My Family Saved Their Adopted Daughter First, Then I Died Before Their Eyes Chapter 09

My Family Saved Their Adopted Daughter First, Then I Died Before Their Eyes Chapter 09

Richard suddenly charged at Lily and slapped her hard across the face.

Lily slammed into the wall, clutching her rapidly swelling cheek.

“Why did you sabotage the gondola?” Richard roared. “Why did you want Claire dead so badly?”

Lily slowly pushed herself upright against the wall.

At last, she stopped crying.

“Because as long as she was alive, I would always be the adopted one. You kept saying you loved me, but

she was your biological daughter. Her name was on the property records, the trust documents, and the inheritance paperwork. Every day, I had to wonder whether you would eventually choose her over me.”

She pointed at the three of them, the corner of her mouth lifting as every trace of her earlier innocence

vanished.

“With her dead, I’m your only daughter. In the end, everything will belong to me.”

Richard opened his mouth to argue, but his breathing turned too ragged for him to form a complete

sentence.

Then he lost consciousness and collapsed backward onto the floor.

Two officers immediately stepped forward and put Lily in handcuffs.

Detective Harris said, “Lily Bennett, you’re under arrest on suspicion of intentionally sabotaging an amusement ride, endangering public safety, and murder.”

As Lily was led away, she kept screaming, “I’m adopted! You owe me a family! You can’t do this to me!”

Ethan leaned against the wall, his shoulders sagging as though he no longer had the strength to stand

upright.

Dr. Patel, the head of hematology, walked in just then and threw a stack of phone records in front of him.

“Look carefully, Dr. Bennett. Claire called you sixteen times the day she was diagnosed. You didn’t answer a single one. Later, she came into my office and asked me not to contact you directly. She said the ER was already busy enough and she didn’t want to put any more pressure on you. Today, she was brought back here, and you locked away the blood that could have saved her for someone who wasn’t even injured.”

Dr. Patel looked at Ethan’s white coat.

“The hospital has opened a root–cause investigation and reported the matter to the state medical board. Your clinical privileges are suspended effective immediately. Whether you keep your license will be up to the

board. But from this moment on, you’re not permitted to treat any patients.”

Ethan slowly slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor.

The records of sixteen unanswered calls lay scattered across the floor.

Every one of them had been another time I reached out to him.

He raised his hand and struck his own face again and again, harder each time, until the corner of his mouth

split open.

“I refused to listen. I’m the one who killed her.”

He crawled to the bedside and pressed a blood bag against my cold wrist.

“Claire, the blood is here. Open your eyes. I’ll transfuse you right now.”

He squeezed the transfusion line over and over, but my circulation had already stopped.

The blood in that bag could never enter my body again.