Chapter 3

After Chloe was finally soothed, Richard, Madeleine, and Arthur seemed to remember I existed at all.

Richard straightened the collar of his white coat and strolled—unhurried, almost theatrical—toward my resuscitation bed. With a sharp yank, he ripped the privacy curtain open.

“Audrey, how long are you going to keep this up? Get up right now and apologize to Chloe—”

His roar cut off mid-syllable.

The bed was empty.

All that remained on the sheet was a dark, sticky pool of blood, already beginning to clot.

My body had been moved—standard protocol. The staff had taken me away.

Richard’s face darkened in an instant, veins bulging at his temples.

“That ungrateful animal!” he snarled. “She hits someone, refuses to admit fault, and now she’s running because she’s scared of consequences!”

Running?

Where exactly was I supposed to run?

I was a cold corpse now, lying in the hospital morgue on sublevel B2.

Madeleine fanned the flames from beside him. “I told you she’d never be grateful. A white-eyed wolf—you raised her and she still bites. Richard, you’ve been far too merciful. She must’ve slipped out because she’s terrified of being held legally responsible!”

“Leave it to me,” Arthur said smoothly. “I’ll send the security team to drag her back. She’s going to kneel at Chloe’s bedside and beg forgiveness.”

Richard, shaking with rage, yanked out his phone and called my number.

“Beep… beep… beep…” Only the mechanical ringback answered him.

That was all it took. Richard’s anger detonated. He screamed into my voicemail, voice cracking with hysteria. “Audrey, you disgusting, poisonous witch! You think hiding means you can dodge responsibility? You sabotaged Chloe’s tour—hell, you even tried to murder her! You don’t deserve to live in this world!”

He paused, inhaled sharply through his nose—like he was fueling himself.

“You have ten minutes to get your ass back to the ER. Otherwise I freeze every account you have, cut you out of the Watson family, and leave you to starve on the street like a stray dog!”

“Dr. Watson.”

A cold, tightly leashed voice sliced through his tirade.

Nurse Emily stood a few feet away, eyes rimmed red, clutching a document so hard her knuckles had gone white.

“What now?” Richard snapped, turning on her. “Can’t you see I’m handling a family matter? Didn’t I tell you to give Audrey a painkiller? Where did you let her run off to? This is gross negligence!”

Emily drew a slow breath. Her voice trembled—not with fear, but with fury. “Dr. Watson, Miss Audrey didn’t run.”

Richard’s lip curled. “Then where is she? Which ward is she pretending to be dead in?”

“She’s in the morgue on sublevel B2.” Emily met his stare head-on, each word deliberate. “Miss Audrey—twenty minutes ago—was pronounced dead. Massive internal trauma. Exsanguination. Resuscitation failed.”

For a heartbeat, the air seemed to freeze solid.

Richard’s face locked into something blank and brittle. His phone slid from his fingers and hit the floor with a hard, ugly crack.

Madeleine’s curse died in her throat. Arthur’s hand, mid-motion as he adjusted his glasses, stalled in the air.

Then, after the briefest, strangled silence, Richard let out a dry, disbelieving laugh.

“Emily,” he said, voice thin with contempt, “have you lost your mind? How much did Audrey pay you to help her pull this ridiculous stunt? A death certificate? You think you can forge a piece of paper and fool me? I’m the chief attending surgeon in this hospital!”

“She’s not dead!” Richard’s control finally snapped. He surged forward like an enraged animal and grabbed Emily by the collar. “She was calling me when she came in! Tell that bitch this won’t work on me. If she doesn’t crawl out here right now, I’ll fire you today!”

Emily didn’t flinch.

She wrenched free and slammed the document—stamped in bright, official red—against Richard’s chest.

“Dr. Watson,” she said, voice shaking with restrained devastation, “you’re one of the best surgeons in the city. Couldn’t you tell she was already fading when she came through those doors?”

“She’s dead. Your biological daughter.” Emily’s eyes burned. “You abandoned her with your own hands, and she died in agony on that table.”

Emily’s voice rose, raw and cracking.

“Are you satisfied now?!”