Chapter 3

The yellow diamond ring that fell out of my bag glittered in all its brilliance under the hot summer sun.

Hailey immediately stomped on my hand and dug her heels into my palm. "Where did you get such an expensive diamond ring from? Even Rhett wouldn't buy it for me!"

She glared at the ring on the ground, jealousy oozing from her eyes.

But the ring was just a little something I'd bought from an auction, thinking of giving it to Vivian to play with.

"I bought it myself, you can have it! I don't want it anymore!" I begged. "I just want Vivian's meds!"

I was even willing to give up all of my wealth if I could just save Vivian's life now.

"Bullshit!" Hailey screeched, grinding her teeth as she growled at me with a twisted expression on her face. "You must have begged Rhett to buy it for you!"

"I didn't—"

"Still denying it?"

Despite her boiling jealousy, her demeanor suddenly relaxed, the corners of her lips curling upward in a cruel smirk.

I immediately had a bad feeling about it.

She crouched down and picked up the cracked vial containing Vivian's emergency medication.

"Well, since that's the case, I guess I need to teach you a lesson."

Hailey let out a cruel laugh and smashed the vial onto the ground. The glass shattered, and the liquid spilled onto the ground before evaporating almost immediately in the summer heat.

She had just destroyed Vivian's last chance for survival.

Something snapped in me. I lost all my rationale and fought off the people holding me back, lunging at her in rage. I was going to bring her to the grave with me!

Just as I was about to grab her, I suddenly felt an excruciating pain in my stomach, and a painful, numbing feeling spread all over my body. I lost all control of my body and immediately fell to the ground, completely paralyzed.

"How dare you try to lay a finger on Mrs. Montiago?"

It was Oliver, one of the preschool teachers, and he held a stun gun in his hand. "Why don't you look in the mirror and see if you're even worthy of that!"

I couldn't control the rest of my body after getting hit by the stun gun. I did everything I could to crawl back over to Vivian and cover her with my body, shielding her from the sun.

"Vivi…"

I was in such pain that I couldn't even breathe. "Vivi, look at Mommy…"

I had missed the golden window to save her, and she had already fallen unconscious. I grabbed her little hand tightly in mine, extremely frightened that she would leave me without saying goodbye.

"Well, that gave me a fright," Hailey said nonchalantly with a scoff. "Do you think two million dollars is enough to pay for both their lives?"

She then produced a black card that I had given to Rhett.

"You're so kind, Mrs. Montiago, for even offering them two million in the first place! If I'm not mistaken, that black card should have at least 100 million dollars in it!"

"Yeah, that's the real Mrs. Montiago for you! Kind and generous and all. Look at the mistress, crying over a broken bottle of meds. Stingy little bitch."

"I think two million dollars is too much. 200 thousand would do."

"200 thousand?" Hailey gasped in mock shock. "Wow! It seems like your and your daughter's lives aren't even worth as much as my dress! Haha, how pathetic!"

"If it were up to me, I'd say she deserves two slaps on the face, and that's about it," Oliver said, sucking up to Hailey. "You don't even know how much money they managed to siphon from Mr. Montiago. They should pay it all back, even if it's with their lives."

Hailey nodded in approval. "I like your idea."

She then stormed over to me haughtily. However, a phone call interrupted her actions.

She answered the call, and the smile instantly dropped from her face.

"Arthur? What did you just say?"