On the screen, the hand actually switched off the ventilator.
My grandmother's body seized violently, convulsing on the bed. The heart monitor shrieked with alarms.
"No! Please, no!" Tears poured down my face. Every wall inside me shattered at once.
"I'm begging you, leave her alone! I'll sign! Whatever you want me to sign, I'll sign it!"
Tamara smiled, satisfied, and spoke into the phone. "Stand down for now."
She casually picked up a cup of dirty water that had been used to wipe down tables and poured it onto the carpet in front of me.
"You want your grandmother to live? Sure."
"In a civilized society, it's survival of the fittest. The world doesn't need superstitious old deadweight like her."
Tamara pointed at the puddle of filthy water on the floor. "But lucky for you, I'm a generous person."
"Get on your knees right now. Lick that clean. Then sign the papers. And maybe, just maybe, I'll be merciful enough to let her live one more night."
The office was deathly silent.
Robin Lambert and the others wore expressions of barely concealed anguish, but with the bodyguards standing watch, none of them dared make a 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 dirt, trampled underfoot along with the grime.
But I couldn't let Grandma die. She was the only family I had left in this world.
Through the haze of despair, my eyes burning red, I fixed my gaze on Bertram, who stood off to the side without so much as a flicker of emotion.
"Mr. 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 wanted to jump off that ledge, I was the one who pulled you back."
"You knelt before the shrine and swore a sacred oath that you'd care for my grandmother like she was your own. You can't do this!"
At the words "sacred oath," Bertram's eye twitched.
But instead of stopping Tamara, he took a step back in disgust and slid his arm around her waist.
"Philippa, don't blame me for being heartless. Tamara's right to do this."
"You've always been too stubborn for your own good. If I don't teach you a bloody lesson, how am I supposed to run this company?"
"You believe in all that spiritual nonsense so much? Why don't you pray for your precious gods to come down and save that old hag?"