Chapter 3

After a morning of arrangements, I got home and was about to lie down for a nap when Julian burst in and slapped me across the face.

"Chloe's crying so hard she can barely breathe. Her parents just came out of the ICU, and you go and file suit against them at the courthouse? Do you have any humanity in you at all?"

I cupped my burning cheek and gave a cold laugh.

"They're still alive, aren't they? You gave them the last of the antivenom, didn't you? The people their snakes killed are still lying in ice caskets — they'd be turning in their graves."

Julian's eyes flickered. He craned his neck and shouted back at me.

"That antivenom belongs to my company. I give it to whoever I want to give it to! Your parents were crazy to go on a picnic in the first place. If they got bitten to death, that's just their luck."

"Chloe's parents are being dragged in for police questioning at the hospital already, because of you. Your family is already dead. Can't you show a little mercy to the living?"

"Maybe your parents dying like that is karma for how vicious you are!"

The more he spoke, the more righteous he sounded.

"They're elderly people. How can you have the heart to send them to prison? It's not like they meant to do it!"

"Maybe this was the karma your parents had coming. If not by snakebite, then by something else."

"Now your family's gone. From here on out, I'm the only one you can rely on. Don't bite the hand that's offering to feed you."

Seeing that my expression didn't soften in the slightest, Julian eased his tone.

"Sera, I know you're hurting. But the dead can't come back. The living have to go on."

"Chloe's a kind soul. She's willing to pay you fifty thousand dollars. I'll top it up — one million total. That's enough, right?"

He said it so casually. As if he were discussing the weather.

Five human lives, worth one million dollars in their eyes.

Julian was Richard and Margaret's only son, indulged from the day he was born.

Thinking of the moment he'd pull open the ice casket and see his parents' faces —

I actually laughed out loud.

"What are you laughing at?" Julian frowned. "Cut the crazy act. Just say what you want to say."

"All right." I wiped away the tears at the corners of my eyes and held up my mobile banking app in front of him. "Transfer it."

Chase Zelle notification: $1,000,000.00 received.

Chloe put in fifty thousand. The nine hundred and fifty thousand Julian added on top of that was probably every last dollar of liquid cash Vance Biotech had on its books.

Once he saw I'd accepted the money, Julian's expression turned smug.

"I'll be honest with you. This morning I went to the DA as your next of kin and filed a victim impact statement withdrawal. Charges against Chloe's parents have been dropped."

"You should be thanking Chloe for having a soft heart. Otherwise you wouldn't have gotten a dime of that million. Go call the cops yourself about the bag. Tell them you filed a false report. Stop bothering Chloe."

I laughed coldly. From the drawer, I pulled out the divorce petition Mr. Whitmore had drafted first thing that morning and tossed it in front of Julian.

"Sign it. Return the bag. We're square. Otherwise, I'll be adding you as a defendant."

"You want to divorce me over this?"

Fury rose across Julian's face.

He couldn't bear to give up the Hale family connections. But then it hit him — they were all dead. What connections were left?

Besides, Chloe had cried on his shoulder last night, saying she needed someone to lean on.

He gritted his teeth and scrawled Julian Vance in the signature block.

Then he tossed the agreement back at me and turned to leave.

I called him back.

I read the signature from top to bottom, verifying every letter.

Only then did I speak, calm and unhurried.

"Julian. We're getting divorced, but California requires a six-month mandatory waiting period. For old times' sake…"

"Let's go to your company together. See Mom and Dad one last time."

"I already did what you said. I sent them to your office to be donated to the body-donation program."

Hearing that I'd delivered them to the company, Julian's icy expression finally thawed a little.

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