Chapter 3

We rushed back into the hospital room.

Noah had fallen out of bed, and broken pieces of the jade pendant lay scattered across the floor.

Lily stood off to the side, looking completely lost.

"Noah!"

Ramsey Collins shoved Lily aside, rushing forward with Evelyn to check on her son.

Surrounded by both of them, Noah squeezed out tears and sniffled with exaggerated misery.

"She said I made her pendant dirty... She tried to drag me off the bed to go wash it. When I said no, she threw me on the floor and smashed it!"

Lily's face flushed with desperation.

"You're lying! I only came back to pick up my star bracelet!

"You tripped out of bed all by yourself! You said you'd rather break it than return…"

SLAP!

A loud crack cut Lily off mid-sentence.

"Lily!"

I scrambled forward and wrapped my arms around her, glaring up at the fury blazing in Ramsey's eyes.

"Clara, look at what you've taught our daughter! She's a deceitful liar who twists the truth!

"Make her apologize to Noah right now!"

Lily shrank into my chest, trembling uncontrollably.

I had known Ramsey Collins for over ten years, and I had never seen him lay a finger on anyone.

The first time he broke that rule, it was for Evelyn, and he used it to strike our seven-year-old child.

My hands shook. I stood up and whipped my hand across his face with everything I had.

The slap echoed through the room.

"Ramsey Collins, I know my daughter better than anyone!

"That slap is for what you just did. The pendant is broken, and so are we.

"We are done. I never want to see your face again."

I picked up Lily and walked straight out the door.

Behind us, Ramsey spat out through grit teeth, "Clara, I hope you don't live to regret this!"

I didn't answer him. I kept moving without looking back once.

Lily's cheek was red and swollen. Tears dripped onto the crushed paper star bracelet in her tiny hand.

"Mommy, my star bracelet is ruined. And Daddy is bad too."

A rush of painful sorrow flooded my chest. I smoothed her hair gently.

"When something is broken, sweetie... we throw it away, okay?"

Lily wiped her eyes and nodded hard.

She raised her hand and tossed the paper stars into the trash bin near the exit.

"I threw the bracelet away.

"I threw Daddy away, too."

---

After taking Lily back to her own room and applying ice to her cheek, I went back to Ramsey's house alone.

A sticky note sat on the glass coffee table in the living room, left by Juliet Collins, his mother.

[Clara, I'm out playing cards. Just leave some dinner in the fridge for me when you're done cooking.]

The day Ramsey brought me into his family home, his mother fired every housekeeper on the payroll.

She smiled and said to me, “You're the lady of the house now.”

With those few words, she dumped every piece of housework onto my shoulders.

Back then, young and naive, I felt honored and happily agreed.

I slaved away for seven long years.

In the end, I was nothing more than an unpaid maid to the Collins family.

I looked around the empty, cavernous house, picked up the note, and tore it to shreds.

I booked a hotel room for the next few nights.

By the time I finished packing up my belongings, twilight had fallen.

I dragged my suitcase through the front door, only for my phone to start ringing frantically.

I pressed it to my ear, and the doctor's panicked voice came through the line.

"Mrs. Collins, something terrible has happened! Your daughter ingested a lethal overdose of sleeping pills! Get to the emergency room immediately!"

My blood ran cold. I raced back to the hospital as fast as I could.

By the time I arrived, Lily had already been rushed into the emergency surgical suite.

Beside her empty bed were two drained, empty bottles of heavy sedatives.

Mrs. Trey, the mother of the child in the adjacent bed glanced at me with disgust, intentionally raising her voice for the room to hear.

"Having a mistress for a mother... poor Lily must have been so ashamed."

I froze in my tracks, my entire world coming to a sudden halt.