This was my child. The child I'd carried for ten months, the child I'd nearly bled to death bringing into this world. And he called that woman Mama Pamela—and called me the one who ruins everything.
Hayden was still shouting. "This is all your fault! You come back and make Mama Pamela kneel? Why didn't you just die out there!"
My fingers curled into the hem of my shirt until my knuckles went white.
Leon reached down and helped Pamela to her feet, his hands impossibly gentle.
I opened my mouth to speak, but before a single word left my lips, Pamela clutched her chest.
Her face went ashen. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed.
"Pamela!" Leon caught her, and the panic in his voice was something I had never once heard directed at me. Not once in all our years together.
He looked up at me, his gaze ice-cold.
"What are you standing there for? Get in the car!"
Leon's men dragged me down the hospital corridor and into the blood-draw room.
Leon stood beside the doctor, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Now. Draw the blood."
The needle was thick. It punctured my arm, and I watched my blood seep through the tube, draining away drop by drop. The absurdity of it almost made me laugh.