Chapter 3: The Severed Bond
Bradley backed away from the bed, his face contorted in an ugly mixture of panic and desperate rage.
""You think you’ve won, Allison?"" Bradley spat, the veins in his neck bulging as the marshals took his arms. ""You were always the favorite! Dad left you the law firm trust, and left me with a bankrupt dry-cleaning chain! I gave three years of my life changing her bedpans while you lived in a luxury high-rise on Michigan Avenue!""
Allison slowly stood up from her mother’s side, smoothing her navy jacket.
""You didn't change her bedpans, Bradley,"" Allison replied, her voice filled with a heartbreaking, quiet sorrow. ""You hired private health aides with her pension checks and pocketed the difference. You isolated her from her church. You disconnected her home telephone so she couldn't call me when she stopped taking her blood pressure medicine. You treated our mother like an insurance policy waiting to mature.""
Bradley’s eyes dropped, unable to bear the weight of the truth.
""Take him out,"" the marshal ordered.
As Bradley and Dr. Evans were escorted down the third-floor corridor under the stunned gaze of nurses and patients, Allison remained at her mother’s bedside.
She adjusted the warm cotton blanket over Evelyn’s shoulders, feeling the slow, fragile beat of her mother’s pulse beneath her thumb.
Mei Chen quietly approached the bed, holding a secure satellite tablet.
""The private transport ambulance from Johns Hopkins has arrived at the ground bay, Allison,"" Mei said softly. ""Dr. Marcus Thorne and his team of independent cardiologists are ready to admit her to the private restorative care unit in Baltimore.""
Allison looked out the window where the storm was beginning to break over the city, letting in a thin, pale sliver of afternoon light.
May you like
""Let’s take her home, Mei,"" Allison said. ""The wolves have had their day.""
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