Substitute Bride For The Dying Billionaire

The word "bastard" hung in the air, thick and poisonous.

Brenda's face contorted, turning a shade of mottled purple. "How dare you speak to me like that?" she shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at Erin. "Cletus! Get her out of here! Get her out!"

Cletus just stood there, paralyzed, a man caught between a rabid dog and a rattlesnake. "Erin, please," he mumbled, his voice weak. "Let's just talk this out calmly..."

Erin didn't even look at him. Her gaze was locked on Brenda, a predator's focus. "Why wouldn't I dare? Should I remind you how you used to show up at my mother's hospital bed, holding his arm?"

The words hit like a physical blow. The color drained from both Cletus's and Brenda's faces. They looked like they'd seen a ghost.

Tiffany stared at her parents, her mouth slightly agape. This was clearly a chapter of family history she had never read.

Erin pressed her advantage, her voice relentless. "My mother was dying, and you were there every day, weren't you, Brenda? Not to offer comfort. To see how much time she had left. To measure the drapes for when you moved in."

"You... you're lying!" Brenda stammered, her lips trembling. "You're making it up!"

"Am I?" Erin's laugh was short and bitter. "Then tell me, Cletus Price. Swear to God that you didn't marry this woman one week after my mother's funeral."

Cletus's head dropped. He stared at the floor, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

Tiffany's eyes darted from her mother's pale face to her father's bowed head. The confusion in her expression was slowly being replaced by a dawning, horrified understanding.

Erin seized the moment, turning her attention to the younger girl. "That necklace," she said, her voice softening slightly, but losing none of its edge. "It was the last thing my mother gave me. After she died, Brenda said she'd 'keep it safe' for me. Then it disappeared. Funny how it reappeared around your neck."

The calm, detailed narrative left no room for argument. It made Tiffany's earlier lie seem childish and pathetic.

With a cry of frustration, Tiffany ripped the necklace from her throat and threw it on the floor. "Who wants your stupid old thing anyway! Take it!"

Erin didn't even glance at the silver locket lying on the carpet. That wasn't her prize.

"I want everything," she said, her voice returning to its flat, hard tone. "And my mother's ashes. Where are they?"

A flicker of cunning returned to Brenda's eyes. She had recovered from the shock, and now she saw an opening, a way to inflict pain. She let out a sharp, cruel laugh.

"The ashes? Oh, that thing." She tapped her chin with a long, red-painted nail. "I think Patty was cleaning out the storage closet a while back. Said it was taking up space. I'm not sure where she put it."

Patty was their part-time cleaning lady. The insult was clear and deliberate.

Erin's green eyes, which had been cold, now became bottomless. A palpable chill radiated from her, so intense that even Cletus felt it. He tugged on Brenda's sleeve. "Brenda, don't."

She shook him off, emboldened, believing she had found Erin's breaking point. "Don't what? Tell the truth? Who keeps a box of dead person's dust around? For all I know, it got thrown out with yesterday's leftovers."

Tiffany, seeing her mother's cruelty, chimed in with her own venom. "Yeah, 'sister'," she sneered. "It's probably keeping the maggots company in the county landfill by now."

They waited for the tears. For the breakdown. For the satisfying shatter of Erin's composure.

It never came.

Instead, Erin smiled. It was a quiet, unnervingly calm smile.

Slowly, she began to roll up the sleeve of her flannel shirt.

There, on the pale skin of her left forearm, was a scar. It was old, white, and jagged, a long, ugly line running from her wrist almost to the crook of her elbow. It was a permanent flaw on otherwise smooth skin.

She traced the length of it with the fingers of her other hand, her touch surprisingly gentle.

"Do you know how I got this?" she asked softly.

The Prices stared, mesmerized and confused by the sudden shift.

Erin's gaze became distant, looking past them into a memory. "After Mom died, you got drunk, Cletus. You were angry I hadn't heated up your dinner. You threw a whiskey bottle." She looked at him. "I put my arm up to block it."

The last vestiges of color fled Cletus's face. He looked like he was going to be sick. The memory, long buried, had been brutally exhumed.

Erin's eyes moved to Brenda. "And you, you just stood there. You said I deserved it. You said I was a worthless burden, just like my mother."

Finally, her gaze fell on Tiffany. "And you were peeking from behind the door. You laughed."

She let her sleeve fall, covering the scar once more. When she looked up, the smile was gone. In its place was an expression of absolute, glacial coldness.

"I remember every single wound you gave me. Now I'm back to settle the account. Every last one."

Her eyes bored into them.

"We'll start with my mother's ashes."