His unyielding expression crushed the last of my endurance, and tears slipped down my face.
He had once promised me I would never suffer injustice.
And yet here he was—using my mom’s life as leverage, all for Debbii.
I didn’t answer him. Instead, I pulled out my phone to call my brother.
When Bryson noticed, he didn’t panic. If anything, a trace of pity curved his lips, as though he were watching an insect struggling uselessly in a spider’s web. He simply waited.
I dialed again and again—ten times, twenty—but all I heard was the busy tone.
Behind me, Bryson let out a soft laugh, pitying, almost gentle. He patted my head and murmured, “Stop calling, Hedy. Don’t you see the truth already? From the very first call that didn’t go through, you should’ve guessed, shouldn’t you?”
My face went pale.
The next moment, he answered a call right in front of me, deliberately putting it on speaker.
“Sir,” his assistant’s voice came clearly, “everything has been taken care of. Ma’am Hedy’s brother has been arrested for bribery. I’ve already sent you the video of his current state. But sir… if your wife finds out, will she—”
The assistant hesitated.
Bryson glanced at my ashen face, then replied smoothly, “She won’t say anything. As long as she makes the right choice, everything will return to normal.”
He ended the call, then bent down and brushed a kiss across my cheek.
His soothing tone was just like the bedtime stories he told me before sleeping every night.
For a moment, I nearly faltered, lulled into confusion.
But then his fingers clamped around my chin, forcing my face toward his phone.
“Hedy,” he said softly, “Kenn just sent me something amusing. I think you should see it, too.”
Despite my desperate struggles, he pressed play.
I had already guessed from their words what I might see. Still, when the video lit up, I couldn’t stop the scream that tore from my throat.
There was my brother—the man who had raised me like a father, the one constant in my life—lying on the ground like a beaten dog.
Blood streamed from his body, pooling into a small dark trench. His leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, grotesquely bent. Men surrounded him, kicking, striking, intent on beating him to death right there.
My vision swam red as I stared at Bryson, disbelief shaking every word from me.
“Why? Why would you do this?”