He kicked me aside and turned back to the sofa, wrapping his arm around the woman who'd been watching the show. Isabella Pruitt. Young. Stunning. Looking exactly like I did when I first married Joshua.
Isabella giggled, her body shaking with theatrical laughter. Her voice must have been sweet—I watched Joshua's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.
"Young Master Sawyer, is Big Sister blaming me? Maybe I should leave?"
She made a show of rising. Joshua pressed her back down with one hand, his gaze still fixed on me like a blade.
"Her? Without me, she's a walking corpse. Give her ten times the courage, and she still wouldn't dare blame you."
He jerked his chin toward the door. "Faith, get back to your room. You're an eyesore."
The command in his eyes was clear. *Get out.*
So I stood.
Blood still trickled from my ankle, warm and wet inside my shoe. I forced myself to walk steadily.
I returned to the master bedroom. Once, it had been filled with laughter.
Now, it was an ice cellar.
I closed the door. The world went completely silent.
Well. Not completely.
Inside my head, a high-pitched ringing persisted—like an electric current frying my nerves. A constant reminder.
*I don't have much time left.*
The doctor was right. Without the expensive imported medication provided by Joshua's "Charity Grace Foundation," my lupus would ravage my internal organs within weeks. Combined with the sudden deafness, I was a porcelain doll teetering on a ledge.
I pulled out my phone. A notification from the hospital flashed across the screen.
**[Ms. Delgado, the payment for your next course of treatment has failed. The Sawyer Foundation has suspended funding.]**
Suspended.
In his eyes, my life wasn't even worth the price of the designer handbags Isabella casually demanded.
I didn't reply to the message.
Instead, I walked to the vanity mirror and stared at the woman reflected there.
Pale skin. Hollow eyes. A spirit ground to dust.
*Faith Delgado, you really are pathetic.*
For a man who doesn't love you, you've turned yourself into a ghost.
The door burst open.
Joshua stormed in, the flush on his face betraying the scotch before I could catch a whiff of it. His expression was a volatile cocktail—probing suspicion laced with a flicker of panic he couldn't quite hide.
"Isabella wants bird's nest soup. Go make it."
He barked the order. I read his lips, nodded, and stepped past him without a word.