Hung for a Lie

“Let Theo go!

“Or we’ll smash your mother’s urn!”

Giselle and Palmer cried at once

I kept my eyes on the urn.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t swing the steel pipe in my hand.

Reading my hesitation, Theo seized the moment to keep up his act. “Dean, so I took your necklace, but is that a reason for you to burn me alive?”

Not too far away, Giselle and Palmer shouted, “Dean, when have you become so vile?”

“You’ve gone too far! I can’t believe you’re trying to set Theo on fire! You don’t deserve to be my daddy!”

With shaking hands, I put down the steel pipe.

It wasn’t as if I had a choice.

I couldn’t stand by while my mother’s urn was being smashed.

Now that I was unarmed, Giselle and Palmer sprinted over to shove me back.

“Are you okay, Theo?”

“Theo…”

Rising to his feet, Theo brushed the dirt off himself and said tearfully, “If the necklace meant so much to you, I could’ve given it back. You didn’t have to take things far, Dean.”

With emotions getting the best of me, I yelled, “I wasn’t trying to burn him. He lit the match!

“He’s burning Lucy’s remains.”

Taken aback, Giselle and Palmer shifted their gazes to the lifeless body.

As Giselle and Palmer faltered, Theo immediately put on a face of hurt.

“Why are you making things up to lie to Giselle and Palmer?

“I’ve sent your sister home a long time ago. It was you. I don’t know what you have burning there. You said I deserved to die because I took your necklace.”

Theo sighed, acting like he was the bigger person who had been done dirty.

“Whatever. I’ll just drop the matter since you didn’t manage to set me on fire.”

Giselle and Palmer’s expressions hardened once more.

“This can’t be the end of the matter.

“You wanted Theo’s life over a necklace. You’re not going anywhere until you get what’s coming to you.”

The words had barely left Giselle’s lips.

“Clank!”

Giselle let the tag necklace fall and stamped it under her foot.

She was far from done, though.

Flipping the lid open, Giselle scattered the ashes into a puddled area.

“No!”

Pulling a grimace, I raced to the wet patch.

Oh, no…

The ashes were impossible to retrieve.

I watched helplessly as the ashes dissolved into the water. The pain was so overwhelming that I retched violently.

Giselle was pleased to see me in agony.

She drew close and said to me in disdain, “Don’t bother. Those aren’t really your mother’s ashes.

“This is just a little warning. Pull a stunt like that again, and you can kiss your mother’s ashes goodbye.”

I was the one who placed the ashes in the urn, so I would know whether they were hers.

Once they were gone, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number that had been sitting in my contacts for nearly a decade.

“I’m in, Ms. Whitaker, but I want ten times the amount we discussed.”