I Worked 18 Years for His Son, He Pushed Me Off a Roof for Her Chapter 04

I Worked 18 Years for His Son, He Pushed Me Off a Roof for Her Chapter 04

I turned and grabbed the casket lid with both hands.

“Don’t!” Arthur and Martha screamed it at the same time.

Arthur wrenched me away from the casket and backhanded me across the mouth.

My lip split on impact. Heat spread across my whole jaw.

Every relative in the room froze.

“It’s a closed casket for a reason! Let him rest!” Arthur’s excuse came fast — almost rehearsed.

“Oh, Clara…”

A frail figure appeared in the doorway — an old woman, blind, leaning on Fiona’s arm as she shuffled into the room.

“I heard what happened. Julian adopted this baby, so that makes him yours too. Just take him, sweetheart.”

She was still in a hospital gown. They’d dragged her straight from her bed.

“Fiona! Why the hell did you bring my grandmother here?!”

I crossed the room in two steps and slapped Fiona across the face.

I grabbed Eleanor’s hands, holding on tight. “Grandma, listen to me — that baby isn’t mine. He’s actually—”

Eleanor’s breath seized. Her face went red, then dark red, her chest heaving without getting any air.

A full-blown asthma attack. Right here, right now. My mind went blank, like someone had pulled the plug.

I lost my parents when I was young. Eleanor was the one who raised me — just her, nobody else.

Losing her was the wound from my last life that never closed.

Not again. Not this time. I would not let her die.

I leaned in close, screaming. “Where’s your inhaler? Grandma, where’s your medicine?!”

She couldn’t answer. The only sound coming from her throat was a thin, wet wheeze.

One shaking hand pointed at Fiona. Her lips kept forming the same words. “The child… the child…”

Fiona had the medicine.

Martha shoved past me and slapped the adoption papers down in front of me.

“You heard her! Even Eleanor wants this! Sign it — now!”

“Bullshit!”

Arthur’s voice dropped — quiet, controlled, and threaded with something ugly. “I’ll send someone to find the medicine. But you sign first. Unless you want Eleanor to be the next tragedy today.”

The threat couldn’t have been louder if he’d screamed it.

They were holding my grandmother hostage to make me sign.

Every muscle in my body shook. My vision blurred with rage I couldn’t swallow.

Eleanor’s face was purple. Her body seized in sharp, involuntary jerks — she was fading.

Fiona screamed. “She’s dying!”

Martha seized my arms, shrieking. “Say yes! Or do you want Eleanor to die right here in front of you — just like Julian?”

Arthur’s hands clamped down on my shoulders from behind. He drove me to my knees.

“I said sign the fucking thing!”

He seized my right hand and forced it toward the paper.

“No!” I thrashed against him, the tendons in my neck pulled tight as wire.

A snap. Clean and sharp.

He broke my index finger.

The scream tore out of me, and every ounce of fight left my body.

He wrapped my broken finger around the pen and dragged my hand across the page.

The doors of the chapel crashed open.

“Police! Nobody move!”

Officers poured in, shoving Arthur and Martha back, pulling me free.

In the chaos, I tore myself free and stumbled toward the bag of quick-set cement I’d stashed by the wall.

“What are you doing?!” Arthur and Martha came at me, wild-eyed.

Tears burned down my face, but I was smiling. I upended the entire bag over the casket, cement pouring into every seam, every crack, and I screamed until my voice shredded.

“Julian, I’m giving you the send-off you deserve. Seal the bastard in and put him in the ground!”