Marcus looked at me. "Go. Sophia is giving you a chance—don't be ungrateful. Perfect time to get your feel back. Stop touching that worthless scrap metal all day and making your hands rough."
I sat in the shadows and didn't move.
His face darkened. He strode over and grabbed my wrist. "What are you still throwing a tantrum about? With this many people watching, do you want to humiliate Sophia?"
He squeezed hard—right where the bones had broken.
"I'm not going."
"You don't get to decide."
He dragged me up from my seat and shoved me toward the stage. "Play. If you don't play well today, I'll bulldoze your crappy repair shop flat."
I stumbled onto the stage.
The lights were blinding.
In front of me sat that familiar set of black-and-white keys.
Sophia stood by the piano, smiling.
Trembling, I reached out my right hand.
Under the lights, my hand was fully exposed.
A collective gasp rose from the audience.
"Oh my God, what happened to her hand?"
"That's horrifying—it looks like it was broken…"
Marcus stood below, frowning. "What are you spacing out for? Play!"
I placed my fingers on the keys.
Since you all want to hear it.
I pressed down.
Clang—
Noise.
My fingers couldn't bend, couldn't exert any strength. The instant I pressed down, sharp pain shot through me, and I ended up mashing a whole cluster of keys.
The room went dead silent.
Sophia covered her mouth in exaggerated alarm. "Alex, what's wrong with you? Did you do that on purpose? If you didn't want to help me, you could have just said so—why did you have to ruin my performance?"
"Mr. Abbott, we... we found something on the hillside behind the Abbott family estate..."
"Found what?"
The assistant's voice trembled.
"It's a grave... The tombstone has the child's name on it... She, she..."
It was like a bomb went off in Marcus Abbott's head.
He slowly looked at me.
I supported myself against the doorframe, laughed silently, and tears streamed down my face.
"Marcus Abbott, Lily is dead."
"She died five years ago, that snowy night..."
"Do you still remember where you were that night?"
Marcus Abbott's face turned deathly pale.
"I was sleeping... with Sophia Pruitt."
That sentence fell like a huge rock, crashing into dead silence.
Marcus’s face darkened.
He stormed onto the stage, seized my shoulder, and hurled me aside.
“Alex! You’re a lunatic! You just can’t stand seeing Sophia doing well, can you?”