The color drained from Joel's face:
"Why? Just because I gave Maya the eight hundred thousand?"
Maya's tears spilled like a broken strand of pearls, and she dropped to her knees in front of me with a thud. "I'll give the money back!"
Laurel's expression turned black as ash. She lunged at me, her hands closing around my throat.
"You ungrateful bitch, are you trying to drive my daughter to her death?"
Joel and Maya rushed forward to pry her off.
The air was being crushed out of my lungs. I thrashed on instinct, and in the struggle my stomach slammed into the corner of the bedroom vanity.
"Ah!"
A churning, wrenching pain tore through me.
My body curled inward against it.
Maya clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with horror as she stared at my legs:
"Blood. There's so much blood!"
