I wasn't going to let him stop me. I called my lawyer and raced to the bank.

Before I even arrived, my phone rang. It was Caleb's cousin, District Attorney (DA) Dylan Sharpe.

"What's this new drama I'm hearing about, Ava?" Dylan's voice dripped with mockery. "Another play for Caleb's attention?"

Caleb's family had never given me the respect I deserved.

Only his parents, Eleanor and Arthur, had been genuinely kind to me. I had to save them.

I bit back my rage. "Dylan, did Caleb tell you I was acting?"

The silence on the other end of the line said it all.

A bitter smile twisted my lips.

"Dylan, you're the District Attorney. Is ridicule your only response to a state of emergency? If you have no intention of helping, consider this my official notice: I'm filing a complaint against you for professional misconduct with the Commission on Judicial Conduct."

Dylan's flippant tone evaporated, replaced by raw anger. "You think marrying into this family makes you a Hawthorne?" he snarled. "Let me tell you, you'll always be just a gold digger from the suburbs! If Skylar hadn't been away back then, Caleb would have never given you a second glance."

I hung up without a word and immediately sent the email to the commission.

When I got to the bank, I tried to access our joint accounts.

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Monroe," the bank manager said apologetically, "but your credit cards have been canceled, and the joint trust has been frozen by Mr. Hawthorne."

Then, my lawyer called. The family trust fund had been temporarily frozen by the court over an alleged internal dispute.

I took a deep breath and called my gallery manager.

"Mortgage my entire private collection and liquidate all my investment portfolios. I need three million dollars in cash, within the hour."

"On it, Ava."

That still left me two million short. I called Caleb's uncle, Marcus Hawthorne.

"Uncle Marcus, Caleb's parents were in an avalanche in Colorado. They need an emergency transfer, and I'm still two million dollars short. Could you lend it to me? I'll pay you back as soon as the trust is unfrozen."

Marcus sounded genuinely shocked. "My sister and brother-in-law? Does Caleb know?"

I sighed. "I told him, but he doesn't believe me. He's with Skylar right now. You're my only hope."

"Stay put. I'll transfer it from the company's emergency reserve fund immediately!"

Just as Marcus hung up, the hospital called back. The lead surgeon from Switzerland informed me curtly, "Mrs. Monroe, you have two hours. If the funds don't arrive, we'll have to terminate the surgery and, per protocol, remove them from life support."

The bank's mortgage approval process was agonizingly slow.

I turned and saw Dylan standing a few feet away, his face pale. He had clearly overheard my call with the hospital.

"Ava, his parents… are they really hurt? Caleb said this was all just some scheme to get his attention…"

I didn't have the energy for this. He could call Caleb himself.

I glanced at my watch, my anxiety mounting. A two-million-dollar transfer shouldn't take this long for someone like Marcus. I called him again.

"Uncle Marcus?"

"Ava, give it up," he said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "Look, his parents might have liked you, but the rest of the Hawthornes never accepted you."

"I sympathize with you, and I wanted to help. But you're just playing the victim. Who are you trying to fool? If you weren't always so dramatic, maybe Caleb wouldn't despise you so much."

My heart sank into a cold abyss. I knew the final two million dollars would never come.

"Uncle Marcus, did Caleb tell you to say that?" My voice trembled. "You don't have to believe me, but the hospital records can prove everything—"

Marcus cut me off. "Don't bother forging medical records to fool me. Even if you tricked me today, what about tomorrow?"

"Ava, I know you're obsessed with Caleb. The looks, the money—I get it. But his heart belongs to someone else, and she's back. If you're this miserable, why not just get a divorce?"

His vile words snapped my last nerve. I hung up, my expression turning to ice.

Caleb's parents were dying, and his family was using it as an opportunity to humiliate me.

Across the room, Dylan finally got through to Caleb.

"Caleb, listen to me! Your parents are really in trouble! They're in the hospital—"

He was cut off by Skylar's sickly sweet voice. "Oh, Dylan, don't tell me you're playing along with Ava's pathetic little act, too. How much did she pay you? Whatever it is, I'll double it."

Dylan's voice was frantic. "I'm not lying!"

Skylar handed the phone back to Caleb, bored. "Darling, it seems your cousin has been bought off by her, too."

Then came Caleb's cold voice. "Dylan, that's enough."

Dylan sounded on the verge of tears. "Caleb, your parents are in real danger! Transfer two million dollars to Ava's account now!"

Caleb sneered. "So it is about money after all. Tell Ava to stop the act. She's gone crazy. What did Skylar ever do to deserve being targeted like this?"

The line went dead.

With no other choice, I gave my lawyer a grim, bitter smile. "Let's go. Even without the full amount, we have to fly to Colorado and talk to the hospital."

"That's too risky," my lawyer protested.

I lowered my eyes. "I'm immediate family. They have to see me."

I raced to the hospital. The moment I stepped onto the ICU floor, the thick smell of antiseptic and despair hit me like a physical blow.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

I burst into the ICU room to the piercing shriek of the monitors. Two glaring flatlines stretched across the screens, stark as tombstones.

Caleb's parents—Arthur and Eleanor Hawthorne—were brain-dead, having missed the optimal window for surgery.

I rushed to their beds, wanting to shake them awake, but Eleanor's hand was already ice-cold. I broke down sobbing, trembling as I pulled out my phone to let Caleb see them one last time, but every call went straight to voicemail.

Caleb had blocked me.