Chapter 2

Clara, propping herself up, barely able to stand, started flipping through the mountain of debt bills.

She looked at me, lost. "Sylvia, Victor's gone, and now we're drowning in debt. What are we going to do now?"

The more she thought about it, the more upset she got, burying her face in her arms and sobbing at the table.

My heart felt heavy as lead.

I took a deep breath, forcing myself to steady my nerves. "Clara, eat something and get your strength back. We've still got a lot to deal with."

I helped her up, fixed her some oatmeal, and once she'd eaten and looked a bit more like herself, I looked her in the eye and said, "Clara, we should sell the house and car as soon as possible."

Her face was full of worry. "Even if we sell everything, it still won't be enough to pay off the debt."

I clenched my teeth. "I never said we have to pay off the debt."

I led her into the study, where an entire wall was lined with bookshelves, crammed full of every kind of book.

In front of the shelves sat a huge desk, and tucked underneath was Victor's safe.

I punched in the code: my birthday.

The safe swung open, but the gold bars, foreign cash, and jewelry had all vanished.

All that remained were two property deeds and a single car key.

"I saw Victor put gold bars in there so many times. How could it all be gone?" Clara reached into the safe, her hands moving again and again, desperate for anything left behind.

But that wasn't all. I fired up the computer and pulled up the ruthless, soul-crushing evidence for her to see.

Clara froze, her eyes wide, stunned beyond words.

She kept rubbing her eyes, convinced she was seeing things, staring at the screen over and over, unable to accept what was right in front of her.

Her lips trembled uncontrollably, and soon her teeth were chattering so hard that it sounded like they might crack.

"He faked his death?" The words were forced out through her teeth, sharp and strained, almost unrecognizable.

She looked up at me, her eyes red and wild. "Sylvia, did he run off with all the money and dump all the debt on us?"

Before she could finish, she clutched her chest, gasping for breath, and the next moment, she toppled backward.

I caught her as she slid down, and we both collapsed onto the icy floor.

"Victor, you bastard. I wasted all these years raising you!" Clara screamed.

Watching her pound the floor, shattered and desperate, I felt a surge of absurdity, and cold, bone-deep hatred exploded inside me.

My nails dug so deep into my palms that the metallic tang of blood hit my nose before I realized my hands were bleeding.

I helped Clara up. "Clara, since he's already dead, let's make sure he's erased from this world for good."

I drove her to the Department of Public Health to file Victor's death certificate.

Clara had snapped back to herself, jaw clenched as she gripped my arm. "We're selling everything we can."

*****

The day after we got Victor's death certificate sorted through a friend, we were jolted awake at dawn by someone pounding on the door.

"Open up. Sylvia, Clara, pay up!" Brian and his crew were outside, hammering the door like maniacs.

Clara was already awake, rushing into my room and grabbing my sleeve, her hands trembling.

I patted her hand. "Stay calm. Say what we rehearsed."

I took a deep breath and went to open the door.

Brian stood there with a bunch of big guys, all gripping clubs.

They looked like they'd trash the place if we didn't pay.

"Time's up. Pay up." He was yelling at us, not bothering to hide his rage.

Clara shrank behind me, shaking all over.

"Mr. Graves, please, a few more days. The amount is huge, and we really can't scrape it together right now." I swallowed my fear, trying to keep my voice from shaking. "Seven days.

"We admit we owe you, but selling the house and car isn't instant. Please, seven days."

Brian sized us up, his eyes cold and calculating.

Clara and I huddled together. To him, we were two terrified women.

He stroked his chin, thought for a bit, then snorted and tossed out a threat.

"Fine, seven days. If you pull any tricks..." He swung his club, smashed a pot to make his point, and stormed off.

As soon as they left, Clara slumped to the floor.

I grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look me in the eye. "Clara, if we don't toughen up, we're done for. If we want to survive, we have to be colder than Victor.

"No matter how much you hate him now, it won't change what's happened."

She stared at the burning hatred and resolve in my eyes, and the despair and fear buried deep inside her were replaced by raw survival instinct.

Her gaze turned steely. She grabbed my hand. "Sylvia, you're right. We're not just surviving. We're going to live a hundred, a thousand times better than Victor."

We didn't waste another second. We quickly took stock of everything we had.

Aside from the two houses, the cars, some gold and silver jewelry that Clara and I owned, and a few antiques left by my father-in-law, everything else had already been taken by Victor.

I called in a trusted middleman to come over and appraise the antiques and jewelry.

He showed up the same day and went through everything with a fine-tooth comb.

With an awkward look, he said, "Sylvia, Clara." He pointed at a few porcelain vases and a couple of expensive gold pieces. "These, and this one.

"They're so well-made that you'd almost mistake them for the real thing, but they're still fakes, not worth much. But at least half of it is real."

Our hopes were crushed.

That 'half' only referred to the number, not the value.

If those fakes were real, they'd easily be worth millions. But as knockoffs, they were only worth a few thousand dollars at most.

"I raised him all these years, and he still screwed over his own mother." Clara seemed completely drained, her voice barely a whisper, her eyes full of the pain of betrayal.

"If you hate him, don't let him get away with it." I grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at me. "Face it, Clara. He left us with nothing. We have to rely on ourselves now."

She nodded, this time with a newfound resolve. "Alright."