Chapter 3

3: 3

3

This apartment was the home I'd spent three years building.

Back then, watching it fill up piece by piece with mine and Reuben's things, I'd felt so happy. Now that same memory only mocked me.

Packing what I needed and burning everything tied to Reuben took less than thirty minutes.

But when I wheeled my suitcase back inside, I found the place in ruins.

My brother was sprawled on the cold floor, his fingers locked around his overturned wheelchair, dried blood packed under his nails.

Marcella glanced back at me, her eyes full of contempt.

"Madeline, you're finally home. See what your brother's come to? All thanks to his darling little sister."

I dropped the suitcase and threw myself down beside him, only to touch the soaked fabric of his pants.

My tears hit the floor all at once as I stared her down.

"He did it to save you. How could you treat him like this? Are you even human?"

Marcella laughed.

After all these years, she was still just as brazen.

"You've got it wrong. You're the one who did this to him. All these years you kept Piers so well hidden. If someone hadn't told me, how would I ever have found this place?"

Reuben.

No one else knew my brother lived here.

Seeing me freeze, Marcella's smile turned even smugger.

"Why do you look so betrayed? Rue is the father of my child. Was he supposed to help you, an outsider, instead of me?"

"Madeline, you might've been content to follow Rue for three years with no title to your name, but I'm the eldest daughter of the Gilbert family. I don't have your kind of shamelessness. And Rue would never let me and our baby suffer that indignity."

"Him making you apologize was actually my idea. I mentioned it in passing. I won't have my child born under a scandal, so of course I'm covering the bases early. And funny thing, Rue thought exactly the same."

Every word landed on my ears like it was draining the blood out of me.

Marcella patted my pale cheek.

"I'm marrying Rue in a week. I'll give you two days. Announce publicly that you were the one harassing him, then apologize and retire."

A week.

Reuben had told me half a month.

No wonder he'd urged me to go abroad.

He'd meant to deceive me from the very start.

He'd never once thought of running from the wedding.

Marcella's smile turned mocking.

"You wouldn't want a video of Piers wetting himself going viral, would you?"

"Once a genius of the medical world, now a useless invalid who can't even take care of himself. Your brother used to be so aloof and cold. I'm sure plenty of people would love to see how far he's fallen."

Looking at how wretched my brother looked, my heart clenched.

After a long moment, my throat was dry.

"I understand. Get out."

After Marcella left, I forced my shaking body to lift my brother onto the bed and changed him into clean clothes.

But in the few short minutes I spent cleaning the living room—

when I pushed the door open again, I found him lying in a pool of blood, a shard of broken ceramic in his hand.

I lunged over like I'd lost my mind, trembling as I grabbed my phone to call 911.

With his last breath, my brother smiled at me.

"Don't save me, Maddie."

"My Maddie deserves better. Let go of Reuben. Please."

I shook my head desperately, trying to stop him, but his eyes kept going dim in front of me, little by little.

By the time the ambulance came, he was already gone.

"I'm sorry, Miss Winfield. We did everything we could. My condolences."

I held him and called out for him, over and over.

But he couldn't hear me anymore.

The only person in this world who loved me was gone too.

I moved through the paperwork like a walking corpse, but when it came time to pay, the clerk said my card wouldn't work.

Panicked, I pulled out my backup card.

This was the money I'd scrimped and saved for three years to pay for my brother's leg. Not even the company knew about it.

But the clerk still said no.

Only Reuben knew about this card. He'd frozen this one too?

"Maybe you could borrow from someone? It isn't good to leave the body sitting out. The weather's too hot."

But who was I supposed to borrow from?

All these years my life had been nothing but filming and revolving around Reuben. I had no friends, and even my agent wouldn't take my calls.

Looking at my brother's pale hand on the stretcher, my eyes burned, and everything inside me went hollow.

Just then, a Porsche pulled up in front of me.

Inside, a man held out a business card.

"Madeline, Reuben isn't the only man in the world."

"Call this number if you ever need to."

I clutched the card tight.

"Could you lend me two thousand?"