"Bruno, get him to the car. There's a first-aid kit inside."

Bruno took Thomas under his arm and started toward the exit, but Quinton's bodyguards closed ranks and blocked them solid.

Quinton kept his hands in his pockets, voice dripping with contempt. "Put him down. He belongs to the Harding family. If he dies, he dies under our roof."

"I don't care what kind of stunt you're pulling, Reginald. Take your lowlife crew and get out. Now."

Before I could respond, Vivian, who'd been lying on the hospital bed, suddenly broke into pitiful sobs.

He kicked off the covers and ran barefoot to Quinton's side, latching onto his arm.

"Quinton, please don't blame Reggie. This is all my fault!"

"I shouldn't have gotten sick. I shouldn't have needed Thomas's bone marrow... If Reggie insists on taking him, then just let me die!"

He stood there in an oversized white hospital gown, eyes red and swollen, swaying like he might collapse at any second.

Quinton immediately pulled him close, his glare cutting back to me twice as sharp.

"You hear that, Reginald? Vivian is this kind and selfless, and your so-called brother is that selfish? It's just a little bone marrow. Instead of giving back, he goes running to gangsters to trash our home!"

Irene snapped out of her shock and jabbed a finger in my face, shrieking.

"Where is that ungrateful little animal? We spent twenty years searching for him! We fed him, clothed him, and now that we ask him to repay even a fraction of what this family gave him, he plays dead!"

"Nobody takes him out of here until we've gotten every last drop of marrow we need!"

I looked at this shameless family and laughed. The kind of laugh that comes when fury circles all the way back around to amusement.

"Repay you?"

I stepped forward and raised my hand.

CRACK.

The slap connected flush across Vivian's two-faced mouth. I put everything I had behind it.

Vivian launched off his feet, sailed a good six feet, and slammed into the hospital bed. His lip split on impact, blood streaming down his chin.

"Ahhh! My face!" He clutched his cheek and screamed.

Dead silence.

Quinton's eyes went wide, as if his brain couldn't process that someone had just struck a man on his turf.

"You're dead, Reginald!" Quinton roared and lunged at me.

I raised one foot and drove it straight into his kneecap.