Chapter 5

Natalie's POV

On my third day in the hospital, I placed a call to the prison administration to check on my mother.

The clerk on the line said everything seemed normal, but offhandedly mentioned that someone from high up had been inquiring about her status recently.

My fingers turned numb around the receiver.

Because I refused to take the blame for stealing that watch, Julian wasn't going to let it go.

He wouldn't rage at me directly. He would aim his knife straight at my mother.

I lay in that hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, without sleeping a single wink all night.

The next afternoon, Julian arrived.

He was wearing his pristine white lab coat, carrying a basket of fruit. He set it on the nightstand and pulled up a chair beside my bed.

"How's the leg feeling?" he asked casually, like a doctor checking on an ordinary patient.

I looked at him, my dry lips trembling.

All I could see was my frail mother in prison, and that chilling warning: Someone has been inquiring about her.

I lowered my head, my voice breaking into a whisper. "Julian, I'm begging you. Just this once."

Julian stared at me without speaking.

"Let my mother go," I pleaded, my whole body shaking. "She doesn't know anything. She's suffered enough in there. If you have anger, take it all out on me. Just don't touch her."

Julian leaned back in his chair, studying my pathetic state, and let out a cold smirk.

"Now you know how to beg?" he drawled. "Where was this attitude before? Weren't you so proud, refusing to admit your mistakes?"

My fingernails ripped into the hospital sheets.

"All you have to do is publicly admit you were wrong," Julian said, his voice measured and smooth. "Apologize to Sharon in front of everyone. Confess that you stole her watch and threatened her. The moment you do, I will pull the strings to get your mother approved for medical parole. Deal?"

I lifted my head, meeting his gaze.

"I didn't steal her watch."

"Then my hands are tied." Julian stood up, brushing imaginary dust off his tailored slacks. "Think it over carefully. Whenever you come to your senses, you know where to find me."

He reached the door, pausing with his hand on the handle to cast a cold glance back.

"By the way, your mother isn't young, and her health is failing. Medical parole isn't something that can wait forever."

The door clicked shut.

Tears spilled silently from my eyes, soaking through the coarse pillowcase.

I didn't give in.

I knew that even if I degraded myself and lied, Julian would never actually let my mother go.

He didn't just want an apology. He wanted to break my spine and turn me into his obedient puppet forever.

I couldn't bow.

At six o'clock the following morning, my phone shrieked.

It was the city morgue.

"Miss Vance? We have received your mother's body from the correctional facility. Please come in to identify her."

I held the phone, my brain failing to compute the words.

"What did you say?"

"Your mother passed away last night in the prison infirmary. Cause of death was sudden cardiac arrest."

The phone slipped from my lifeless fingers, crashing onto the linoleum floor.

I sat frozen on the bed, paralyzed.

I don't know how long I sat there like a corpse until a nurse walked in to change my IV. Seeing my white face, she asked what was wrong.

I didn't answer.

I hit the call button, demanded a wheelchair, and insisted on checking myself out AMA for a few days.

The nurse warned me that placing weight on my shattered tibia would ruin any chance of recovery—that I was throwing away my leg.

I looked her in the eye and said, "My mother is dead. I have no one left."

She stopped trying to argue.

I took a taxi straight to the city morgue.

The basement morgue was freezing, the refrigerated air biting straight into my bones.

The attendant pulled back the white sheet, revealing my mother's face.

Her eyes were shut tight. Her skin was an ashen gray, her lips tinged with violet. She was visibly thinner than she had been during our last visit.

I stood beside the stainless-steel slab, staring down at her face. I didn't shed a single tear.

I reached out and touched her cheek.

It was ice cold.

I pulled my trembling hand back, pressing it against my side.

"Mom," I whispered. "I'm here to take you home."

I handled every single arrangement alone.

Cremation, purchasing the urn, organizing the memorial.

No relatives, no friends. Just me in a wheelchair, pushed by a hired orderly, rolling back and forth between the funeral home and the municipal offices.

Everything I could sign sitting down, I signed. Everything else, I coordinated over the phone.

The funeral was set for three days later.

I dialed Julian’s number.

First call: no answer.

Second call: no answer.

Third call, fourth call, tenth call...

I dialed dozens of times. Every single one went straight to voicemail.

I sat in my wheelchair by the entrance of the memorial chapel for six hours.

From two in the afternoon until eight at night. The sun dipped below the horizon, darkness enveloped the cemetery, and the streetlights flickered to life one by one, stretching my shadow long and lonely across the gravel.

Julian never came.

Only later did I learn that during those exact three days, Julian had taken Sharon Hayes to a private island resort down south.

He had turned off his phone so nobody could disturb their vacation.

At eight o'clock, the funeral director walked over to me. "Miss Vance, should we proceed with the service?"

"Proceed," I said evenly.

I stood alone before the small headstone, looking at my mother's portrait, and bowed three times.

Just me, and my mother’s ashes.

After the service, I transferred her ashes from the heavy urn into that tiny blue pouch.

The pale blue cotton, the delicate stitches, the embroidered white lily.

The pouch she had lovingly sewn for me under the dim prison lights.

I pulled the drawstring tight, tucked it into my bag, and held it tightly against my ribs.

Then I rolled out of the cemetery, never looking back.

I didn't cry.

And I never dialed Julian Sterling's number again.