Chapter 4

I trembled as I stepped inside, picking up Paige's favorite stuffed teddy bear. Tears streamed down my face uncontrollably.

"Given how close you two were, I thought I'd keep things as they were when Paige was still alive. That way, when you got out of the psychiatric hospital, you'd have something to comfort you. But now, it seems like that was pointless!" Christina snapped.

She shoved me aside and ordered the maids to remove and burn everything.

Watching item after item being hauled out, I lost it and lunged forward to stop them.

"Christina, tell them to stop! Stop!"

Christina remained silent.

"Calm down," Roland said, smirking at me."We've still got one more surprise."

The words had just left his lips when he pulled something out of his pocket and waved it in front of me.

I looked closely. It was the scarf Paige had knitted for me when she was 15. She had stayed holed up in our rented apartment for one whole month, working on it.

That winter had been especially harsh. When she wrapped the scarf around my neck, her hands were frozen and red, but the smile on her face had warmed my heart.

The keepsake I had treasured all these years and now fallen into Roland's hands.

"This is your prized possession?" He tossed it to the floor, stepped on it, and ground it under his leather shoe. "How is a piece of junk even worth treasuring?"

"Give it back!"

I wanted to grab it, but Christina slapped me away.

That wasn't just any scarf. It was the only bit of warmth I'd known—thanks to Paige—through that brutal year after I'd severed ties with Dad.

Seeing this, Christina sneered, picked up the scarf, and lit it with a lighter.

"It's just trash. Is it really worth getting so worked up over? Since you like it so much, I'll turn it to ash so it can keep your sister company."

When I saw the scarf burned to ash, the fury boiling in me caused me to spit out a mouthful of blood.

But Roland still wasn't satisfied. He took out a wooden box from Paige's closet.

My heart sank. I recognized it immediately. It was the sandalwood urn I had chosen for Paige's ashes.

"Does this look familiar, Dylan?"

He opened the lid and shook it, spilling some ashes onto the floor.

Seeing my ashen face, he laughed cruelly.

"That crappy scarf was enough to make you lose your mind. Imagine if my hand accidentally slips and I spill all of this? Do you think you'd just die of anger on the spot?"

"Roland Burstyn! Don't you dare!"

I felt all the blood rush to my head. With my eyes burning with rage, I charged forward and tried to grab it, but Christina's men blocked me.

"Why won't I?"

He moved as if to smash it to the floor, but Christina stopped him. I had just breathed a sigh of relief when I heard her say softly, "Just smashing it is kind of lame. Why don't we dump it straight down the drain? It'll be less of a mess."

I looked at her, agony twisting through me, teetering on the edge of collapse.

I wanted to grab Paige's urn, but anger and heat rose uncontrollably in me, and I couldn't take a single step. In the end, I could only watch helplessly as Roland flushed all the ashes down the toilet.

Seeing him hold up the empty box to show it off to me, I spat out another mouthful of blood and completely lost consciousness.

…

I woke up to a suffocating sensation. Roland was shoving my head into the lake.

I struggled desperately as he sneered.

"Don't blame me for being ruthless, Dylan. If you want to blame someone, blame your dead sister for recognizing that I was one of the people who violated her back then. And because I want to live, you'll just have to die. Goodbye, Dylan."

He stood up and kicked me into the lake.

The icy water swallowed me instantly. A heavy stone tied to my waist dragged me down into the darkness. My consciousness began to fade.

Just as I was waiting for death to take me, the roar of a speedboat echoed from afar. Seconds later, someone pulled me up from the lake.

"Son, hold on!"

A voice, both familiar and distant from memory, rang in my ears. I forced my eyes open, barely making out Dad's anxious face before I lost consciousness again.