Chapter 3 - THE BLACKMAIL
Sarah looked incredibly small in the hospital bed, surrounded by monitors and IV lines. Her head was wrapped in thick white bandages. When Mia saw her, she started to cry softly, burying her face in my leg.
Sarah’s eyes fluttered open. She looked at Mia, a weak smile touching her lips, and then she looked at me.
"You stayed," she whispered, her voice raspy from the breathing tube they had just removed.
"I'm never leaving again," I said, sitting in the chair beside her bed. "Sarah, you have to tell me. What did my mother do?"
Tears pooled in Sarah’s eyes, spilling onto the white pillowcase. "Six years ago... the week of the wedding. My dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. His insurance denied the experimental treatment."
I remembered that. We were frantic, trying to figure out how to pay for it.
"Your mother came to my apartment," Sarah cried softly. "She had a briefcase full of cash. Two hundred thousand dollars. Exactly what the clinic needed. But she didn't just offer it as a gift."
My blood ran cold. "What were her terms?"
"She told me that if I married you, she would use her connections on the hospital board to ensure my father was blacklisted from every clinical trial in the state. She had the paperwork to prove she could do it." Sarah choked on a sob. "But if I left you... if I disappeared without a word and broke your heart... she would pay for the treatment. She said she was saving you from a life of mediocrity."
My mother had held a dying man’s life hostage to control her son's marriage.
"I found out I was pregnant two weeks after I left," Sarah whispered. "I tried to call you. But your mother answered your phone. She said if I ever came near you, she would hire lawyers to take my baby away and throw me in jail for extortion."
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"I never got those calls," I said, my heart shattering into a million pieces. "She intercepted them."
"Marcus," Sarah panicked, trying to sit up. "She found us last week. She found out about Mia. She was trying to evict me from my apartment, trying to force me out of the state. That’s why we were in the car today. We were running."
