Chapter 4

The door to the lounge was swinging shut, and my heart shot into my throat.

Almost without thinking, I jammed my hand into the gap.

Slam!

The door crushed my fingers.

The clean crack of bone, and the pain drove straight into my heart.

My index finger dropped, limp and useless.

Cary flinched back a step, then his brow creased again.

"Disgusting. Now there's blood everywhere."

"Drag him out, quick, before he ruins things for Dwight!"

Two of the Gilbert relatives grabbed my ankles and started hauling me toward the door.

I clawed at the frame with my uninjured hand.

My fingers were still trapped in the gap.

Every time they dragged me, the pain blacked out my vision.

But I didn't dare let go. Mia was still inside.

"Dad! Save me, Dad!"

Mia lunged toward me, sobbing.

The man caught her by the waist and threw her back down onto the sofa.

Her head hit the table, and the funeral portrait was knocked loose.

Yuna's black-and-white photo fell to the floor, trampled under countless feet.

The wreath beside it toppled too.

White paper flowers scattered across the ground, like a filthy, ruined snowfall.

"Yuna..."

Mia stared at the shattered portrait, and her breathing suddenly turned ragged.

She clutched her chest and doubled over in pain.

"Dad, I can't breathe..."

Mia's asthma had flared up.

I couldn't let anything happen to my only daughter now.

I jerked my head up and begged, out of options.

"We'll settle the money later, just give her the medicine first!"

Isabel dug out the inhaler.

She hesitated, then tossed it down at Cary's feet.

"Real or fake? Don't be like her sister, playing dead the second something goes wrong."

Cary smirked and brought his foot down on it.

"Who cares, asthma won't kill her. If she won't behave, let her suffer a while longer."

"Once the deed's done, she'll fall in line on her own."

Mia opened her mouth wide but couldn't pull in a single breath.

Her face went white fast, and her body sagged and collapsed.

The man's eyes lit up in an instant.

"The bride's stopped moving!"

He threw himself on top of her.

One hand pinned her shoulder, the other started tearing at her clothes.

Rip—

The mourning dress split open at the shoulder.

Mia didn't even have the strength to struggle.

She could only look at me in despair, tears spilling down without end.

"Dad... save me..."

"Stop!"

I kicked the men behind me off like a madman.

Ignoring my broken fingers, I forced myself through the gap in the door.

The man was just reaching for his belt.

I threw myself straight onto Mia, covering her with my whole body.

"As long as I'm alive, no one touches her!"

Enraged, the man swung his fist.

It slammed into my back, again and again.

A hot sweetness rose in my throat, and I coughed up blood all over my daughter's shattered photo.

Isabel was still shrieking from the doorway.

"Beat him! Beat the old man until he can't move! Don't hold up Dwight's wedding night!"

Several Gilbert relatives rushed in.

One yanked my hair.

One stamped on my hand.

Another lifted the iron frame of the fallen wreath and smashed it hard at the back of my head.

Cary stood at the door, watching coldly.

"Don't beat him to death. Leave him breathing. His house hasn't been signed over yet."

Cary looked down at me, his face full of contempt.

"You gave me a few hundred grand to start my business, and you really thought that made you my savior?"

"My company got the Henson contracts because Yuna put in a word for me."

He kicked my blood-soaked hand aside.

"Your whole family is nothing but dead weight. Once I marry Renee, I'll be a son-in-law of the Hensons."

"And by then, you won't even be fit to fetch my shoes!"

I stared at him, a cold spreading through my chest.

He didn't know that every contract the Hensons gave the Gilberts had my signature on it at the bottom.

He didn't know that the Henson family he groveled to had been under my word from the very start.

But right now, I had no time to argue any of it with him.

Mia's breathing was growing weaker, and my own mind was starting to blur.

The iron frame came down with a rush of wind.

In the instant before it hit me—

The sealed doors of the memorial hall were suddenly smashed open from outside.

Dozens of bodyguards in black poured in and pinned every one of the Gilbert relatives to the ground.

A man in a sharp suit strode into the hall.

Cary saw his face clearly and froze on the spot.

"Chairman... Chairman Henson?"