4
Margery’s POV
Ten minutes later Gibson returned, flanked by a group of bodyguards. The look in his eyes toward me was full of coldness.
“Margery, no matter what happened, you shouldn’t have laid a hand on Wanda. Don’t you know she was sobbing until her eyes were red? Come with me now and apologize.”
He seized my arm as he spoke.
“I’m not apologizing,” I shot back, tearing my head away. Anger filled my eyes. “After all, those people only said those accusations and rumors because Wanda secretly told them to.”
“Still, you shouldn’t have done what you did,” he replied, his tone stern and his eyes full of disgust. “Was there even a little wrong in what they said? Your mother died, and at her funeral you said you still planned to go ahead with the wedding. Aren’t their doubts justified?”
My pupils constricted; for a moment my breath stopped.
‘So that’s how Gibson sees me, huh?’
Then, as if answering my thought, another realization came. ‘Of course, he thinks that way of me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gone so far just to delay our wedding.’
A bitter laugh escaped me, then I steadied my expression and said firmly, “I won’t apologize. You know in your heart that every slap Wanda got was deserved.”
I spoke with finality, and even meant to rise and leave.
But Gibson’s face went stone-cold. He stepped toward me and said, “If you choose to make a scene at your mother’s funeral, it’s clear you don’t care about her death at all. In that case, there’s no point in holding the funeral.”
With that, he waved to the men behind him. The bodyguards surged forward like the kidnappers who had barreled into my mother’s operating room yesterday, and they began to wreak havoc on the funeral.
One of them even lifted my mother’s portrait and the urn high above his head as if to smash them to the floor!
I couldn’t hold back. I lunged forward to stop them.
“What are you doing? Let go! Put down my mother’s ashes!” I screamed.
But they just ignored me, and their faces curled into mocking smiles.
In an instant, I felt that old and familiar helplessness wash over me. My eyes were swollen and red; I struggled forward but Gibson gripped my arm like iron and held me fast.
I watched, frozen, as the urn was about to be smashed. I shouted again. “I’ll do anything! I’ll apologize—anything—just tell them to put down my mother’s ashes!”
I collapsed to the floor, every word falling out of me in a ragged plea. I clutched at my palm until the skin split and bled.
I thought that would be enough to save her ashes. Instead, Gibson only paused for a breath after hearing me, then spoke calmly, “Margery, it’s too late for words. You need to be taught a lesson.”
Just like that, he flicked his hand.
The next second, the clear shattering crack of the urn breaking rang out.
My mind went blank for a moment. All I could see was the scattered ash of my mother on the floor.
“Mom!” I screamed and flung myself forward, hands trembling as I tried to scoop the ashes back into the shattered vessel.
A bodyguard recoiled at my movements and stumbled; his foot happened to land on the ashes.
My mother’s funeral… was ruined, trampled and desecrated, and in the end, my mother’s ashes could not be saved.
I stared at them being trodden underfoot, and at Gibson’s face: unreadable, indifferent.
I could no longer bear it. I collapsed.
In the last second before blacking out, through the fog of unconsciousness, I thought I saw an anxious expression flash across Gibson’s face.
