Chapter 1

I had just finished handling my mother-in-law Margot Sinclair's death paperwork when Anastasia Ziegler arrived at the hospital morgue with Louis Foster.

Louis looked at the row of morgue drawers and frowned.

"Gabriel, even if Ana is the hospital director, you can't waste money like this. Just get the funeral over with—she was just an old woman. Don't you think it's a waste to use a morgue drawer for a bumpkin hag like your mom?"

He pulled out a business card and handed it to me. "This is a crematorium on the outskirts of the city that specializes in unclaimed bodies. It's cheap, and they can get the cremation done in a single day."

I clenched my fists in anger. Anastasia stepped in front of him, shielding him with an unapologetic expression.

"He's just trying to save us money. Your mom's already dead. She won't know it, no matter how much you spend. What's the point of all this formal nonsense? You're just obsessed with keeping up with the appearance and making your life harder!"

I stared at her in disbelief.

From the moment Margot died on the operating table until now, Anastasia hadn't shown a shred of concern once over the past 48 hours. When I insisted on suing the lead surgeon, Louis, she said she would personally vouch for him.

She even used her authority and connections to suppress internal objections at the hospital, allowing Louis, who should've been taken in by the police for investigation, to swagger right back to work.

I had thought Anastasia was out of her mind, that Louis must've fed her some kind of lies and turned right and wrong upside down, but I never expected the truth to be this.

She simply thought the one who died was my mom, not hers. That realization felt both absurd and laughable.

Seeing Anastasia protect him, Louis broke into a smug smile.

"You should hurry up and contact that crematorium. Keeping a body here costs several thousand dollars a day. Your mom loved taking advantage of small bargains when she was alive. Now that she's dead, don't follow her example."

A thick look of disgust surfaced on Anastasia's face. "Like mother, like son. With your mom's petty, nosy personality, dying on the operating table was just karma."

My whole body trembled. "My mom never offended you—don't you dare insult her!"

She couldn't be bothered to deal with me. Instead, she turned straight to the morgue attendant. "We're taking this body. You don't need to worry about it anymore."

The attendant looked at me, clearly conflicted. Louis pointed at the garbage truck downstairs. "Ana, why not have that truck take her along? It saves transport fees and counts as helping the environment."

Anastasia scoffed at me. "You should be thanking Louis for being so considerate."

With that, she called the people over and had them forcibly move Margot's body. I tried to stop them, but the security guards Anastasia had summoned pinned me.

Margot had lived her entire life frugally. To support Anastasia's studies, she sold her sewing studio and used the most basic sewing tools for her business. Now, her daughter was about to dispose of her body together with medical waste.

A dull thud sounded. While moving the body, the assistant "accidentally" lost his grip. Margot's body rolled off the cart and slammed hard into the corner of the wall. He looked at me with contempt.

"Sorry. My hand slipped," he said smugly. "She wouldn't mind, right?"

Before I could say anything, Anastasia snapped at me, "He didn't do it on purpose—he'll just pick her up! What's the fuss about?"

Watching Margot's body carelessly dumped beside the garbage truck, I was so furious that I laughed instead. "Anastasia, you'll regret this."