Chapter 5

Amira Osborne POV:

They appeared at my mother's funeral.

Carter and Francine walked into the quiet, somber chapel as if they held every right to be there. Francine, in a ridiculously flamboyant black hat, had the audacity to approach me, her face arranged into a mask of sorrow.

"Amira, I am so, so sorry for your loss," she murmured, placing a hand on my arm.

The touch felt like a hot brand. I recoiled, my voice dripping with ice. "I hope you die screaming, Francine."

Her smile faltered for a second. Carter stepped forward, his face tight with disapproval. "Amira, that is enough. Have some class."

"Class?" I laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "You wish to speak of class, after what you two have done?"

"Francine was just being her usual, blunt self. You are too sensitive," he said, dismissing my pain with a wave of his hand.

"Get out," I said, my voice low and shaking with a rage that vibrated through my entire body. "Both of you. Get out of my mother's funeral."

He had the nerve to look offended. "I am going nowhere. Edie was to be my mother-in-law. I have a right to be here." He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a threatening whisper. "And if you continue to make a scene, I promise you, there will be no wedding to concern yourself with at all."

My eyes burned. I was about to tell him I did not give a damn for the wedding, for him, for any of it. I was about to unleash the plan that had been forming in the back of my mind, the escape route Arjun had offered me.

But I never got the chance.

Francine let out a sudden, theatrical shriek. She stumbled backward, colliding with the small table that held my mother's portrait and her urn.

Time seemed to thicken, to slow to a crawl. I watched in horror as the table tipped, as the urn containing my mother's ashes tumbled through the air, as her smiling face in the photograph met the marble floor.

The urn did not shatter so much as burst, a soft, percussive sound like a clod of dry earth being struck. My mother's ashes, a fine, pale grey dust, mingled with the shards of pottery and bloomed in a small, tragic cloud before settling on the cold, unforgiving stone.

A strangled cry escaped my lips. "Mom!"

I fell to my knees, scrambling to scoop up what was left of her, my fingers digging into the gritty dust, tears blurring my vision until the world was nothing but a smear of black and grey.

Francine just stood there, a hand pressed to her mouth in a mockery of shock. She did not move to help.

Carter, held back by Francine's grip on his arm, did not move either. "Do not go near it, darling," I heard her whisper to him. "It is bad luck."

He listened to her. He actually listened.

Instead of helping me, he took the small brass basin used for burning memorial papers, strode over to the mess, and began sweeping my mother's remains into it with a dustpan. Then, he walked out of the chapel and emptied the entire thing-ashes, pottery shards, and all-into the nearest public trash receptacle.

I watched him, my mind unable to process the sheer, methodical cruelty of the act. He moved with a kind of brisk efficiency, as if he were merely tidying up a minor spill.

My voice came out as a strangled whisper, filled with more venom than I knew I possessed. "You are nothing but her pathetic little dog."

His head snapped toward me. And then he did something I never, ever thought him capable of.

He slapped me.

The heat of his palm had not yet registered on my cheek when the sound of it-a flat, ugly crack-reverberated through the chapel. The mourners' faces blurred into indistinct ovals of shock. A high-pitched ringing began in my left ear, and I could taste the faint, coppery tang of blood on my tongue. The warmth he had left on my skin felt like a burn from ice, and I looked at him, at this man I had once believed would protect me, and for the first time, I understood that the most grievous weapons are often held in the hands of those we have loved.

He had a moment of panic, of regret in his eyes, but it was swiftly extinguished by a cold defensiveness. "There were embers in the basin," he said, his voice loud enough for everyone to hear. "It could have started a fire. I was protecting everyone."

In that moment, I saw with a terrible, final clarity. There was nothing left to save.