Chapter 3

Jeremy spun around and grabbed Zayne's wrist, staring him up and down. "What did you just call her?"

Zayne yanked free, shoved my medicine into my hand, then planted himself in front of me.

"You're a bad guy! Don't you dare hurt my mom! Get out! This is our house!"

Jeremy's fist tightened, then slowly relaxed. He stared at Zayne for a long moment, saying nothing.

Finally, he asked, "Whose child is he?"

It felt like someone had reached into my chest and crushed my heart. I couldn't breathe from the pain.

Suddenly, my phone rang.

It was the plot administrator from the cemetery.

"When are you planning to pay the outstanding balan..."

Before the caller could finish, Jeremy snatched the phone from my hand and hung up.

Through gritted teeth, he said, "You hooked up with some loser just to get back at me? And now he wants you to pay him?"

My throat seized, and I coughed again.

Jeremy frowned. He placed his warm hand on my back and rubbed it gently.

"So that's why. It's been five years, but you never came for me.

"This isn't revenge, Madison. You're destroying yourself to wound me."

A bitter smile curled my lips. As someone this close to death, I didn't have the strength to hate.

He took my hand, like he had finally made up his mind. "I'll sort things out for the boy. Come home with me."

He looked at me, and for the first time, his eyes were wet. "Let's leave the past behind, okay?

"Come home, Maddie. I'll find the boy a good home. I won't hold any of it against you."

I pulled free and shoved him toward the door.

"Jeremy."

A woman's laugh drifted in from outside.

My hands curled into fists.

Jessica stood in the doorway, wearing a tailored designer dress and teetering on stiletto heels. She looked like she belonged in a penthouse, not a tin-roofed shack.

She slipped her arm through Jeremy's, smiled, and waved her phone at him.

"You're spoiling Ollie too much. I made dinner for him, and here you are, buying him street food. The bodyguards said you came here, so I hurried over."

Only then did she finally notice me.

The smile on her face froze.

"Madison?"

Jeremy nodded. She froze for a moment, then her eyes flooded with tears.

"We finally found you!

"Perfect timing. I made dinner. Why don't we all eat together?"

I stared at her. "You really think I'd share a meal with someone who burned her own mother alive?"

Jessica's face was drained of color. The tears came right on cue.

"I didn't mean it, Maddie. You don't know what those years were like. They were terrified someone would track me down, so they locked me in a safehouse on the 99th floor. Those two watched me like prison guards."

She looked up through her tears. "You were imprisoned on the inside. I was imprisoned on the outside."

I coughed so hard I couldn't speak.

Zayne rushed forward and shoved her. "If you don't leave right now, I'm calling the police!"

Jessica froze for a moment. She glanced at Jeremy, then smiled as she grabbed Zayne's hand.

"Oh my, so you even have an illegitimate son out here? I can tell—he's definitely yours. When something goes wrong, his first instinct is to call the cops."

She turned to Jeremy and noticed his scowl. Then she quickly put on a mask of understanding.

"Jeremy, don't take it the wrong way. What matters most is that we all stay together. I'll clean out Ollie's room when I get home and make space for..."

Jeremy's expression changed instantly. "That's enough. If she hadn't been so petty back then and insisted on calling the police..."

He shot me a cold glance and continued, "She wouldn't have gone through any of it. She brought it on herself."

Jessica grabbed my hand and leaned in close to my ear. "Maddie, I'll take good care of your son."

She stopped, then whispered, "Like I did with your foster mother."

My eyes widened with shock.

"I made sure she watched every moment of the surgery, when they carved your face into mine." Jessica smiled. "She could have survived, but her mind gave out. That night, she bit through her oxygen tube and suffocated herself to death."