Watching them fight for me with everything they had, I couldn't hold back the tears burning in my eyes.
Bartholomew shrugged helplessly, his face a portrait of innocence.
"Alright, alright, I must've remembered wrong. And the rest of you—I was just joking around! You all took it way too seriously!"
Dr. Cobb let out a cold scoff and fixed my father with a glare.
"Sir, there are jokes you can make, and jokes you absolutely cannot."
"If you'd actually delayed your own son's surgery today, you'd have regretted it for the rest of your life. Fortunately, it's not too late."
From the doctor's tone, it sounded like the surgery could still proceed.
The relief had barely settled in my chest when I saw my father looking at me, letting out a long, weary sigh.
"Gerard. I raised you to be honest. To keep your word."
"Everything I said before was me giving you a chance to come clean. But you still refuse to tell the truth, so don't blame me for doing what's right—even if it means turning against my own son."
With that, he pulled out his phone. A video was already playing on the screen.
A man was on top of a woman, drenched in sweat.
Heavy, ragged breathing filled the air.
The video froze on the man's face.
It was me.
"You think being a CEO means you can cover up anything?! The woman in this video has been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease! That's a documented fact!"
The room erupted.
Even Dr. Cobb, who had been on my side just moments ago, was furious.
His eyes held more than anger. There was disappointment.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous occupational exposure is?! If we'd gone into surgery today without knowing this, we could have been infected!"
"This is a matter of life and death! Were you trying to get us killed?!"
I stared at the video, shaking my head over and over.
"No... that can't be me!"
"It's not you?!" My father held the phone closer and closer to my face. "There was a company party a week ago. Don't tell me you weren't there!"
A company party a week ago?
The words hit me like a jolt. My head snapped up, and I looked at my sister with desperate, pleading eyes.
I hadn't gone to that party. I knew I hadn't.
That night was the night my sister had held her proposal ceremony for her boyfriend, Joshua Delgado.
She'd invited me to witness their love.
If she would just vouch for me, then—
"Cam—"
I barely got the word out before my sister turned her cold gaze on me.
"So that's what you were really doing that night, Gerard. You actually went into someone else's room."
Never. Not in a thousand years would I have imagined this.
The sister I had raised with my own hands. The sister who had just stood up for me moments ago.
She had become the blade now being driven into my chest.
Time was slipping away, second by second. Just like my life.
I looked at my sister and my father. The same faint smile curled at both their lips, perfectly synchronized.
How could I not understand now?
