3: 3

Carol Whitney was, plain and simple, insane.

The next morning, at ten, I was getting ready for a department meeting when the security desk downstairs suddenly called up.

"Ms. Dickerson, you'd better come down. Your family's making a scene in the lobby!"

My stomach dropped, and I bolted out of the elevator.

Someone had strung up a bright banner across the lobby:

【Katherine Dickerson has no conscience! She abuses her own nephew and forces a little boy to beg on the street!】

Carol Whitney sat on the floor in a filthy set of clothes, bawling at the top of her lungs.

"All you managers and coworkers, be the judge! My sister-in-law here makes hundreds of thousands a year, and she won't even feed my son a full meal! She forces a six-year-old to carry a beat-up bowl out onto the main road to beg!"

Dylan played his part perfectly, rolling wildly across the marble floor, shrieking:

"I want food! Auntie hits me! Auntie makes me beg!"

The whole company's staff, visiting clients, packed in three deep around them, sealing them off completely.

The muttering and finger-pointing rolled toward me like a tide.

The moment she saw me, Carol didn't shrink back. She lunged and grabbed a fistful of my clothes.

"You poisonous witch! You finally dare show your face! You pay for the trauma you did to my son!"

I shoved her off, hard.

Under the doubting stares of my coworkers, I pulled out my phone and cued up the recording from the hotel yesterday.

"Carol, you're the one who taught your kid to kowtow for money, then told him the money meant his elders loved him. And now you come here playing the victim? Should I pull up yesterday's footage of you slapping him across the face and show everyone that too?"

The recording played, and the muttering around us flipped in an instant. Carol's face went red, then white.

But she was the kind who felt no shame, dead pig unbothered by boiling water. She just flopped straight down on the floor and kept up the tantrum:

"I don't care! You forced my son to beg! You give me a hundred thousand today, or I'll die right here in your company!"

The police officers came fast and hauled Carol and Dylan off.

But the damage was done.

At noon, the HR director called me into her office, her expression pained.

"Katherine, the company values what you can do. But a family mess like this has done real damage to our reputation, and the boss is furious. You're suspended for two weeks. Go home, sort out your family situation, and we'll talk."

No matter how I explained, the suspension notice went out anyway.

I dragged my worn-out body back to the apartment, wanting nothing more than to fall into bed.

But when I pressed my finger to the smart lock, out came a cold, mechanical voice:

"Fingerprint incorrect."

I figured the system had glitched and keyed in the code.

"Code incorrect."

I froze, tried it three or four times, but the handle stayed jammed tight and wouldn't budge.

No one knew the code to this place except me and my mother.

Back then my mother had held my hand, her face full of tenderness.

"Katherine, working alone all day is hard on you. Give me the code, and when I have time I'll come clean up, cook you a hot meal."

I believed her.

I handed the code to my security door over, holding nothing back, to the mother I trusted most.

And now she'd handed that code to those bloodsuckers, and locked me, her own daughter, out of the home I'd paid for in full!

The cold of being betrayed by my own family stabbed into my chest like a knife, and it hurt so much I was shaking.

I didn't even have the strength to confront them.

I went straight down to the property office, showed my deed and my ID, and called in the registered locksmith service.

The drill ground straight through the new lock cylinder, and I threw the door open.

But the instant it swung wide, the scene inside sent my blood running backward and my eyes near splitting with rage.

4: 4

My clothes and personal things were dumped all over the floor.

Howard was humming to himself, yanking the cord out of my thirty-thousand-dollar Mac tower and shoving it into a cardboard box.

And Carol was sitting at my vanity, raking through my designer jewelry into her bag.

But none of that was what set my blood boiling.

My eyes locked onto her wrist.

Around it was a jade bracelet, clear and deep green.

The one Grandma Eleanor had slid onto my wrist with trembling hands on her deathbed.

“Take it off.”

My eyes stung red as I rushed at her and grabbed her wrist.

I startled her, but the second she saw it was me, something vicious and pleased flickered through her eyes.

She'd made her scene at the office earlier and walked away with nothing but a warning from the officers, and all that spite had been looking for somewhere to land.

“Let go! You shameless slut, so what if I wear it for a bit?”

She shrieked, and instead of taking it off she clamped down on the bracelet.

“That's my grandmother's. It's all I have left of her.”

I pried at her fingers.

“Your grandmother's? In this house, right now, it's mine.”

The corner of Carol's mouth curled into a savage smile.

She snapped her wrist up and, before anyone could react, brought it down hard against the marble tabletop beside her.

A sharp crack.

The green jade broke into three pieces, bounced off the marble, and scattered onto the floor.

Time seemed to stop.

I stared at the broken jade on the floor, a ringing in my head, and something in my chest felt like it had been carved out.

Carol set her foot on the pieces and ground her heel down, then burst out laughing, brazen.

“You won't buy my son a gold pendant, so you don't get to wear a cheap rock like this either. What, you want to hit me now?”

I was shaking all over. I'd barely started to lift my hand.

My parents rushed over at once and grabbed my arms, one on each side, holding me tight.

“What do you think you're doing?”

My father snapped at me. “It's just a cheap bracelet. So it broke, it broke. Are you trying to kill someone?”

My mother went further, shoving Carol behind her.

“Katherine! Your brother's wife is pregnant again! She's carrying the Dickerson grandson. You lay one finger on her and I'll fight you to the death today.”

Pregnant.

That was the charm that let them trample all over my limits without a second thought.

Looking at their righteous faces, every last illusion I'd ever had about family shattered in that moment, into dust, right along with the jade on the floor.

They expected me to fall apart and make a scene, the way I always had.

Or to swallow it and give in one more time.

But I didn't cry.

I shook off my parents' hands and slowly crouched down.

One by one, I calmly picked up the dust-covered shards at Carol's feet and closed them tight in my fist.

The broken edges cut into my palm, but I couldn't feel the pain.

Then I stood up and looked at my smug sister-in-law, and at my parents' impatient faces.

I smiled.

“A cheap rock?”

I raised my bleeding hand, my voice cool and clear.

“Carol, this bracelet was one Grandma bought at an auction house in the Harbor District years ago. It comes with an appraisal certificate and a receipt.”

“Final price. One point two million.”

As the whole family froze on the spot, their faces slowly draining white, I pulled out my phone and dialed the police.

“Now, not one of you is walking out that door.”