Chapter 4

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

Without a second thought, I jammed my hand into the gap.

Slam!

The door crushed my fingers.

There was a sharp crack of bone, and the pain drove straight into my chest.

My index finger drooped, useless.

Colin flinched back a step, then his face twisted with irritation.

"What a mess. Blood everywhere."

"Hurry up and drag her out. Don't ruin things for Bruno."

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

I clawed at the frame with my good hand.

My fingers were still trapped in the gap.

Every tug they gave dragged me another inch and blacked out my vision with pain.

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

"Mom! Save me, Mom!"

Emily threw herself toward me, sobbing.

The man seized her by the waist and hurled her back onto the couch.

Her head struck the table, and the portrait toppled.

Rachel's black-and-white photo hit the floor and disappeared under a dozen stamping feet.

The funeral wreath beside it went down too.

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

"Rachel..."

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

She clutched her chest and doubled over in pain.

"Mom, it hurts, I can't breathe..."

Emily's asthma was flaring up.

I couldn't let anything happen to my one remaining daughter.

I jerked my head up and begged.

"We can talk about the money later. Just give her the medicine first!"

Cornelia dug out the inhaler.

She hesitated, then tossed it at Colin's feet.

"Is it even real? Don't tell me she's like her sister, playing dead the second something goes wrong."

Colin sneered and brought his foot down on it.

"Who cares. Asthma won't kill her. She won't behave, let her suffer a while longer."

"Once the deed's done, she'll fall in line soon enough."

Emily's mouth was wide open, but she couldn't pull in a single breath.

Her face went white fast, and her body sagged limp to the floor.

The man's eyes lit up in an instant.

"She's not moving anymore!"

He lunged and pinned Emily down.

One hand held her shoulder while the other started tearing at her clothes.

Riiip.

The mourning dress split at the shoulder.

Emily didn't even have the strength to fight.

All she could do was look at me in despair, tears streaming down.

"Mom... save me..."

"Stop!"

I kicked back like a woman gone mad and shoved the men off me.

Broken finger and all, I forced myself through the gap in the door.

The man was just reaching for his belt.

I threw myself over Emily and covered her with my whole body.

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

The man swung his fist in a rage.

Again and again it came down on my back.

Blood surged up my throat, and I coughed it all out over my daughter's shattered photo.

Cornelia was still shrieking outside the door.

"Beat her! Beat this old woman till she can't move! Don't hold up Bruno's wedding night!"

Several of the Gilbert relatives charged in.

Someone yanked my hair.

Someone stamped on my hand.

And someone hoisted the toppled metal wreath stand and swung it hard at the back of my head.

Colin stood in the doorway, watching without a flicker of feeling.

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

Colin dropped his eyes to me, his whole face full of contempt.

"You put a few hundred grand into my startup and you actually think that makes you my savior?"

"My company only landed the Henson Group contracts because Sylvia put in a word for me."

He kicked my bloodied hand aside.

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

"By then you won't be fit to wipe my shoes!"

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

He didn't know that every single contract the Hensons gave the Gilberts was signed, in the end, by me.

He didn't know that the Henson family he was scrambling so hard to flatter had answered to me from the very start.

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

Emily's breathing was fading, and my own mind was starting to blur.

The metal stand came down with a whistle of air.

In the instant before it hit me—

The sealed doors of the funeral hall were suddenly thrown open from outside.

Dozens of bodyguards in black swept in and slammed every Gilbert relative to the floor.

A man in a sharp suit strode into the hall.

Colin saw his face and froze on the spot.

"Ch... Chairman Henson?"