I let out a bitter laugh and dialed Max's number myself. The second the call connected, his impatient voice cut through.

"Are you going to whine about the kids being mistreated at school again? They're my children—who would dare touch a hair on their heads? Stop playing the victim. I sent them there to learn some manners. Was that really worth calling me over and over?"

"Marina Pruitt, you disgust me."

I hadn't said a single word. He'd already hung up.

I'd had the call on speaker. Every word reached my sister-in-law's ears.

Her face went white. Her lips moved, trembling, but no sound came out—as if she no longer knew what to say.

I forced the ghost of a smile onto my face. Tears spilled down my cheeks in heavy, uncontrollable drops.

"Please. I have nothing left. Just let me go. I can't take this anymore."

She opened her mouth to respond, but two police officers were already approaching us.

"Are you the family of the deceased? The staff responsible at the Discipline Academy have been taken into custody. We need your cooperation with the investigation."

The moment I stepped into the police station, I saw them—the men who had come to my home yesterday to take my children.

I lost all reason.

A scream tore from my throat as I lunged at them, clawing, sobbing.

"You animals! You're all animals! They were only five years old! How could you do it?! How dare you?!"

Officers scrambled to pull me back. My sister-in-law wrapped her arms around me, holding my thrashing body tight.

"Marina, please—don't do this, you have to calm down!" Ramona held my trembling body so tightly she was nearly crushing me into her arms. Her tears splashed hot against my back, scalding. "I promise you, the police will handle this properly. Those monsters who hurt the children—every last one of them will pay! The Simmons family won't let this go. Grandfather won't let this go. Louise Pruitt and Zelda Pruitt won't have suffered for nothing. We'll make them pay in blood!"

Her comfort was warm and urgent, but to my ears, it was nothing but bitter irony and despair.

I went limp in her arms, sliding to the floor. My gaze locked onto the men in black uniforms huddled in the corner—them. Yesterday, they had dragged my children into that van with their own hands. They had tortured my five-year-old babies to death.