Chapter 2

Dad was livid. He was just about to lean outside the window of the cable car to argue on my behalf when Henry fired a warning shot straight into his shoulder. "You have ten seconds, Zoey!"

I looked at my in-laws, whose lives hung in the balance, and stated coldly, "I'll sign the divorce agreement, but you'll have to send me some heart medications right now and get Dad to the hospital before I do that. It's our fight, Henry, so please leave Mom and Dad out of it."

"Very well," Henry replied, his smile deepening while snapping his fingers.

I signed the divorce agreement once the drone brought it to me. I was just about to reach for the medication attached to it when a bullet struck my hand. I immediately bit down hard on the inside of my cheek to stop myself from screaming out loud.

Yvonne was the one who fired the shot. She stood there with a gun in her hand, her gaze full of malice. "Zoey is the reason my parents are dead. Why do her parents get to live, Henry? I absolutely won't allow it!"

Henry planted a kiss on her cheek after she turned her head away in a huff, then burst out laughing. "You're too impatient, Yvonne. How could I ever let Zoey off so easily? That bottle actually contained rat poison, not heart medication."

I snapped my head up and looked at Henry in utter disbelief. I thought that if Yvonne hadn't intervened earlier and I had fed the medicine to Mom, not even the greatest doctor on earth could have saved her.

Henry cocked his brow after noticing my grim expression, mockery written all over his face. "I had no intention of letting you live, so there's no difference in letting you die sooner or later, Zoey."

He raised his gun again and aimed for the cable car's mounting hook. He then fired the shot, causing the cable car to jolt violently and leaving only a single steel wire to support our weight.

Dad was flung out of the window from the momentum, but he still held fast to an emerald pendant necklace that had the word "Glover" engraved on it.

Henry's assistant spotted it and gasped. "Isn't that Mr. Roger's necklace, Mr. Henry? He had two of those made from the emeralds he found in the southern city. One for him and one for you. That man over there couldn't possibly be Mr. Roger, right?"

Henry's face clouded over at the question, but before he could process it, Yvonne immediately fanned the flames.

"Those Lovells are absolutely pathetic! Zoey stole my position in the Glover family, and now her father stole your father's necklace. They're a family of thieves, Henry!

"Didn't you call your parents last night? They're away on a vacation at Mortham, so there's no way they would suddenly appear here on a cable car with Zoey!"

Henry shook off his doubts—as if waking from a dream—after hearing that. The worry on his face vanished instantly.

I held onto Dad's hand tightly while bracing my feet against the doorframe, a wave of helplessness washing over me. It was true that my in-laws had been away at Mortham the night before, but they had flown back overnight to help me work on my relationship with Henry, insisting on keeping it a secret.

Henry was supposed to join us on the cable car ride, but he never showed up; instead, we were met with an infinite display of fireworks.

Dad slipped into unconsciousness, causing his body to become a heavy weight that kept sliding down.

My shoulder was already dislocated. The pain was so blinding that I couldn't even scream. I forced myself to hold on, as I couldn't possibly allow Dad to fall from this 300-foot height and be torn apart on impact.

I closed my eyes as I begged him at the top of my lungs. "You have to save Dad, Henry! You will never be able to live with yourself if you let him die today!"

I never imagined that Henry could be this depraved, as he leveled his shotgun at my wrist once more and pulled the trigger.

"Stop trying to pull that family crap with me, Zoey. I only have one father, and he's on a vacation in Mortham. I've warned you that I'm going to make you experience the pain of losing a loved one today."

I lost control of my hand after suffering from the powerful force of the bullet, leaving it paralyzed. I could only watch in despair as Dad plummeted straight down the cliffside.

"Dad!" I yelled in agony.

I knew that the cable car was on the verge of falling, and I had no idea if Mom was still alive. I, on the other hand, was losing so much blood that my sight grew increasingly hazy.

Henry sat leisurely in the helicopter, looking quite at ease with a wine glass beside him.

Yvonne, nestled against him, tilted her head back and proposed, "Why don't we make this more interesting?"

Henry, who always indulged her every whim, playfully tapped her nose and replied affectionately, "You can do whatever you want, Yvonne."

Yvonne's eyes glinted with delight. She clapped her hands, signaling a bodyguard to step forward with a giant hornet's nest caught in a net.