Chapter 4

I woke the next day.

The baby inside me was gone.

The doctor at the city hospital scolded me.

"How could you be so careless? The heartbeat's been gone at least two days..."

My brother and my baby, taken from me almost in the same breath.

In this world, I was alone now.

A nurse handed me a letter. Professor Donaldson had left it.

His time off was limited. He had to head straight back to the research base.

He'd covered my medical bills, then had no choice but to leave early.

Reading his letter, my world came apart again.

Back then, Rolf had actually hidden my graduate-admission result from me.

Just then his message came through on my phone.

"You went over the two hours you're allowed, and you dared leave your location off. You know what that means. I'm telling them to stop your brother's meds right now."

"You even stayed out all night. If you're not home to apologize within the hour, you can forget about ever seeing Chad again."

His cold face rose up in front of me.

Once, Rolf had been the only light in my life.

When I had nowhere left to turn, it was his warm hand that pulled me back from the edge of the abyss.

To me, he was the invincible hero who dropped out of the sky in the movies.

Back then he was all I saw, all I wanted.

I went home with him meekly, let him arrange everything.

Even if I had to report in before I could go out. Even if I had to read the housekeeper's moods.

I took it all gladly, wanting only to see him every day.

Countless nights, I dreamed of walking into the church beside him in a white wedding gown.

When I woke, I was always smiling.

Even though I knew that, as what I was, I would probably never get to wear his bride's gown.

But in the end, it was those same hands of Rolf's that pushed me down into a lightless well.

All these years, it was with his indulgence that Mrs. Dickerson and her daughter, Assistant Dickerson, kept tormenting me.

When Rolf was home, I got fresh, balanced meals.

When he wasn't, I had to wait until the housekeeper and every last one of the staff had eaten before I could pick at the cold leftovers.

Day after day, Mrs. Dickerson spread the story, and every worker at the old Harding estate knew my past pouring drinks at a bar and looked down their noses at me.

Every time I went to visit Chad at the hospital, I had to file a request twenty-four hours in advance.

But eight times out of ten it came back denied.

That was Assistant Dickerson's "doing."

She either sat on the request or made things up, and I ended up confined to the house.

Rolf turned a blind eye to all of it.

He even quietly condoned what the two Dickerson women did.

But Professor Donaldson found out at the hospital that when my brother was critical, he needed an organ transplant.

At the time, a suitable match had come up.

Rolf refused it.

He didn't even discuss it with me.

Years ago, he hid my graduate-admission result and gave me no chance to choose.

Now, he gave up on saving my brother, and still gave me no chance to choose.

My future, my only family, my baby. I had lost them all.

There was no reason left for me to stay at the Harding house and swallow it all.

Looking at the last line of the letter:

"Leonora, you are my best student. If you change your mind, you can reach me at this number. 060785986."

I knew this was my last chance to change my own fate by my own hand.

This time, I didn't hesitate at all.

I borrowed a nurse's phone and dialed the number.