"Dean, if you lay a finger on my grandmother, I'll kill you!"
A fist slammed into my face. Stars exploded behind my eyes.
"Shut your mouth, you worthless nobody." Dean grabbed a fistful of my hair and wrenched my head up, forcing me to watch the screen. "Here's something you didn't know. Yesterday, I used the money you earned to buy that nursing home."
"Your grandmother's life is in my hands now. One word from me, and they pull the plug."
On the screen, the hand actually switched off the ventilator.
My grandmother's body seized violently. The heart monitor shrieked, its alarm piercing through the phone's tiny speaker.
"No! No, stop!" I fought to hold back the tears, but every wall inside me had already crumbled.
"Please. Don't hurt her. I'll sign. Whatever you want me to sign, I'll do it."
Dean smiled, satisfied. He spoke into the phone: "Hold off for now."
Then he casually picked up a cup of dirty water that had been sitting beside the cleaning supplies and poured it onto the carpet in front of me.
"You want your grandma to live? Sure."
"See, in a modern, rational society, it's survival of the fittest. Nobody needs superstitious old deadweight like her."
He pointed at the puddle of filthy water on the floor. "But hey, I'm a generous guy."
"Get on your knees right now. Lick that clean. Then sign the papers. And maybe, out of the goodness of my heart, I'll let her live one more night."
The room went deathly silent.
Manager Lambert and the others wore expressions of barely concealed anguish, but with the bodyguards standing right there, none of them dared to move.
All they could do was bury their heads a little lower.
I lay sprawled on the floor, trembling from head to toe.
My dignity had been ground into the mud beneath their feet.
But I couldn't let my grandmother die. She was the only family I had left in this world.
In the depths of my despair, I lifted my bloodshot eyes and fixed them on Beverly, who stood off to the side, utterly unmoved.
"Ms. Delgado." My voice shook so badly it barely sounded like my own. "You can fire me. You can dock my pay."
"But when you went bankrupt and tried to jump off that building, I was the one who pulled you back."
"You knelt before the Patron Saint and swore a sacred oath that you would care for my grandmother like your own. You can't do this!"
At the words "sacred oath," the corner of Beverly's eye twitched.