"Cousins, you all stand guard outside the door!"

Wayne barked it at the four Pruitt relatives.

They meant to keep Daisy and me locked in this room.

For the moment, I really had no way out.

But there was a signing this afternoon. When the company couldn't reach me, they'd track my car for sure.

For now, all I could do was stall.

I tried once more to wake some scrap of maternal feeling in Alma.

"Alma, if a kidney is taken out at eight years old, her risk of high blood pressure and kidney failure doubles when she grows up.

"She'll never be able to overexert herself. No P.E. class, no field days, none of it. She'll live her whole life under the shadow of illness.

"Harvey can wait for a donor, wait for a match. Why does it have to be our daughter we sacrifice?"

Alma stayed just as cold.

"Wait? Harvey can't afford to wait. Dialysis is agony. Every extra day is torture for him."

"Daisy's young, she'll bounce back fast. A price this small is nothing."

"You just work harder and make more money. Hire a nutritionist for Daisy, buy Harvey plenty of supplements. Raising two kids costs a fortune."

That was when I saw it clearly. Alma had no maternal love for Daisy at all. There was nothing left to say to her.

All I had to do now was keep Daisy safe.

So I held her and edged back slowly toward the nightstand. There was a fruit knife there.

Seeing me go quiet, Alma just picked up where she'd left off.

"Jacob, think hard. Without my family, what would you even be right now?"

"Back when I married you, you had nothing!"

"It was my brother who begged our mother for me, that's the only reason she let me marry you. Am I wrong?"

"Without my brother, you wouldn't even have a wife!"

"Now my brother's son is sick, and you won't even give him your daughter's kidney. Are you even human?"

"You're nothing but an ungrateful dog!"

I couldn't hold back a cold laugh.

"Alma, you lie without even blinking, don't you?"

"When I married you I didn't have much money, sure, but both my parents were teachers. They'd put a little something away!"

"They gave your family a hundred and eighty grand for the wedding, and you never brought a cent of it home, you handed it all to your brother. Did my family say one word about it?"

"Later, when I started my own company, you never once looked after Daisy or me. Every day you were off helping your brother run his breakfast shop. It was my parents who took care of Daisy and me the whole time!"

"And that idiot brother of yours and his wife, the second the shop made a little money they went out and blew it. I've never even gambled in Las Vegas, and he had the nerve to lose over a million there!"

"I'm the one who paid off that million. Did you forget?"

"I'm the ungrateful dog? How much money I've poured into your family all these years, do you really not have a clue?"

Honestly, the only reason was that I didn't want Daisy growing up without both parents. Otherwise I'd have divorced this rotten, maggot-ridden woman long ago.

Alma shoved her sleeve up.

"So what if you spent money on my family?"

"We're married, so your money is my money, and my money, I'll give it to whoever I want!"

"And I'll say it right here and now: Daisy is giving Harvey that kidney, end of story!"

Wayne came over and jabbed a finger in my face, cursing.

"Jacob, don't go thinking too much of yourself. Us spending your money, using your daughter's kidney, that's an honor for you, you get that?"

"And you think it makes any difference whether you agree?"

"You know who owns this hospital? My uncle. This is my turf, damn it!"

No wonder they were so brazen. So the hospital was in on it too.

I snatched the fruit knife into my hand and backed away again, thinking that even if I had to kill someone, I'd keep Daisy from being touched.

Just then the door opened.

A crowd of medical staff pushed a gurney in.

A man dressed like the attending physician gave Wayne a nod. "The operating room's ready. Has the paperwork been signed?"

"Do the surgery first, sign after!"

Wayne ground out the words through his teeth.

I knew they were done talking. Now they were going to take her by force.

The next moment, a few male orderlies started toward me.

The one in front had to be six foot three. He didn't look like an orderly at all. He looked like muscle for hire.

He came straight at me, cursing as he reached. "Let go of her, damn you, or I'll beat you to death!"

"Screw you!"

I roared it and drove the fruit knife straight at his throat.

He flinched on instinct, and the blade sank into the base of his neck.

He screamed, staggering backward, blood pouring down.

The others saw it and pulled back too.

Two orderlies grabbed the wounded one and hauled him out of the room.

I leveled the bloody knife at all of them. "Daisy is my daughter. Anyone who touches her, I kill. If you don't believe me, come try."

Daisy was crying now, clinging to me tighter, saying over and over, "Daddy, I'm scared, they're all bad people, Mommy's a bad person too!"

"That's right, they're all bad people."

"But you don't have to be scared, sweetie, because Daddy is going to kill every last one of them."

I stared them all down.

Alma shouted, "Jacob, you stabbed a man. You think I won't call the police and have you arrested?"

"You'd really call the police?"

I let out a cold laugh. "What you're doing is a crime. You'd actually call the cops?"

Alma knew she couldn't get through to me, so she turned to Daisy.

"Daisy, I'm your mother. You won't listen to me?"

"Look at your father, hurting people with a knife. Only bad people do that."

"But what Mommy wants you to do is save your little cousin. That's a good thing."

"You want to be a good girl, don't you? Not a bad one."

Alma was sure she could fool her.

Instead, Daisy wiped her tears, her small face set with a seriousness far beyond her years.

"Daddy is good. Daddy is protecting me."

"Mommy is bad, because Mommy wants to hurt me."

"And Mommy never loved me. Mommy loves Harvey more."

"Grandma and Grandpa bought me LEGO sets, and Mommy took them and gave them to Harvey in secret."

"And the birthday money Grandma and Grandpa gave me, Mommy gave that to Harvey too. I saw it!"

Alma hadn't expected that. Humiliated in front of everyone, her rage boiled over.

"You little wretch, is that how you talk to your mother?"

"Don't you get it? You're worthless, a drain on this family. You don't deserve LEGO, and you don't deserve a cent of that money!"

I was about to lunge across the room and drive the knife through this vicious woman when the door to the room burst open.

Four men in security uniforms rushed in. I looked closer. They were my own company's security team.

I asked, startled, "How are you here?"

"Mr. Fox, after you called and didn't say anything, we heard the arguing on the line. We tracked your location and came straight over."

The guard drew his baton, shoved through the crowd, and closed around me and Daisy.

I carried Daisy toward the door, my eyes fixed on every last one of the Pruitts.

Alma screamed after me, "Jacob, you can walk out of here, but that little wretch's kidney still belongs to Harvey! I'll divorce you and take custody. Just you wait!"

I stopped in the doorway and looked back at them, cold. "I forgot to mention. I'm worth a billion dollars now. With the money and the connections I have, there are more ways than you can count to make you wish you were dead."