Chapter 3The Warden Said I Died Already

By the time they reached the elite private hospital wing in Dallas, Isabella was putting on an Oscar-worthy performance. She lay against the pillows, her skin heavily powdered to look pale, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

"Nate," she whispered weakly. "Did Madeline... did she agree?"

Nathaniel’s jaw tightened. He shook his head slowly.

"Why?" Isabella choked out a sob. "Is she still punishing me because she went to prison? Nate... maybe we should just give up. I don't want to force her. Let me go."

Hudson’s face drained of color. He rushed to the bedside, burying his face in Isabella’s blankets. "No! Dad, you have to do something! I can't lose Aunt Bella!"

Nathaniel’s eyes darkened with a terrifying resolve. He took a slow, deep breath.

"I won't let you die, Bella. Even if I have to tear this state apart brick by brick, I will find her, and she will give you what you need." He turned to his hovering assistant. "She’s not at her house, and she’s not with her professor. That means she’s hiding with her brother. Find out what hospital he’s supposedly in. Now."

My chest tightened—a phantom panic. No. Please, God, no. I hovered in front of Nathaniel, begging him to stay away from Luke.

But within minutes, the assistant handed him an address. A low-income palliative care facility on the outskirts of the city.

Nathaniel and Hudson drove like demons. When they shoved open the door to Room 402, the smell of antiseptic and decay hit them like a wall.

And there was my brother.

Luke lay perfectly still, a skeletal figure swallowed by the stark white sheets, tubes snaking from his nose and throat, monitors beeping in a slow, agonizing rhythm.

Looking at his hollowed face, a wave of sheer devastation washed over me.

Luke hadn't had a stroke from grief. On the day I was supposed to be released, he had waited for me at the gates. When he was handed a garbage bag with my personal effects and told I was dead, he went straight to the Montgomery estate to demand answers from Isabella.

Instead of answers, he was dragged into an alleyway by the private security thugs she had hired. They beat him with iron pipes until his spine snapped.

Isabella had made him a quadriplegic.

Standing in the doorway, Nathaniel and Hudson looked taken aback for a fleeting moment. But then the cruelty returned to Nathaniel's eyes. He let out a dark, mocking chuckle.

"Wow. You guys really went all out," he sneered, walking over to the life support machines. "This setup must have cost a fortune. Renting out a hospice room just to sell the lie?"

He grabbed the collar of Luke’s hospital gown, lifting my brother’s fragile upper body off the mattress. "Where is she, Luke? Where are you hiding my wife?"

Luke’s eyes fluttered open. The whites were bloodshot. When he recognized the man who had ruined my life, pure, unadulterated hatred flared in his gaze. He couldn't move his arms or legs, but he forced the words through his oxygen mask in a ragged hiss.

"She’s... dead. You drained her... you killed her!"

"Drop the act!" Nathaniel roared.

"What more do you want from her?" Luke gasped, tears spilling down his hollow cheeks. "Isn't it enough that she’s in the ground?"

Nathaniel threw him back onto the pillows with a look of utter disgust. "Keep acting. See where it gets you."

Hudson crossed his arms, glaring at the broken man in the bed. "Uncle Luke, why are you helping Mom lie? It's really mean."

Hearing Hudson’s voice, something inside Luke broke. With a Herculean effort that defied his paralysis, he managed to jerk his shoulder, knocking a heavy plastic water pitcher off the bedside table. It flew awkwardly, glancing off Hudson’s forehead.

"You ungrateful little bastard!" Luke screamed, his voice cracking with agony. "She nearly bled out having you! And you stood in a courtroom and helped her murderer lock her in a cage! Get out! Get out of here!"

Nathaniel immediately pulled Hudson behind him, inspecting the small red mark on the boy’s forehead. When he looked back at Luke, his face was a mask of pure, lethal rage.

Without a word, Nathaniel lunged forward. He shoved Luke hard against the metal rails and drove his fist into my brother's jaw.

"No!" I shrieked, throwing myself over Luke’s body. But I was nothing. I was air.

Luke spat a mouthful of blood onto the white sheets. The heart monitor began to wail, a high-pitched frantic alarm.

"Quadriplegic, huh?" Nathaniel laughed, the sound cold and hollow. "Let’s see how long you can keep up the paralysis routine."

Before I could even comprehend what he was doing, Nathaniel reached out and ripped the central line from Luke’s chest, followed by the oxygen tube.

Blood sprayed across the linoleum floor. The machines screamed.

Luke let out a horrific, guttural sound—a death rattle—as his body began to convulse violently. Foam gathered at the corners of his mouth.

I fell to my knees, screaming so hard I felt my soul tearing at the seams. "Stop! Please, Nathaniel, I'm begging you! Help him! Call a doctor!"

But the room was deaf to my agony.

Suddenly, the hospital room door swung open. I prayed it was the nurses.

Instead, Isabella walked in, wearing a designer trench coat, looking perfectly healthy.

"Nate, honey, stop," she said, her voice dripping with calculated sweetness. "If you hit him, he’s just going to sue you for assault. He’s obviously scamming the system."

She looked down at Luke, watching him drown in his own blood, a micro-expression of absolute triumph flashing across her eyes.

"If he wants to pretend to be dying," she murmured, slipping her arm through Nathaniel's, "why don't you just cut off his medical funding? Let the hospital kick him out to the streets. He won't be able to keep the lie going then."

"Don't listen to her! She’s the one who paralyzed him!" I screamed right into Nathaniel’s face, my hands passing through his cheeks.

But Nathaniel didn't even flinch. He looked at Luke’s convulsing form with dead, empty eyes, then turned to his assistant in the hallway.

"Cancel the firm’s pro bono coverage for this room," Nathaniel commanded coldly. "Cut off his funding."

I sat on the floor, my spectral hands hovering over my brother’s chest, completely unable to stop the bleeding. I watched the frantic spikes on the heart monitor slow down.

Slower.

Slower.

Until the line went flat. A single, unending tone filled the room.

I didn't cry. The capacity for tears had been burned out of me. I just knelt there in the blood, shivering in a cold so deep it eclipsed death itself.