Chapter 1

"Mommy is a liar! I hate Mommy!"

Lily wrenched herself out of my arms and threw herself into Vivian Thorne's embrace. Her small finger jabbed toward me, her voice so shrill it sliced through the silence of the entire conference room.

I stood at the long table of the hospital's internal review hearing, still clutching the witness statement in my hand. The corners of the paper were damp with sweat, the ink beginning to bleed.

Three hours ago, my brother Daniel Holloway had been pushed down the stairs on the second floor of Grandview Mall. More than ten steps — he was blind, with nothing to grab onto. The back of his head struck the marble floor directly.

The CT results: severe traumatic brain injury, massive intracranial hemorrhage.

And the person who pushed him was Vivian Thorne.

I had obtained statements from two mall janitors, and the surveillance screenshots clearly showed Vivian shoving him with both hands. She had gotten into an argument with Daniel over a limited-edition necklace — he was ahead of her in line — and then shoved him down the stairs.

Daniel had taken Lily to the mall to buy a cake. It was my birthday.

"Witness statements, surveillance screenshots — it's all here."

I pushed the file across the table to the hospital's internal review panel.

Seven people sat across from me. Ethan Sterling was in the center, four attorneys standing behind him, each holding a stack of documents.

Ethan didn't even glance at what I'd pushed over. He opened the brown envelope in front of him, pulled out a report stamped with the hospital's official seal, and handed it directly to the board chairman.

"The second-floor mall surveillance has a blind spot. The screenshots cannot serve as valid evidence. The witness statements contain contradictions and have no legal standing."

His voice was flat, as if he were reading an ordinary shift report.

"Our hospital forensics department has concluded that Daniel Holloway's visual impairment caused a loss of spatial awareness, resulting in an accidental fall. Furthermore, prior to the incident, Daniel Holloway had initiated physical contact with Miss Thorne in a provocative manner."

I slammed my hand on the table.

"Ethan, you trained as a forensic pathologist. Look at that CT scan — look at the size of the impact wound on the back of Daniel's skull! A blind man stumbling on his own could produce that kind of blunt force trauma?"

He didn't answer me. The attorney beside him stepped in.

"Mrs. Sterling, please mind your language. This hearing makes determinations based on objective evidence. Emotional outbursts will not be entertained."

I gripped the statement in my hand and turned to Lily.

She was a witness. She had been standing right beside Daniel. She saw everything.

"Lily, tell Mommy — tell everyone here — did Aunt Vivian push Uncle Daniel?"

Lily shrank into Vivian's arms. Vivian leaned down and whispered something in her ear.

Lily looked up, her eyes bright and eager.

"I saw it with my own eyes! Uncle Daniel tried to touch Aunt Vivian and lost his balance and fell!"

Her voice rang out, crisp and clear. Every person in the room heard it.

"Mommy is a liar! I hate Mommy!"

My hands dropped to my sides. The statement slipped through my fingers and scattered across the floor.

The panel chair closed his folder and cleared his throat.

"Based on the available evidence and witness testimony, the preliminary finding is —"

Ethan stood up, circled the long table, and walked over to me.

He seized my right wrist, pressing his thumb into my palm. With his other hand, he flipped open a pre-printed settlement agreement on the table. A pen lay beside it, cap already removed.

"Sign it."

I tried to pull my hand free. His fingers tightened, and I heard a faint click from my knuckle.

"Vivian has depression. She can't handle stress."

He forced the pen into my grip and dragged my hand across the signature line.

My name appeared on the white paper in shaking, jagged letters — forced from my own hand, but not by my own will.

"Your brother was blind anyway. Dead weight. Take the fifty thousand and count yourself lucky."

He released my hand and picked up a wet wipe to clean his fingers.

"Behave yourself tonight. I'll be home later — we'll take Lily to that French place you like."

He finished the sentence, adjusted his cuffs, and walked toward the door. Vivian followed behind him, carrying Lily. Lily was draped over Vivian's shoulder, sticking her tongue out at me.

The conference room door closed. The seven board members packed up their files one by one and filed out. None of them looked at me.

The ink on the settlement agreement hadn't dried yet. I raised my right hand. My fingers were still cramped from how hard he'd squeezed them around the pen.

Ten years ago, I had hemorrhaged on the operating table while giving birth to Lily. My blood pressure bottomed out — sixty over nothing, and the heart monitor flatlined three times. They had to remove my uterus to stop the bleeding.

Ethan had knelt outside the emergency room all night, his forehead pressed against the tile floor, swearing to my mother: "I will protect her with my life."

Fifty thousand dollars.

That was the price he put on my brother's life.

I crouched down and picked up the scattered pages of the statement, one by one. The bottom left corner of the third page had a shoe print on it. Ethan's.