Three years. Three years I'd been locked inside that psychiatric facility before Leon Vance finally came for me.
He stepped out of the car in a tailored suit, just as handsome and untouchable as ever.
The door swung open, and my son poked his head out. He spat in my face.
"You evil woman! You jinx! You killed my sister!"
The color drained from my cheeks. My lips parted, but nothing came out.
Leon stood off to the side, his voice flat and detached. "Pamela's sick. You two share a blood type. She needs a transfusion from you."
He paused, then added, as if it were a consolation prize:
"Don't worry. Once Pamela's better, we'll go back to living like a normal family."
Pamela.
Pamela Henson.
His late brother's widow. The woman who'd moved into his home and never left.
I didn't scream. I didn't cry. Not like before. I just nodded and said one word.
"Fine."
Leon blinked, caught off guard. The surprise vanished almost instantly, replaced by that familiar look of cold indifference.
"Looks like three years really did teach you to behave."
I let out a quiet laugh, the kind that meant nothing.
Because in one month, the ten-year promise I made with my father would finally come due.
——
Hayden Abbott's foot kicked against my shin. Again. And again.
I didn't flinch. Didn't speak. Just watched the scenery blur past the window.
We'd barely pulled up to the house when I spotted a slender figure kneeling at the bottom of the front steps.
Pamela Henson wore a spotless white dress, her eyes swollen and rimmed red, as though she'd been crying for hours.
When she saw us approach, her voice cracked with a perfect, trembling sob.
"Gloria Pruitt... I'm so sorry. You've suffered so much these past few years, and it's all my fault. I'm the one who—"
Something flickered in the depths of Leon's eyes. Pity. Tenderness. Gone in an instant, but I saw it.
Hayden tore away from me and threw his arms around Pamela's elbow. He whipped his head back and glared at me with pure venom.
"Mama Pamela, get up! This isn't your fault!"
"It's all because of her! She ruins everything!"
Mama Pamela.
Those two words drove into me like a needle straight through the eardrum.
This was my child. The child I'd carried for ten months, the child I'd nearly bled to death bringing into this world. And he called that woman Mama Pamela—and called me the one who ruins everything.
Hayden was still shouting. "This is all your fault! You come back and make Mama Pamela kneel? Why didn't you just die out there!"
My fingers curled into the hem of my shirt until my knuckles went white.
Leon reached down and helped Pamela to her feet, his hands impossibly gentle.
I opened my mouth to speak, but before a single word left my lips, Pamela clutched her chest.
Her face went ashen. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed.
"Pamela!" Leon caught her, and the panic in his voice was something I had never once heard directed at me. Not once in all our years together.
He looked up at me, his gaze ice-cold.
"What are you standing there for? Get in the car!"
Leon's men dragged me down the hospital corridor and into the blood-draw room.
Leon stood beside the doctor, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Now. Draw the blood."
The needle was thick. It punctured my arm, and I watched my blood seep through the tube, draining away drop by drop. The absurdity of it almost made me laugh.
Three years ago, he'd stripped me of my dignity. Three years later, he was draining me of my blood.
My hands grew colder. My body began to tremble.
Memories flickered behind my eyes like a dying reel of film.
I was from Harbor City. I had been the youngest chief surgeon in neurosurgery in all of Kensington City. I'd saved countless lives on the operating table.
Then, on my wedding anniversary, a patient's family member broke into our home, doused it in gasoline, and set it ablaze. Then vanished without a trace.
My three-year-old daughter burned alive.
Afterward, Pamela knelt before me, knocking her forehead against the floor over and over.
"Gloria, I'm so sorry. You operated on that patient and it failed, and you... to make it go away, you forced me to sleep with the patient's family. But they still weren't satisfied. It's all my fault. It's all because I couldn't handle it properly—"
