"Julie IS the priority!" He spat the words, scooped Julie into his arms, and strode away, dragging me several feet before I lost my grip.
Within minutes, every medical professional was pulled from the operating room by force.
I scrambled to block them, begging every bodyguard who passed. "No! Please, let them stay. Save my grandmother..."
They shoved me aside. I fell and got up, fell and got up, until I had nothing left.
Behind me, the heart monitor inside the operating room began to accelerate. I stumbled to my grandmother's bedside. Her chest rose and fell in labored, shallow gasps. A grayish pallor was creeping from her fingertips inward.
"No, Grandma, no!" I screamed toward the corridor. "Help! Can someone please save my grandmother!"
No one answered.
"Grandma, what do I do..." I clutched her hand, helpless, feeling her life drain away through my fingers.
The monitor beeped faster and faster until, after one thin, broken breath rattled from her throat, it flatlined into a single, endless wail.
Grandma was gone.
The last person in this world who loved me had been taken from me too.
I didn't know how long I sat there before murmured voices drifted down the corridor.
"They pulled every doctor in the hospital over there, and it turned out to be nothing!"
"It wasn't even morning sickness. But Mr. Stephens still demanded an explanation..."
So Julie had tossed out a casual complaint about feeling dizzy, and he'd severed my grandmother's lifeline without blinking.
That was the truth behind my grandmother's senseless death.
Tears streamed down my face. I gripped her hand tighter and made a silent vow. Grandma, I will make him pay the most devastating price imaginable.
A nurse appeared in the doorway and fell silent. After a moment, she brought a clean white sheet and draped it gently over my grandmother.
I refused to let go, clinging to her hand as if holding on could somehow keep her here.
When that kind, ashen face finally disappeared beneath the white cloth, the grief I'd been holding back broke through. The whimper in my throat tore open into wrenching, gut-deep sobs.
Only after every tear had been spent did I release her hand, pull out my phone, and dial Joseph's number.
"Grandma is gone." My voice was shattered, but steady as steel. "Have the contracts ready. I'm going to destroy Stephens Corp. I won't leave him a single cent."