I Worked 18 Years for His Son, He Pushed Me Off a Roof for Her Chapter 06

I Worked 18 Years for His Son, He Pushed Me Off a Roof for Her Chapter 06

Eleanor’s doctor knew me. I’d told him more than once — I was her only living family. Nothing happened to her unless I was there.

The second Eleanor vanished from her bed, he knew something was wrong. He called the police himself and followed them to the service. Nobody expected to walk into the circus Julian had staged.

“Walk us through it.” The officer tapped his pen against the desk, eyes locked on Julian, who had only just come around.

He’d been out cold until a shot of adrenaline brought him back around. Now he sat across from the officer, still dressed in his burial suit, shaking in the chair. There was no way to make it look less absurd.

His eyes slid toward me. A full-body flinch. Then he turned back to the officer and forced the words out. “It’s — it’s a misunderstanding, officer. I passed out at the construction site. My parents must have panicked and thought I was dead, so they — they arranged the funeral.”

He tried a smile — thin, desperate. “Who would’ve thought I’d just… wake up, right? The brain’s a weird thing. Stuff like this happens, right, officer…”

Julian shot a look at his parents. Martha jumped in right on cue. “He’s right — you think we’d fake something like this? He went into shock when they brought him home. We thought we’d lost him, so we…”

She trailed off. Even she couldn’t make it sound believable. Next to her, Arthur had his face buried in his hands — he couldn’t stomach hearing his own wife try.

The relatives who’d come with us watched, their faces hardening. “Enough!” The officer’s palm cracked against the desk. “You sit there and lie to my face like I’m an idiot?”

He jabbed a finger at Julian. “Take a good look at your son. Does that man look like someone who just had rebar go through his skull? He doesn’t have a scratch on his head.”

“And we already pulled the hospital’s maternity records. That baby is registered as your son’s biological child with Fiona, and he has acute leukemia. You want to tell me you didn’t know any of this?”

Every drop of color left Martha’s face. She shook her head — fast, jerky, nonstop.

“I didn’t… that child isn’t…”

“I’d think very carefully about what you say next.” The officer’s gaze swept across Julian, Martha, Arthur, and Fiona huddled at the end of the table.

“Everything you say is going on the record. The hospital records, the evidence — it’s all coming in. If you keep lying, you’re only making it worse for yourselves. Last chance.”

Fiona broke first — one scream, and then she folded forward, sobbing into her hands. Julian’s jaw worked for a second, something vicious twisting behind his eyes, before he broke.

“I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything!” He was shaking. “The baby… he’s mine. Mine and Fiona’s. He was diagnosed with leukemia the day he was born. We couldn’t — we didn’t have the money to treat him, so we… so…”

I finished it for him. “So the whole family got together with Fiona and cooked up this little funeral. Fake your death, guilt-trip the wife, and dump the sick kid on me to raise.”

“Brilliant plan, Julian. The life savings you ‘gifted’ me went straight to Fiona. I funded your entire lifestyle — I quietly covered the astronomical mortgage and the car payments while you barely chipped in. So tell me — what exactly did I do to you that was so terrible you had to do this to me?”

Julian’s face went dark, veins standing out in his neck. “That! That right there — that’s what I can’t stand about you!”

“So you make a little more money than me — so what? I still played you for years and you never figured it out! And if you could’ve given me a child, I wouldn’t have needed Fiona in the first place — stupid as she is!”