Liam spoke softly, his voice barely above a whisper. "Telling Mom won't help. When those boys tripped me, no one defended her either. They just laughed—not a single person stood up for her."

His small face twisted with bitterness. "A mom like that... she isn’t strong enough to protect me from any of this."

He hesitated before continuing, his voice trembling slightly. "Earlier, when Bradley’s mom found out mine was Oliver’s guardian, she forced him to kneel and apologize. She wasn’t scared of my mom at all."

A quiet, painful realization settled in his words. "If I had been the one who messed up today... would I have had to kneel too?"

The room fell into a heavy silence. Alexander and Sebastian both turned their gazes toward Mrs. Thornton.

Under their scrutiny, Mrs. Thornton paled, her knees trembling as if they might buckle beneath her.

Liam’s voice remained steady, clear as crystal. "And Grandma said I’m the future heir to Blackwood Enterprises, so I should learn to handle things myself—not always run to the adults for help."

Sebastian’s dark eyes gleamed with something unreadable, a storm of emotions hidden beneath his composed exterior.

Children raised with love were different from those who grew up without it. That much was obvious. The Blackwood family had poured everything into Liam’s education, and it showed—his grades were always at the top of his class, no matter where he went.

But for all his intelligence, he was still just a five-year-old boy. Faced with cruelty like this, even he couldn’t help but feel afraid and lost.

It was also clear that Liam’s stubbornness—his boldness with Amy—came from the deep well of love she had given him. Love was rare for him, and that made it precious.

Things in abundance were often taken for granted. But not for Oliver. He had learned early that anything he wanted had to be held onto tightly, never let go.

Liam’s words cast a suffocating silence over the room, as if the world itself had paused to listen.

Finally, Sebastian broke the quiet, his voice deceptively lazy but razor-sharp. "If a mother is mocked and belittled, the real reason—at its core—comes down to the weakness of her family. And her husband."

His gaze lingered on Mrs. Thornton, whose face had gone ghostly white, before shifting to Alexander.

Sebastian’s words were brutal, stripped of any pretense of courtesy. "Mr. Blackwood, have you ever heard this saying? Only a weak man allows his wife to be humiliated in public."

"And if I’m not mistaken, you still don’t understand why Celeste divorced you. You probably thought she was overreacting, right? Never once considered that you might have been the problem."

A faint, almost pleasant smile curved his lips, but his words were knives.

"The wife of Blackwood Enterprises’ CEO is so powerless that any random person feels free to bully her. Even children think it’s okay to laugh at her. And your own son gets tormented too. Alexander, don’t you think you’ve been a pathetic excuse for a husband?"

Alexander’s pupils contracted sharply. Instinctively, his eyes flicked toward Amy, but her expression was unreadable—calm, distant, impossible to decipher.

Sebastian’s voice rang out again, cold and unyielding. "But I’m not like you. I protect what’s mine. No one gets to bully my son, and no one—absolutely no one—gets to hurt Celeste."

His icy gaze locked onto Mrs. Thornton.

"Mrs. Thornton, aren’t you the one who always demands kneeling apologies? Your son is still a child, so I’ll let it slide. But you’re an adult—a mother. So why don’t you get on your knees and apologize for him?"

He let the words hang, his tone dripping with mockery. "Since you seem to enjoy kneeling so much, I’m sure you’ll do it with perfect grace."