Chapter 4
I made no effort to hide my crimes. The bottle of pills was left casually on the table, right where they could see it.
When the police finished their investigation, every piece of evidence pointed squarely at me.
Outside, the voices of the crowd grew louder. The officers turned their stares on me, their eyes filled with a rage that spoke of a desire for immediate justice.
“What was your motive?” one officer barked, his tone sharp and cutting.
“Why would you do this? They were your parents! And your daughter–she was only a month old! How could you?”
Before I could answer, the drugs in my system began to wear off. Pain flooded my body, so intense that I collapsed to the floor, curling into myself as cold sweat soaked my forehead.
The officer closest to me stepped forward and nudged me with his boot, his voice laced with suspicion.
“Don’t you dare play games with us! I’m warning you–don’t try to act your way out of this. The evidence is clear, so you’d better start talking!”
Just then, someone from the search team walked over, holding a piece of paper.
“She’s in the late stages of bone cancer,” he announced flatly.
The room fell silent. The officers exchanged uneasy glances.
One of them finally broke the quiet, his voice full of contempt.
“So what? Cancer doesn’t give you the right to kill your parents and your child!”
“Exactly! She’s dying anyway–just put her on death row until she drops. No way should she get to die peacefully!”
“Killers deserve to pay the price, and someone who could do this to their own family is worse than a
I forced myself to breathe through the pain, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m guilty. I’ve never denied what I’ve done. I’ll confess everything–including my motive. But there’s one condition: I need to see Ethan Miller first.”
The words had barely left my lips when a young officer lunged toward me, fury etched into every
line of his face.
“You’ve got some nerve, you piece of trash! You’re the murderer here! You don’t get to make
demands!”
The lead investigator quickly stepped in, pulling him back.
“Let’s hear her out. She doesn’t seem mentally unstable, and she didn’t try to run. If she’s willing to talk, her motive is probably more complicated than it looks.”
“An entire family wiped out in one night. This has revenge written all over it.”
I looked at him and gave a faint nod of approval. He wasn’t wrong.
This wasn’t just murder. It was retribution–years in the making.
Hearing him agree to my request, I finally allowed myself to relax. The pain overtook me, and I blacked out completely.
In the darkness of my mind, memories of my childhood played like an old home movie.
I saw myself in a tiny walker, my dad laughing as he followed behind me. My mom held a fluffy
pink cotton candy in her hand, waving me over.
We looked like the perfect family, as if we had stepped straight out of a fairy tale.
But then, the story took a dark turn.
My mom’s face hardened, her voice cold and detached.
“Sick is sick, What’s the big deal? There’s no need for a hospital. I’ll find a doctor to come to t
house.”
I heard my own voice, small and trembling-
“Mom… do you not love me anymore?”
“Mom… it hurts so much.”
fom… why did everything change after I got married?”
940
A sudden splash of freezing water shocked me back to reality.
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on a hospital gurney in a dimly lit hallway.
An officer stood over me, pointing toward a room down the corridor. His tone was sharp, almost
cruel.
“Ethan’s in there. Take a good look at what you’ve done to him!”
“He hasn’t woken up yet. How do you expect him to talk to you? You’ve seen him now, so spill it. What’s your motive?”
I dragged myself to the glass window of the ICU, each step feeling like a marathon.
Through the glass, I saw Ethan lying pale and motionless, tubes and wires keeping him alive.
I shook my head slowly.
“I’ll only tell Ethan. If you hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve finished the job back at the house.”
The officer’s face turned bright red with anger, his fists clenched. It was clear he was barely holding himself back from dragging me away then and there.
I knew the scale of my crime–this wasn’t the kind of thing that happened every day. Their decision to humor me at all had already come with massive
pressure.
With the media swarming outside and public outrage boiling over, their patience wouldn’t last long.
Just as the officer raised his voice to argue, his superior intervened.
“Ask the doctor when he’ll wake up–or if there’s a way to speed it up.
As if the universe pitied me, Ethan’s eyelids fluttered open before anyone could leave the room
The door to his room creaked open, and his head turned toward the sound. The moment his eyes met mine, they burned with a hatred so fierce it could have cut through steel.
“Grace,” he hissed. “You killed my parents? Are you out of your damn mind?”
“They loved you. They adored you. How could you do this to them?”
He tried to lunge at me, but with no legs to carry him, he collapsed to the floor in a heap.
Watching his helpless, broken body, I felt something inside me finally click into place. A rush of
Blond Ties, Broken Hands
satisfaction surged through me.
Tears spilled from my eyes, but my lips twisted into a smile. I laughed–hard, uncontrollably, until it
echoed through the room.
“Ethan.” I said, my voice low and steady, “exactly what role do you think gives you the right to say
that to me?”