A chorus of piercing laughter erupted around me.
Jarvis looked thoroughly pleased.
"There we go. Now that you've got me for a father, you don't need this worthless little ashes pendant anymore, do you?"
He flung the pendant across the room.
After shooting me one last vicious look, he spoke softly into his phone.
"Cut the old woman's oxygen line."
"No...!"
I stumbled and crawled toward him, desperate to snatch the phone from his hand.
But it was already too late.
On the surveillance feed, every piece of medical equipment flashed red simultaneously, shrieking with piercing alarms.
Nurses flooded into the room in a frenzy.
But my foster mother's heart monitor had already flatlined.
"You animal! Jarvis, you'll burn in hell for this...!"
Jarvis sneered and backhanded me across the face.
"Burn in hell?"
"Let me tell you something, Arthur. I'm the young master of the Farley family. That's my golden ticket. Untouchable."
He wrapped his arm around Tamara's slender waist, eyes brimming with triumph, and walked out.
I swallowed my tears, and a cold laugh rose from somewhere deep inside me.
In less than two hours, that golden ticket would change hands.
They had barely stepped outside when Tamara doubled back.