Gemotions

The world tilted. Olivia clutched the phone, the screen displaying the unwelcome truth. Not only adopted, but her biological mother was a woman her adoptive mother despised, a rival from her younger years. Anger surged, a tidal wave crashing over her. She knew her mother's deepest secrets, the ones carefully guarded for decades. She would use them.

She began leaving subtle clues. A misplaced lipstick in her mother's favourite handbag, a printed out email about a secret lover she had. She was a master of the double entendre, dropping seemingly innocuous comments about old flames at family gatherings.

She felt a grim satisfaction as her mother's carefully constructed facade began to crack, her forced smiles replaced by brittle ones.