“Maybe I should just resign. I'm clearly in your wife's way, and I'm afraid one of these days she'll have me killed for no reason at all.”

I stared at that pitiful little act she was putting on.

The memory of her voice on the phone, cursing my mother with every vile word she could muster, burned fresh in my mind.

A cold laugh slipped out of me.

“Do you dare come with me to check the call records?”

“Mrs. Morton!” Bernice cut me off with a shriek. “I already let it go when you humiliated me. Why do you keep coming after me?”

“Fine, fine, fine. I'm just a regular working girl. I can't afford to cross a rich wife like you. I'll scrape together every last cent I have and give you the million dollars, okay? I'm begging you, just let me go!”

Her eyes rimmed red, and she made a show of pulling out her phone to transfer money.

The next second, Sean pressed her hand down.

He lifted his gaze to me. The coldness in his eyes could have drawn blood.

“Irene, have I been too good to you? Is that why you've forgotten what you are?”

A bank card hit me in the face.

I glanced at it, and every drop of warmth drained from my body.

It was the card I kept in the nightstand. The one I had just finished filling with enough money for my mother's surgery.

“Bernice already looked into it. You're suspected of hiding marital assets. I've had the bank freeze the account.”

My pupils shrank. The color bled from my face. “You can't do this. That money is for my mother's surgery. Her heart can't wait any longer.”

“Enough.” Sean scoffed, brow furrowed. “I pay millions a year for a team of specialists to look after your mother. Her heart surgery could wait another year and she'd still be fine.”

“If you're going to lie, at least come up with something believable. You're a real disappointment.”

I stood frozen.

A team of specialists?

If he had visited the hospital even once, he would have known there was no team of specialists.

I grabbed his arm. Tears poured out before I could stop them. “Sean, I'm begging you. I don't want anything else. Just give me back the money, please?”

He looked down at my ashen face. Something in his eyes wavered for a fraction of a second. “Fine.”

“Apologize to Bernice. Once she forgives you, I'll unfreeze it immediately.”

The taste of blood filled my throat. I thought of my mother huddled under the blankets, curled in on herself from the pain, too afraid to make a sound because she didn't want me to worry.

I closed my eyes. “I'm sorry.”

Bernice tilted her head, all wide-eyed innocence. “What was that, Mrs. Morton? I couldn't quite hear you.”

“I'm sorry. I was wrong. I was greedy. I was shameless. Please, forgive me.”

She folded her arms and smiled, bored and amused. “Mrs. Morton, the emotional damage you've caused me is really quite severe. Just saying the words isn't going to cut it.”

“Tell you what. Get on your knees and slap yourself for running your mouth. When I'm satisfied, I'll have the card unfrozen.”

I looked up at Sean on instinct.

This man, who once threw himself into a fight until he coughed blood because someone shoved me at a dinner.

Right now, he stood there like a stranger who had nothing to do with any of it.

“Irene, you really have been out of line. Bernice works herself to the bone for this family. Consider this a lesson. It's for your own good.”

I lost count of how many times I slapped myself.

My face swelled until I could barely open my eyes. I clutched my lower abdomen, drenched in cold sweat.

Sean frowned, a vague sense that something was off crossing his features.

He started to step forward, but Bernice hooked her arm through his. “Mr. Morton, I'm already exhausted from that business trip with you. Now I have to come back and deal with your family drama on top of it. My back is killing me from standing here.”

Sean laughed and gave her waist a squeeze, pulling her toward the door.

Before he left, he glanced back at me and tossed out a line like spare change. “Irene, Bernice wears herself out working for us. You should be grateful. I've already unfrozen the card.”

The door closed. My arms gave out beneath me and I collapsed to the floor.

I curled into myself as tightly as I could.

Every inch of my body screamed with pain, but my heart felt nothing at all, dead and still as stagnant water.

I didn't know how long I lay there before I dragged myself up, grabbed the bank card, and stumbled out the door.

I pushed open the hospital room door.

My mother was propped against the headboard, her face ashen, her lips blue.

On the television facing her bed, a video was playing: me, on my knees, slapping myself across the face.

The camera cut to the master bedroom of the villa, where Sean and Bernice were tangled together, lost in each other.

The audio played at full volume, every word razor-clear: “You old hag. Your daughter gets on her knees for me every day, begging like a dog, all because of you. You're nothing but a burden.”

I was shaking from head to toe, about to call out to her.

My mother clutched her chest and crumpled sideways.

The heart monitor shrieked.

I threw myself at the call button, slamming it over and over.

Doctors rushed in. “Get her to the OR. Now.”

As the gurney rolled past me, my mother caught my hand. Her voice came in broken fragments, barely sounds at all. “I'm sorry, sweetheart……”

I couldn't breathe. Tears poured down my face.

A doctor blocked my path before I could follow. “Ms. Thomas, you need to go pay for the surgery right now. Immediately.”

I braced myself against the wall, fighting the blackness closing in at the edges of my vision, one hand pressed to my lower abdomen as I shoved the bank card through the payment window.

One beep.

Payment declined.

The clerk frowned and slid the card back to me. “Ma'am, there are insufficient funds in this account.”

I stood there. My mind went blank.

My phone buzzed with a text.

“Your account ending in 0808 has been charged $500,000. Remaining balance: $0.00.”

A message from Sean came in right after.

“Bernice liked a handbag. Happened to be $500,000. Consider it your way of making it up to her.”

I called him back immediately. My voice shook so badly I could barely form words. “Sean, Mom is in emergency surgery. That was her surgery money!”

“When are you going to get tired of that line? Bernice already called a specialist. Your mother's perfectly fine. She was out sunbathing by herself this morning.”

He let out a long, weary sigh, like a parent scolding an unreasonable child. “Enough. Stop making a scene. Bernice's dog is sick. She's upset, and I need to be with her.”

The line went dead. I called again. The number was no longer reachable.

My phone rang again and I answered, head bowed.

“Ms. Thomas, the payment confirmation never came through. The donor heart has been claimed by another party. I'm very sorry. Your mother was just declared brain dead.”

I stood where I was. The world tipped and spun around me.

Two nurses passed nearby, their conversation drifting over. “Did you hear? There's a dog in the VIP suite on the top floor. Supposedly had a heart problem, and someone insisted on giving it a donor heart that an old woman had been waiting years for. The organ rejected immediately and went necrotic. A human heart in a dog. How could that ever work? And the poor woman missed it by five minutes.”

“Keep your voice down. That's the wife of the Morton Group CEO up there. He treats her like she's made of gold. We can't afford to cross them.”

I stood there for a while. Then I turned and walked upstairs.

Sean had his arm around Bernice. They were playing with a Toy Poodle that was bouncing around, perfectly healthy.

He looked mildly surprised to see me. “Good timing. Beanie has indigestion. You've got experience with this sort of thing. From now on, you'll be Beanie's caretaker.”

My breathing stopped for half a beat. “Just indigestion?”

Bernice smiled, something unreadable in her eyes. “That's right. False alarm, thank goodness. Too bad it wasted a perfectly good donor heart. Who knows which poor unlucky soul took the hit for my little Beanie.”

Sean said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “If the other person couldn't afford the surgery, dying is their own fault.”

I lowered my eyes and, without warning, smiled.

The fruit knife I'd hidden behind my back swung out in a vicious arc.

Bernice screamed and scrambled away.

Sean was half a second too slow. The blade caught his arm, and he stared at me in shock. “Have you lost your mind? You'd kill someone over five hundred thousand dollars?”

I laughed, tears streaming down my face. “I did come here to kill someone. But you two aren't worth dirtying my hands.”

Sean went rigid. He met my eyes and saw the finality there, the hatred, and something clicked.

His pupils contracted to pinpoints. He lunged forward with a raw, terrified scream. “No!”

Too late.

I gripped the knife, aimed it at my own chest, and drove it in.