Anthony had not only surprised Rylee, but also Sally, who froze with narrowed eyes and a pursed lip.
Anthony’s calm voice deduced, “The whole thing is illogical. The incident happened at my house, but what was Ms. Lorraine doing there in the middle of the night? If my wife really intended to hurt her, why would she use such an obvious method? Moreover, when I arrived at the scene, the knife was in Ms. Lorraine’s hands.”
Smack! Rylee’s palm landed on his cheek. Her eyes were no longer moistened with tears. She shook her head incredulously at him and roared, “Anthony. How could you do this to me? How could you do this?”
“With all due respect, sirs, let us resolve this matter privately.” Zachary finally broke his silence. He declared to the policemen, “I’m the victim’s father. Rest assured, I’ll get to the bottom of this, so we’ll take this matter off of your hands now.”
Conflicted emotions crashed like furious waves in Cameron’s eyes. She looked at me and nodded before explaining to the police, “Thank you for making the trip down here. I apologize for any inconvenience caused, but we’ll handle it privately from here.”
Rylee stiffened like a corpse, she gawked at the two in disbelief. Even Sally, Jared, and Joe froze at the scene before them. They watched the Moores with bewilderment.
“Mom, Dad. What are you saying? I’m your daughter! How can you do this to me?” Anger and sorrow crackled in Rylee. She yanked at the hem of Cameron’s sleeve and wailed, “You told me that I’m untouchable. And if anyone dared to hurt me, you said you’d make their lives a living hell. Mom, don’t you remember?”
A confused sorrow flashed in Cameron’s eyes. She held a firm grip on Rylee’s hand whilst looking to her husband for advice on what to do.
Zachary’s head spun to face the policemen. His voice deepened with simmering anger, “You may leave now, sirs. We’ll settle this on our own.”
The two policemen nodded their heads immediately in relief, unkeen on handling this messy case. “Alright, then we’ll leave you to it.”
Once they left, Rylee threw a fiery fit. She stared down every single one of us in the room. Her eyes blurred with a terrifying rage as she shoved everything on the bedside table onto the ground.
A sharp, piercing scream came from her lips. “Get out! All of you, get out! Liars. Murderers. You’re all a bunch of liars!”
Anthony eyed her gloomily. “Name what you want, and I’ll do my best to meet your conditions.”
At this, a toothy smile crept on Rylee’s face. She looked unhinged as her face darkened into a hideous shade of brownish red. She raised a finger at me and howled, “What do I want? I want her dead, I want her gone from this world. Can you do that for me?”
Anthony frowned, his expression grew furiously colder. “There are limits to everything, Rylee.”
Rylee’s head lowered. Although her expression was hidden, her shoulders started to rattle murderously. A peal of vile laughter laced in her voice. “Great. Just peachy! You’re all siding with her huh? Every single one of you is taking her side and defending her. How peachy!”
She raised a questioning brow at everyone in the ward. Empty laughter cackled from her lips. “I’m the victim! I got stabbed for no reason, yet you’re all so cold-blooded to me. You asked me what I want. Well, I want to stab her back! Can you fulfill this request?”
My jaw tightened. I eyed her coldly and agreed, “That’s fine by me!”
Anthony’s brows furrowed into a deep “V” as he looked furiously at me. “Sienna, shut up!”
“You’re fine with it?” Rylee smiled ear-to-ear. “Great! Come over here, and we’ll get even after stabbing you.”
With that said, her cold glare fixated on me as she ripped out the IV needle from her arm. “There are no knives here, but I won’t need one. I’ll use this needle instead. We can call it even after I impale you.”
I approached her. My body moved surely and steadily, devoid of any fear. As I closed in on her, her sneering smile curved deeper.
Within seconds, her arm snaked forwards with the needle, aiming for my eye. Gasps sounded from all round.
Anthony was quick to notice her plan. His arm darted faster than hers, snatching the needle from her grasp. Unfortunately, the needle drew blood. It slit a long, bloodied line down his palm.
Witnessing this, heavy sighs of relief weighed down the room. Cameron collapsed into Zachary’s arms, burying her head into his chest. Complicated emotions surged as she said to me, “You should go. Let’s forget any of this ever happened.”
Rylee sizzled in betrayal. “Mom! What are you talking about? She wanted to kill me! How can you let her get away with it?”
“Shut up!” Cameron yelled. Disgust colored her eyes green. “She wouldn’t have hurt you if you didn’t harass her in the middle of the night. Deep down, you know perfectly well why she stabbed you.”
Rylee’s stared incredulously at her. Shock and disbelief burned under her skin; she refused to believe that the woman before her was her mother.
Realizing how harsh her words sounded, Cameron paused to recompose before meeting her daughter’s eyes again. Then, she spoke in a gentler voice, “Rylee, you’re okay now. Just take a couple of days to rest and recover in the hospital, don’t stress yourself over anything else.”
But Rylee was not easily swayed. She had spent most of her time alongside Anthony who sheltered and spoiled her. All those years in her life had cemented her arrogant and stubborn temperament. There was no way anyone could convince Rylee to let go of her grudge.
Shooting daggers at me, Rylee snorted. “Even if everyone here defends you, you’ll still go to jail. Don’t forget, Sienna. Your fingerprints are all over the knife that you stabbed me with. I doubt anyone here can stop me if I insist on filing a case against you. As long as I’m alive, I’ll sue you for attempted murder. I’ll make sure you get at least a couple of years and rot in a jail cell.”
Clang! Anthony smashed a glass of water that originally sat on the bedside table.
With eyes locked on Rylee, he picked up a shard off the ground. “Your wound receives seven stitches on it, is that right?”
Rylee watched him cautiously, “What are you up to?”
“You wanted a life for a life,” he responded. “Clearly that won’t do because you didn’t die. So however deep your wound goes, that’s how deeply I’ll stab myself. Are you happy with that?”
Anthony proceeded to lift his shirt. Within seconds, he forcefully plunged the shard into his abdomen.
I was so shocked and I rushed to stop him, but it was already too late. The shard sank deeper and deeper into his skin.
Rylee stared at him in disbelief. Her hands shot up to her lips as she watched him in anguish. “Does she really mean that much to you?”
Anthony’s hand pressed onto his wound, blood gushed onto his fingers, seeping into the cracks of his nails. An overwhelming pain pulsed in my chest. I raced towards him, hoping to drag him outside to a doctor or a nurse to get treated.
But he held me down while looking at Rylee. “She’s my wife. I will bear the burden of her mistakes as well as any pain she feels. What I can do is to protect her to the best I can. Whether or not she’s a good or bad person will not change the fact that she’s my wife.”
My eyes reddened at the sight of his wounds. Concern and anger brimmed at the corner of my lips. “Who asked you to bear those burdens for me? I don’t need your intervention. I can take responsibility for the troubles I’ve caused. It’s just a few years in prison. I can handle it on my own.”
I spun around to leave as I was ready to turn myself in.
Suddenly, Anthony’s fingers coiled tightly around my wrist. He growled with a low voice, “Shut up!”
Then, his attention turned back to Rylee. “If this wound isn’t deep enough for you, I can still pierce the shard deeper.”
“Get out!” Rylee shrilled. Her bubbling emotions were on the verge of an explosion. “All of you, get out! I don’t want anyone in my sight!”
Blood seeped onto Anthony’s clothes. It dripped and formed a strikingly vermillion puddle on the hospital floor. Jared had just called for a doctor. He immediately picked up that Anthony’s hand that was still pressing on the shard. Furiously, he shouted, “Stop forcing the shard inwards! Do you really want to die that badly?”
Anthony said nothing. He only looked at Rylee, obviously waiting for her to say that she’d drop the charges against me.
Rylee focused on Anthony, her eyes were filled with pain and despair. She clambered off the hospital bed, picked a shard from the ground, and rammed it at him.
Since I stood next to Anthony, I quickly rushed in front of him and blocked Rylee’s attack. The glass shard cut through my arm. The pain caused beads of sweat to form at the nape of my neck.
Thankfully, Rylee was injured and didn’t have much strength to shove the shard any deeper. She glared at us for the longest time before she loosened her grip on the shard, letting it shatter onto the ground. Her voice quavered, “Both of you just leave. I won’t press charges!”
…
In the doctor’s office, Jared cleaned my wound. Anthony, however, was sent into the operating theater. Messy thoughts bounced at high speeds in my mind.
I was still recovering from the shock of what had just happened. My entire body felt completely numb.
Jared continued chattering next to me, but I didn’t register a single word he said. When Cameron and Zachary arrived in the room, Jared turned to look at me with a rather complicated expression on his face.
Cameron was the first to open his mouth. “Are you alright?”
I looked up at them and said in a dull tone, “If the both of you want to file a lawsuit against me, please go ahead.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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