As the words left my mouth, the security guards dragged the two farmwomen over.
"Tell them everything you did with Kayla. Every last detail!"
Kayla didn't look the least bit flustered. She turned to me with a smile, then her lips curled into something taunting. "I don't even know these two people. How do we know you didn't put them up to this just to frame me?"
"That's right!" The farmwoman's face flushed crimson as she shouted, "This woman hired us to do it! She wanted to set up that girl Kayla!"
"Exactly! She told us she was jealous of Kayla and wanted us to teach her a lesson!"
My eyes went wide. Only then did I realize I'd been played. "You—"
Slap!
Before I could finish, Garry's palm cracked across my face.
"Ida, how deranged do you have to be to use Lily's ashes to frame Kayla?"
"Are you even human?"
"I'll deal with you after I've handled Lily's grave."
My cheek went numb, but Lily's resting place mattered more than the sting. Garry moved with cold fury, mobilizing his bodyguards to set everything right. By the time Lily's grave was finally restored, the pain in my face caught up with me all at once.
He stared at the swelling blooming across my cheek, and his voice softened without him seeming to notice. "Come with me. Let me get some ice on that."
"Don't bother. I want to burn some offerings for Lily first."
I knelt down, my eyes burning red. She had been so small. How could she already be gone?
My thoughts tangled into knots, and then a sharp, acrid smell hit me. I looked up and saw Kayla's dog lifting its leg on Lily's headstone.
When it noticed me watching, the thing scurried behind Kayla, then turned and squatted again, as if mocking me.
"Get that filthy animal away from here!" I clenched my fists and shot to my feet, ready to kick it into the next life. "I will kill that dog today!"
Kayla furrowed her brows, her expression dripping with false concern. "Ida, why are you making such a fuss? It's just a dog. Why pick a fight with an animal?"
"Garry, are you blind?" I jabbed my finger at the wet patch on the stone. "That thing just urinated on our daughter's grave!"
"I saw." His voice was low, flat.
"And? It's a puppy. It doesn't know any better. Do you not know any better either?"
He looked at me the way someone looks at a child throwing a tantrum. "I'm exhausted. Can you just stop?"
From behind Garry's back, Kayla flashed me a grin. "You know, puppy urine is supposed to be great fertilizer. This whole patch is going to grow nice and lush. Your daughter should be grateful, really."
The two of them went back and forth, one echoing the other, and something inside me went cold. Garry was never going to be on my side. Not now. Not ever.
I borrowed a shovel without a word, face like stone, and scraped away every inch of contaminated soil myself. Then I tossed the contract I'd prepared at his feet.
"Garry. Sign it."
He seemed to notice for the first time just how hard he'd hit me. The swelling had turned my cheek into something grotesque. His hand reached toward my face on instinct, then froze midair. His gaze dropped. "This is... a divorce agreement?"
The moment the title registered, he folded the papers shut with one hand and tore them to shreds without reading a single line.
Tiny scraps of paper drifted onto my shoulders like confetti. I smiled, unbothered. "Guess I'll have to file in court, then."
"Ida." Garry's hands locked around my shoulders, his long fingers pressing into bone. His eyes burned with something unhinged. "I will never let you leave me. Not unless I'm dead."
"Oh?" I glanced past him at Kayla. Her face was twisted with jealousy she couldn't quite hide. "And what about her? Planning to keep us both, Mr. Sanchez?"
The moment she realized she'd been mentioned, Kayla's eyes welled with tears on cue. "Garry, maybe I should just go. She's too much. To get rid of me, she'd even use her own daughter's..." She trailed off, letting the silence do the work. Her gaze slid to Garry, and she heaved a deep, theatrical sigh. "I just feel so bad for you, Garry."
"Don't worry. As long as I'm here, no one will lay a finger on you." Garry patted Kayla's shoulder reassuringly, then turned and issued his command. "Ida, apologize to Kayla. Right now. If you can get her to forgive you, I'll let this whole thing go."
"But I don't want to forgive her!" Kayla stepped in front of Garry as if summoning every ounce of courage she had, her voice ringing with righteous indignation. "Garry, this woman hurt her own daughter just to get what she wanted. She doesn't deserve my forgiveness!"
Garry blinked, then reached over and ruffled her hair with an indulgent smile. "You're right, Kayla. You've got a good head on your shoulders. Not like some people, who are rotten straight down to the root."
He let his gaze drift toward me as he said it.
"Kayla, have you told so many lies that you've actually started believing them?"
"If you're not lying, then what is this?" My voice came out sharp, cutting through the room.
I pulled out the evidence I'd gathered. Videos. Chat logs. Hundreds of pages that stripped Kayla's mask clean off and exposed exactly who she was.
"This time, Kayla, you're finished."
