Chapter 4

4: 4

I pulled out my phone and called him.

Again and again. No one picked up.

There was nothing else I could do. I stumbled out of the ward and ran all the way up to the top floor.

My shoes came off somewhere on the stairs. I ran barefoot on the steps.

The pain cut straight through me, but I didn't dare stop.

I reached the door of the ward, and just as I raised my hand to knock, it opened.

Evangeline stepped out and pulled the door shut behind her.

She crossed her arms. The soft, fragile look she always wore was gone. All that was left was a cold smile.

“Why are you here? Shouldn't you be calling the funeral home to make arrangements for your mother?”

I froze on the spot, every drop of blood in me turning cold.

“How do you know about that?”

I thought of that strange doctor last night, and my face went dark.

“That man—you sent him? You killed my mother? Why would you do this?”

“I never made things hard for you. I already stepped aside for you! I don't want anything—I just wanted my mother to live!”

With Jack gone, Evangeline dropped every pretense, her smile vicious and cruel:

“Why? Cicely, just you existing makes my skin crawl. You dared to take my place, so you should pay the price.”

“Your mother's death is only the first step. If you still won't take the hint and get lost, I have plenty of ways to make you wish you'd never crossed me.”

“Next is your father, then you, your whole family. Not one of you gets away!”

Rage shot straight to my head.

I lunged at her like something gone mad, my hands locking around her throat as I screamed:

“I'll kill you! Pay for my mother's life!”

Her face flushed red fast, but she didn't struggle. She was seconds from suffocating.

“Cicely! Stop!”

A furious shout came from behind me.

A kick landed on the small of my back.

It sent me flying, and I slammed hard onto the floor.

Jack dropped the insulated container in his hand and shoved Evangeline behind him.

He pointed at me, his chest heaving with fury:

“What is this insanity, first thing in the morning? I already arranged a ward for your mother—why are you still going after Eva?”

“Cause any more trouble and I'll have you thrown out of this hospital along with your mother, right now!”

Evangeline covered her face, sobbing, playing the pitiful victim:

“Jack, don't blame her, please... it's really all right...”

The more reasonable she acted, the more Jack loathed me.

“You're just too kind, that's why she can bully you like this!”

Watching my own husband shield the woman who'd murdered my mother, every last shred of my reason collapsed.

I screamed with everything I had:

“She killed my mother!”

“I don't just want to strangle her—I wish I could kill her!”

Jack froze.

But Evangeline cried harder, shaking her head desperately:

“I didn't... I was in the ward the whole night, I never left. I don't understand why she'd rather curse her own mother than stop framing me...”

Jack pulled out his phone at once and called the duty station.

He asked whether any patient had needed emergency care last night.

A second later, the voice on the other end came through clearly:

“Mr. Henson, it was quiet on the ward last night. No patient had any incident.”

He hung up and looked at me with pure disgust.

“Cicely, how can your heart be this poisonous? You'd curse your own mother just to frame Eva?”

“Since you don't want proper treatment, then take your mother and get out—now!”

Then he dialed his bodyguard:

“Take some men to the basement level and get Cicely's mother out of this hospital. Now!”

“No!”

Panic hit me instantly.

Seeing I couldn't stop it, I turned to run back to the ward.

But he grabbed my wrist.

“If you had the nerve to do it, you should pay the price. Your mother is about to be thrown out of this hospital, but before that, you're going to kneel and kowtow to Eva to apologize for what you just did.”

“I won't kneel!”

I clenched my teeth and stared him down.

He didn't give me the chance to say anything.

He grabbed a fistful of my hair and forced my head down hard.

With a loud crack, my forehead slammed into the floor.

My scalp screamed where he pulled it, and blood came up on my forehead in an instant.

He held my head down and drove it into the floor, again and again.

Until all ten kowtows were done.

I lay collapsed on the ground, my heart gone to ash, no strength left in me at all.

Jack let go of me in revulsion and ordered the bodyguard beside him:

“Drag her out. Throw her out of the hospital.”

I didn't struggle anymore. Like a rag doll with no soul, I was dragged toward the exit.

My figure disappeared at the end of the corridor.

Jack held Evangeline close, ready to take her to have the bruising on her neck seen to.

He'd just reached the outpatient area when his phone suddenly rang.

When he answered, the bodyguard's trembling voice came through.

“Mr. Henson, it's bad! The old lady, she... she's already dead. The doctor says she stopped breathing last night!”

Jack's pupils shrank, and his heart dropped hard.

He hung up and immediately called the bodyguard who'd just taken me downstairs, a panic in his voice he didn't even notice himself:

“Bring her back to me! Now!”

But the words had barely left him when he heard a wave of screaming on the other end.

The bodyguard's voice shook so badly it was barely words:

“Mr. Henson, it's too late...”

“I'd just gotten Mrs. Henson out of the hospital when she suddenly ran into the traffic like she'd lost her mind. Just now... right in front of me... a car hit her and sent her flying...”