"My family supported your people for nearly a century. Since you've already admitted you're a fraud, I think it's time we settled the accounts."
"And if you refuse to pay..."
He held up his phone, the video I'd recorded hours ago playing on the screen.
"Everyone's going to see this."
"Not just you. Your dead mentor, too. And all those fellow disciples of yours."
I stood there shaking, jaw clenched so tight my teeth ground together.
"I'll pay. After your birthday. I'll pay every cent."
"After my birthday?"
Ian scoffed.
"Who's going to wait that long? You have the debt and you won't pay? You think you can stall me?"
"Ian, I don't have the money. My bank accounts have been frozen—"
"Fine. Since you won't own up to it, don't blame me for what comes next."
His men rushed forward, bound my hands, and shoved me into a car.
At first, I didn't understand where they were taking me.
But when the car turned onto that narrow, winding mountain road, the blood drained from my face.
It was the road to my mother's grave.
Whenever someone in our family was buried, a piece of uncut jade of immeasurable value was placed in the coffin alongside them.
I had told Ian this secret the day we set our wedding date.
Ian dragged me to the foot of my mother's grave.
He waved a hand at the bodyguards behind him.
"Dig it up."
"Ian Delgado, you animal!"
I stumbled toward him, half-running, half-falling over my own feet. But before I could get close, a shovelful of dirt from my mother's grave hit me square in the chest.
A few yards away, Ian waved his phone in the air.
"Clara, you'd better behave yourself. One little slip of my finger, and this video goes live..."
Through the nauseating sounds of Ian and Nadia pawing at each other, I saw my mother's bones.
And there, in the open grave, the burial jade. Fifteen years underground, and it still gleamed like the day it was placed there.
Ian's eyes lit up with greed. He snatched the jade and tucked it inside his coat, then tossed my mother's bones out of the grave one by one, scattering them across the dirt like garbage.
"Ian Delgado, you'll die for this!"
"Whether I die isn't up to you."
Nadia sauntered forward, all languid grace, and seized my chin between her fingers.
"In less than an hour, it'll be Ian's thirtieth birthday. Tonight is when your little scam finally falls apart."
An hour later, I was brought to Ian's birthday gala.