Chapter 4

Allan pressed his lips together and said quietly,

"Cora asked me and the baby to move in, but back home there's a saying. You can't hang photos of the dead in a bedroom. If they're already up, you have to burn them all, or the child gets nightmares."

"I was worried about the baby, and I didn't want to disturb your rest at the hospital, so I burned the photos first. Emmet, we're both fathers. You can understand that, can't you?"

My eyes went to the trash can in the corner.

All that was left inside were the curled, charred scraps of the burned photographs.

"Baby, Daddy never even got to see your face…"

I sank down unsteadily and touched them with my fingertip, and they crumbled into ash.

Someone had broken a beer bottle the night before, and the glass was mixed in with the rest. It sliced my finger open.

Cora's brow creased as she yanked me back to my feet.

"Emmet, get a grip. They're just a few photos. Do you really have to act like the whole world's wronged you?"

"Allan was thinking of the baby too. The dead have to make way for the living."

"Fine, I'll have someone reach out to the photographer from back then, see if he still has the negatives."

She said it as if it were nothing.

As if she'd forgotten that the old photographer had retired not long after taking our daughter's photos and gone traveling around the world.

He'd even sold off his equipment online. There was no telling if the negatives still existed at all.

And the ones stored on Cora's phone had been wiped when her device malfunctioned.

Through all those sightless days, I had traced my daughter's brows and eyes over and over with careful fingers.

Dreaming that one day I'd get my sight back and see her sweet little face with my own eyes.

Even that small hope, they had destroyed.

Cora glanced at my finger, still bleeding.

"I'll get the antiseptic and a bandage. Don't let it get infected."

The moment she stepped out, Allan lifted a small ceramic portrait with a smile.

"Emmet, don't be so upset. Look, there's still this one. I dug it off your daughter's headstone myself."

On the little black-and-white photo was the face I had outlined countless times.

A bad feeling rose in my chest.

"What did you do to my daughter's grave?!"

Allan smiled, letting the words hang.

"My precious son's been crying every night lately. He's not sick, so Cora brought in a master to take a look."

"He said little children are frail, that they draw in unclean things easily, that the boy needed to wear something charged with strong yang energy. Better still if a blood relative had worn it. Then the energy wouldn't reject him."

"Shame neither Cora nor I had anything like that. Lucky for us, your daughter's birth chart was pure yang, so Cora made the call and had her ashes made into two bracelets for my son. At least a dead-weight leech like you turned out to be good for something."

He dropped the ceramic portrait into my pocket and studied my expression.

"Emmet, aren't you sorry you got your sight back?"

"Otherwise you could've stayed a stupid, happy idiot, living in that pretty dream where you thought Cora actually loved you."

My mind went white. I stared at Allan.

The rage got away from me, and I struck him across the face. "The two of you are animals!"

I started toward the crib to pull the bracelet off.

But Allan suddenly shrieked, "Emmet, whatever your problem is, take it out on me. Don't hurt my baby!"

The next second a figure rushed in and slapped me hard.

The diamond ring on the ring finger cut my cheek, and blood ran down in a thin line.

Allan clutched the baby and hid behind Cora, sobbing.

"Cora, Emmet's furious that you're holding a wedding with me. He hit me, and he tried to strangle our son too."

"Take us away from here. I don't want to stay."

Cora looked at me, her eyes full of disappointment.

"Emmet, when did you turn this cruel?"

"You lost your own child, so now you want to make someone else suffer the same loss?"

I pointed at the bracelet on the baby boy's wrist and roared, my eyes bloodshot,

"You're the cruel ones. Do you dare say what that's made of?!"

Cora froze, then looked away, uncomfortable.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"If I'd known getting your sight back would turn you into a lunatic who won't even spare a child, I'd have wished you blind for life. At least you were kinder then."

She took the baby, hooked her arm through Allan's, and looked at me without feeling.

"I'm going back to Allan's hometown with him. We've got a flight to catch, so I won't hold this against you today."

"Sit at home and think about what you've done. When I'm back, I expect a proper apology to him. Otherwise you can forget about signing the marriage papers."

Hah. She still thought I cared about that fake certificate?

After they left, I packed my things and my documents.

Cornelia Lambert's face was pained; she tried to clean the wound for me, but I declined gently.

"Cornelia, I'm leaving. Please tell Cora for me that she and I are finished."

With that, I walked out the door without a backward glance.

At the Pearlport harbor docks, a private yacht had been waiting for me for some time.

"Young Master, the head of the family sent us to bring you home."

I turned and looked at the blazing lights of Pearlport.

At thirteen, I had come here full of confusion and fear.

Later I met Cora, and I poured every bit of a young man's feeling and romance into this place, dreaming of building a family with her and a lifetime of happiness.

Now I was leaving, and all that was left was a chest full of hatred.

Cora, enjoy these next few days.

We'll see each other again soon.

And when we do, I'll make you kneel in front of me and repent for everything you've done.