Chapter 4

The air went dead still.

I couldn't hold back another second, and my hand cracked across Zion's face.

"Zion! Are you done with this circus?"

"I told you weeks ago Grandma was gravely ill! I begged you to come back with me and you wouldn't!"

"Same destination, and you said you were swamped with work, but now here you are, road-tripping your way here with Ginny!"

"My car sank into the mud, I called you dozens of times, and you know what you were doing? Helping Ginny plan out her road trip route!"

"And now you've knocked over my grandmother's portrait! Zion, we're done!"

His face was a wreck, going white, then flushing, then white again.

Just when I thought he'd turn and walk out, he grabbed my wrist.

"All this fuss, and it's still just because Ginny got you jealous, isn't it?"

"Jealous that I went on a road trip with Ginny instead of you? But I still came, didn't I?"

"Enough with the act, okay? Whoever heard of a funeral this empty?"

He pointed at the portrait lying on the floor. "Not a single guest. You just set up a picture to scare me and Ginny."

"So I'll humor you, fine? Ginny and I really are just buddies. No matter what, I'm still going to marry you."

Watching him stand there like none of it mattered, my father was shaking with rage.

His trembling finger came up and pointed at Zion.

"Get out!"

The word tore out of him, and then his body pitched backward.

His own mother's funeral, and his daughter's boyfriend had barged in to pull a stunt like this. The rush of blood and fury was too much, and his legs gave out under him.

Zion looked at my father's face, at the way he'd crumpled, and panic flickered through him.

"Sir—"

He'd barely gotten the word out before Ginny cut him off. She jabbed a finger at my father, her mouth dropping open in exaggerated shock.

"Is this that scam thing I keep hearing about? Faking an injury to shake you down?"

"Zion, how can his wife and her family act like this? Even if they won't let us stay here, they don't have to pull this!"

"I came because I thought highly of her. And it's not like you're broke. You could book me a five-star hotel in a heartbeat!"

"I came all the way out to this backwater for your sake. Otherwise I'd never agree to stay in the sticks!"

Hearing her, something seemed to click for Zion.

He looked at my father and me with open contempt.

I kept rubbing my father's chest. "I'm sorry, Dad. Please be okay—"

"I'm the one who couldn't see people for what they are. I picked the wrong man—"

Crying, I pulled out my phone to call an ambulance.

Zion knocked it out of my hand and onto the floor.

"Is all this really necessary? Your whole family, putting on a show for me together?"

Ginny twisted the knife. "Zion, I heard you only gave his wife eighty-eight hundred for the bride price. But I asked around, and out here they all do a hundred and eighty-eight hundred. Don't you think her whole family staged this just to squeeze more out of you?"

Zion's face changed in an instant when he looked at me.

"Matilda, is Ginny right? Your family didn't put on this whole production just to force more bride price out of me, did they?"

I was shaking with fury, pointing at the door, screaming at him to get out.

"Me, get out? If I walk out, who else would ever want you?"

"Matilda, you've been with me seven years! Who besides me would take you?"

"You'd lie to me like this over bride price now, so once we're married, what, your whole family's going to bleed me dry like a pack of vampires?"

He strode over to the altar table and gave a cold laugh.

"Set up an urn and a wake room and think you can con me, is that it?"

"Let me tell you, there is no way I'm giving you a cent more."

Then, without warning, he raised his hand and swiped it across my grandmother's urn.

The second it hit the floor, I screamed.

"Grandma!"

And when the grayish-white ash spilled out of the urn, Zion froze too.