Chapter 3

My father rounded on Bartholomew with a roar. "Get out of here."

Bartholomew acted as if he hadn't heard a word, still trying to hit me.

Right then, the alarm on my mother's monitor went off.

Her heart rate and blood pressure were plummeting.

Doctors rushed into the room.

I stared at Bartholomew, sick with grief and rage. "You want my mother to die with regret, don't you? I hate you."

My anger didn't touch him at all.

He motioned to the men he'd brought, and they closed in to drag me out.

I sobbed and screamed, "I'm not going back. I'm staying with my mother."

Bartholomew snapped, impatient. "What good does staying do? You think you can lend her some of your years?"

"Come back with me right now. Stop wasting time here."

I clawed at him like a madwoman, biting down anywhere I could reach.

He grabbed me by the collar, drew back his hand, and slapped me hard across the face.

"Have I spoiled you rotten all these years?" he spat at me.

Blood ran from my nose and mouth.

Carly, my husband's sister, kicked me too, her voice sour with irritation. "You married into our family, so you follow our family's rules."

Then the room went eerily quiet.

I turned to look. My mother's heartbeat had already flatlined.

My father walked over slowly and said in a low voice, "She's gone. She went crying."

Bartholomew said, "Good. She's dead, you've had your last look, now come back with me."

My father's face went ashen as he shouted at him, "Are you even human? Is that any way for a person to talk?"

"Bartholomew, you're an animal! You don't have a shred of humanity in you."

Bartholomew frowned. "Which part of what I said was wrong?"

"You have to be a good child to both sides, right? This side's done, so isn't it my father's turn now?"

"And besides, all our relatives are here today, and Charlene, the eldest daughter-in-law, is the one who slipped off."

"How does that look? People who don't know better would think we'd had a fight."

He said to me in a commanding tone, "Come back with me now."

"And once we're at the party, don't you dare bring up your mother's death. It's bad luck!"

My father, shaking with fury, swung his hand and slapped Bartholomew.

Beside him, Carly cursed at once. "You old wretch, what do you think you're doing?"

She swung her foot at my father.

I threw myself in front of him.

But Carly shoved me hard, and I went down, my head striking the hospital bed. The pain tore a stifled cry out of me.

My father, furious and frantic, clutched his chest and crumpled.

His heart condition had struck.

I scrambled to him. "Dad, Dad..."

A doctor a few steps away ran over to treat him.

Bartholomew blocked the doctor, his voice cold. "We're not treating him."

Shock and rage broke over me and I screamed, "What did you say? What gives you the right? That's my father. Get out of the way."

Bartholomew said, slow and low, "Charlene, you come back with me right now."

"Otherwise I'll stand right here, and there'll be no saving your father."