Chapter 9

Echo’s grip around her thin blanket tightened. She felt pain when she thought of the hurt her daughter must have suffered yesterday.

She didn’t realize that Conrad could be so heartless.

She knew from her sister that Esme had come back. She was worried that Conrad couldn’t give their past up, so that was why she said what she did just now. She wanted Conrad to treat Fia a little bit better.

But she never expected that he had already stabbed Fia in the back!

Cough! Cough!

“Is that all it takes?” Esme suddenly stood up and smiled. “Have any of you ever thought about how I felt when I left three years ago and it was arranged for Conrad and Fia to be married?!

“I liked you so much in the past, Aunt Echo! You were so gentle and pretty. I had hoped that my mom could be less forceful and be as gentle as you! Now that I think back… It was all so disgusting!”

Esme stressed her words a lot. When she saw that Echo’s disguise was dissolving and she couldn’t stop coughing, she was all smiles.

“Your daughter is just as despicable and shameless as you are!”

Cough! Echo coughed out blood and there was only pain in her eyes as she shook her head at Esme.

Meanwhile, Esme simply frowned at the sight of blood. She was a little shocked.

Echo extended her hand at Esme and begged, “…Leave her alone, Esme. Spare my Fia… I beg you…”

“Never!” Esme moved away from Echo so that she couldn’t touch her as she stared with venomous eyes.

“Esme… No one had a choice… I… I tried to fight back against your grandmother, but… Uncle Maxwell and my mother… They wanted…”

“Stop making excuses! Fia had fallen in love with Conrad a long time ago!”

“Fia never wanted to fight with you. Three years ago, it…”

“Enough! She never should have married Conrad! Conrad could have married anyone else, but not her!” Esme said with a face full of anger.

Echo continued coughing and begged. “Please, Esme. She had always been bullied because she didn’t have a father…” Echo tried to hold Esme’s hand.

Esme kept on stepping back as she spat out poisonous words. Echo kept on coughing and it wasn’t long until she coughed out more blood and even fell down from the hospital bed.

“Esme Manning! What are you doing?!” When Fia saw what happened when she came back with the takeaway, she immediately dropped the food from her hands and ran over to hold her mother with her eyes red.

When Echo saw her daughter, her tears rolled down uncontrollably.

“Fia… My poor girl… Why didn’t you tell me…”

She had thought that Fia was being unhappy because she found out that Esme had returned. She never would have guessed that Conrad had asked for a divorce.

Echo’s hand reached out and held Fia’s heart, saying, “Are you alright, Fia…?”

Fia cried as she wiped the blood away from Echo’s mouth and tried her best to shake her head.

“It’s okay. As long as you don’t leave me, I’ll be okay.”

Cough! Echo started coughing again as she felt pain and anxiety drowning her.

Esme simply said coldly, “This is what you two deserve!”

“Get out!” Fia glared at her. “Just get out!”

Outside the ward, two tall figures just left the doctor’s consultation office. When they heard Fia yelling, both of them ran toward the ward where Echo was in.

Esme quickly came up with a ploy in her mind and yelled as she threw herself to the floor. She even crashed her own head into the takeaway that Fia had bought.

She screamed as the piping-hot sauce flowed down from her head and she kept on crying for Conrad to save her.

Fia was shocked. She never thought that Esme would become so ruthless after three years.

The takeaway she bought was still hot. Wasn’t she afraid that she would ruin her beauty?

Echo was shocked by what happened and she coughed out another mouthful of blood.

“Mom, you’re going to be alright…”

Fia cried as she tried to help Echo up to her bed. However, Echo couldn’t use her strength, and Fia tried a few times but still couldn’t help her up. She turned and looked at Esme.

She suddenly heard Conrad console Esme gently. She wanted to tell him to help her mom back to her bed.

However, all she saw was Conrad carrying Esme in his arms with concern on his face.

Before he left, he growled at her in anger. “Fia, you’ve gone mad!”

When she heard it, she could feel her heart bleed. And he was the one holding the knife to it.

At this time, a pair of strong arms took her mother from her hands.

She looked and saw Jason helping her mother up to the bed. He then put some pillows behind her back to support her.

Jason looked up and his eyes met with a pair of teary eyes on a sorrowful face.

An invisible hand seemed to have clutched his heart.

However, he could still hear her mother coughing heavily. He had no time to console her and quickly said, “Go to the nurse’s station and get a nurse. Quickly!”

Fia turned around and ran.

When she finally reached the nurse’s station, she encountered Conrad who was still holding Esme in his arms.

“Her face is burnt! Tell all your hospital’s plastic surgeons to come here right now! If the treatment is delayed I’ll sue!”

Fia felt her heart being crumbling. However, she didn’t have the time and grabbed the hand of a nurse.

“Doctor Evans asked the head nurse to come to my mom’s ward. My mom coughed out a lot of blood…”

Jason maintained a very good relationship at the hospital. The nurse nodded.

“I’ll call her over right now. Go back to the ward first.”

“Thank you!”

Fia had just turned around when she heard Conrad’s roar. “Fia, come over and apologize!”

He had never roared at her like that in the years that she knew him, including the three years when they were married.

Fia tightened her grip and turned over, facing Conrad’s angry glare.

“Mr. Maxwell, your childhood friend deserves everything that happened to her, even if her face is permanently scarred!”

“Fia! Show some heart!”

Fia gave Esme who was still crying in his arms a glare. “If you have time to yell at me, Mr. Maxwell, you should spend this time taking her to see a doctor!”

The nurse saw that things were getting out of hand. Luckily, she saw a colleague leading several doctors from the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Department over.

She quickly said, “Mr. Maxwell, the doctors are here. You should take her to the therapy room.”

“Doctor, this way!” Conrad called out to the doctors.

Fia couldn’t help her tears stream down her face even when she tried to wipe her tears away using the back of her hand. She quickly returned to the ward together with the head nurse who was pushing a patient transfer trolley.

When Jason saw Fia come in, he quickly yelled, “Stay outside.”

When Fia saw her mother was coughing to the point that her veins were popping, she quickly got out of there, not wanting to delay the doctor from carrying out any treatment.

She had her back against the wall and kept on hearing the sounds of coughs and vomiting. She could do nothing as she clutched her head with her hands.

She was afraid. Very afraid.

When she thought of all the love and care her mother showered her when she was little, she couldn’t imagine a life without her and what she could do next.

A long time passed as several batches of doctors walked in and out. They also kept on pushing all kinds of machines into Echo’s ward.

When Jason walked out of the ward, he saw Fia cowering by the wall, hunkered down while using her hands to cover her ears like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand.

She was even trembling.

He squatted down and held her shoulders.

“It’s alright now. Let’s take a look at your mother.”

Fia raised her head. Her eyes were red, and she was biting her lips. They were bleeding.

Jason frowned as he took a white handkerchief from his coat and helped her wipe the blood off of them.

“Everything’s alright. Don’t worry.”