright, come over here first. Drink some warm cocoa and warm yourselves up from the inside." Margaret efficiently made four cups of cocoa and handed them to the children. She offered a large mug to Aria as well. The warm steam touched Aria's frozen cheeks and melted into them. After a while, their bodies finally warmed, the children fell asleep again on Margaret's large bed. The four of them lay not in a row, but scattered like four points, breathing softly in their sleep. Aria and Margaret sat in front of the wood stove, sipping the last of their cocoa. Outside the window, the snow was falling harder than ever. "I'm truly sorry, every single time..." As Aria spoke with her head hung low, Margaret answered, poking at a log bursting in the stove with a poker. "I've always felt I can never hold my head high enough around you." Aria looked up. "Huh...?" "A story from my younger days. I was about the same age as you are now, I suppose." Margaret's narrowed eyes gazed at the flickering flames. But her gaze seemed to be looking much farther away, beyond a gulf of thirty years. "My husband was a fisherman. In this town, calling someone a 'man of the sea' is a compliment. And he was that kind of man. Thirty years ago, in winter. The sky had been a strange color since morning, and the sea was rough even though it was daytime. I told him not to go. But he said, 'It's fine, I'll be right back.' And... he never came back. Swallowed by the stormy sea. They never even found his body." Aria held her breath. Since they first met six years ago, this was the first time Margaret had spoken so deeply about her past. "My son was only three at the time. He didn't understand anything, and every night he'd cry, asking where Papa was. I couldn't cry. I didn't even have time to cry. But, every time I saw my son's sleeping face in the middle of the night, I thought: For this child, I absolutely cannot die. No matter how hard it gets, tomorrow and the day after, I have to feed this child. When I thought that, strangely, the tears stopped." Saying this, Margaret grasped Aria's hand. It was a rough, warm hand, caked with flour. "You're amazing, Aria. Raising four children all by yourself, and never losing your smile. Your strength dazzles me. Because you came to this town, I wasn't lonely. As fellow survivors who've been through life's crucible, you and I are not alone." Aria felt a burning heat behind her eyes. (*I'm not alone.*) Those words lit up in the center of her frozen heart, like the fire in the stove. She vowed then that she would never again cry to run away, or out of sadness. She was no longer the weak person who just "wanted her father's approval." "...Margaret." Aria embraced her small frame. The tears weren't the messy, streaming kind from the old days. They were hot droplets to solidify her resolve, to live on from now on. A few days later. The blizzard had stopped, and the town was covered by thick gray clouds. Fishing boats loaded with horse mackerel and mackerel were returning to the harbor one after another. Aria was working a part-time job at the fish market near the breakwater. Mixed in with the men, she carried boxes of ice-packed fish from the trucks to the warehouse. Each box weighed thirty kilograms. The weight digging into her shoulders felt like it might break her back. (*Hngh!*) She gritted her teeth, staggering but bracing her legs. Her breath was still white, but sweat poured from her entire body like a waterfall. Her waist-length black hair was tied up high in a bun to keep it out of the way. Her hazel eyes, ignoring the sting of sweat, were fixed on the next box. "Aria, you've got guts again today. You're stronger than you look, aren't you?" One of the fishermen called out to her, sounding impressed. "Good grief... I do it to survive. Besides, thinking this means tonight's dinner will be a little fancier helps." Aria answered with a wry smile, stacking one box after another. (*Emma said she's scared of the fish eyes. Sophia likes the tails, Luca hates the bones, and Leo said he wants the fish I caught.*) As she pictured the children's faces, her body moved on its own. Their smiles were Aria's only fuel. Work ended in the early afternoon, and she headed straight for Margaret's café, "Tidal." She had promised to meet the quadruplets there while doing some shopping. "Mama! Welcome back!" Appearing from the café's back door was her eldest daughter, Emma. The responsible girl was already holding a shopping bag from Margaret. "Mama, you're super sweaty and smelly!" Her second daughter, Sophia, said with a smile, pinching her nose. "Am I? This is a badge of honor for working hard today." As Aria laughed and ruffled Sophia's hair, Luca and Leo clung to her legs. "Mama, I'm hungry!" "I wanna hold Mama's hand!" "Alright, alright, one at a time." Aria held her two sons' hands in her left and right, calling out to her two daughters walking ahead, as they started down the town's main street. The road leading from the harbor to Harbor Street had few tourists but bustled with locals. The smell of drying fish mixed with the scent of butter wafting from the bakery, creating the town's unique aroma. That was when it happened. "Mama, look! That car is super shiny! Like a mirror!" Where Emma was pointing, a massive black car was slowly heading their way. It was a Rolls-Royce Phantom, utterly out of place in this poor port town. The black-painted mass of iron glided silently over the road, splashing through puddles of melting snow. The windows were thick smoked glass, revealing nothing inside. It was as if a creature from another world was there. Aria glanced at the car idly. In that instant, she felt the car's speed drop ever so slightly. (*—!*) Suddenly, a restlessness stirred deep in her chest. An intense, inexplicable anxiety. Her heart skipped a strange beat. It wasn't because of the cold. It was a sensation as if something far more dangerous had just passed close by. An invisible pressure bore down on her back. (*What... was that just now...*) Inside the black car. In the back seat, a man looked up from his documents. Alexei Volkov. Thirty-five years old. His dark brown hair was slicked back, though today his bangs were slightly more disheveled than usual. Beneath them, his steel-gray eyes were cold as ice, yet now they were wide with surprise. He had come to inspect this nothing of a rural port town on the orders of his grandfather, Dmitri. Preliminary research for the next business venture. Since morning, he had been utterly bore

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Episode 2

Name: I was cast out by my blood familly but returned back powerful for revenge
Author: Novelia

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