“Luca! Luca, what’s wrong with you?”
I stiffened and looked up.
Mariam was holding the little boy, crying and shaking him. His face was deathly pale, his lips blue. He managed in a thin voice, “I… I drank the milk the nanny gave me today. My stomach hurts…”
My thoughts exploded.
Milk?! I had never even touched that child!
At Mariam’s words, her expression changed instantly. She lunged toward me and slapped me across the face.
“Arizona! How could you be so heartless? Because of my mistake, you lost your child back then, and now, you want to poison mine on purpose?!”
“It’s not me!” I screamed, hoarse and frantic.
But no one listened.
Even Charlton’s eyes flashed red. He shoved me away so hard I slammed into the sharp corner of a table. In an instant, pain shot through my waist, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
Everything blurred. I saw only Charlton scoop Luca into his arms and rush toward the hospital doors. Mariam, frail with weeping, stumbled after them.
People around me looked at me with nothing but disgust and contempt.
“Where’s the doctor’s conscience?”
“What a monster…”
They hurried after Charlton’s car. In the confusion, someone pressed a scrap of paper into my palm.