“Your brother won’t need tutoring anymore. If he can’t study, he’ll go work. We’ll all sell our blood together, for you, just for you. If you want to study, we won’t stop you.”
She began to sob quietly, smearing her rough, dark hands across her face.
Then suddenly, Daniel charged at me in fury and struck me across the face with a hard slap.
“You want to kill us all? Destroy this family? How can you be so selfish, so shameless?”
My head snapped to the side, my body nearly collapsing.
My ears buzzed, and when I regained my senses, Margaret’s crying filled them.
“Your dad fell! Aren’t you going to help him? I already agreed to let you study, and you still had to upset your father. Now look what’s happened—your dad fell again. What are we supposed to do now?”
On the floor, Daniel glared at me with venomous eyes.
Before I could speak, my brother stormed out of his room. Without a word, he punched me straight in the face.
“You dare hurt my parents? I’ll fight you to the end!”
At nearly six feet tall, Ryan Carter pinned me to the ground, throwing punches at my head again and again.
I was powerless, the only thing reaching me was his voice, his curses, echoing over and over.