Ten Minutes Late for My Mother's Final Moments

When Bradley Jaeger heard that his mother had suffered a sudden brain hemorrhage and slipped into a coma, his mind went completely blank. Without a second thought, he rushed out of his office. However, Sierra Perkins stopped him with a cool, flat voice. "It's still working hours. Where do you think you're going?" Bradley's eyes reddened as he faced the woman he was about to marry. "My mom is in the hospital, fighting for her life." "Going there won't change anything. You're going to be my husband; you should be setting an example, not ditching work." Sierra remained unmoved, and her delicate features were beautiful but coldly distant. Bradley froze for a moment. "But this is an emergency. I'm only asking to leave ten minutes early..." Sierra's tone grew firmer, and her voice was as cold as frost. "Bradley, go back to your desk. It's rush hour, so you won't be able to get a cab. Just wait for ten minutes, and you can ride over with me." It was indeed rush hour, and rides were hard to come by. Besides, all he had to do was wait ten minutes. In a daze, Bradley turned around and sat back down at his desk. Over and over, he tried to convince himself that Sierra had a point. Yet for some reason, his eyes burned and ached unbearably. Chapter 1 Sierra Perkins had always held herself to strict standards, and she expected the same from her future husband, Bradley Jaeger. When it came to work, she refused to let him slack off, forcing him to stay at the office until well past midnight every day. As for major projects, she never allowed him to let his guard down, ordering him to prepare hundreds of backup plans for every single one. All of this made sense to Bradley. After all, Sierra held such a high position and had to lead by example. But now, with his mother, Kristey Schmidt, fighting for her life, she had refused to give him even ten minutes of leeway. Bradley's thoughts were a complete mess. The moment the ten minutes were up, he hurried to the CEO's office. However, her assistant, David Hall, looked troubled as he said, "Ms. Perkins has already left. Mr. Harvey Goldstein had a cough, and she was worried about him, so she took him to the hospital." All the color instantly drained from Bradley's face. Sierra never left work early. Yet that day, she had abandoned her principles just because her best friend's younger brother had coughed a couple of times. And those were principles she had never bent even slightly for him. Because of the ten-minute delay, more people had lined up for cabs, and the traffic on the road had become even more jammed. Two hours later, Bradley finally arrived at the emergency room. The doctor looked both sympathetic and frustrated. "What took you so long? The bleeding was too severe, and there was nothing we could do. We did everything we could, but the bleeding was too severe. She held on for an hour waiting for you, then passed away ten minutes ago." At that instant, the world seemed to fall completely silent around Bradley. His legs gave out, and he collapsed onto a bench in the hallway. All he could hear was his own heavy, broken breathing. Once again, it was those ten minutes. Because of those ten minutes, he had missed his last chance to see his mother. Then Harvey's deep, smooth voice broke through the dead silence. "Sierra, thanks for coming to the doctor with me." Bradley stiffly turned to look in that direction. Sierra, who usually wore a cold expression, let her gaze soften as she smiled. She said, "Molly Goldstein got you this internship at my company and asked me to look out for you, so of course I couldn't let her down." Harvey gave a low laugh, then looked a little confused. "Sierra, if you were planning to bring me to the hospital all along, then why did you agree to go with Bradley?" At the mention of that name, Sierra's smile faded. "I just wanted to knock him down a peg. He's gotten way too comfortable using his status as the Perkins family's future son-in-law to get special treatment, and I won't let him get full of himself." As she finished speaking, she happened to glance to the side, and her eyes met Bradley's. His face had gone completely pale. Bradley slowly walked up to her, and every single word he spoke trembled. "Sierra, what special treatment have I ever gotten? Because I'm your fiancé, you reassigned my assistant, so I had to handle every little task myself. I was so exhausted that I ended up in the hospital nine times in one month. "When I accidentally typed one extra space, you ordered me to say 'I was wrong, I'm sorry' a thousand times in front of the entire staff. But Sierra! Other than using that title to keep me in line at work, have you ever actually acknowledged me as your future husband? My mom was supposed to be your family too. How could you gamble with her life like that?" The veins bulged on his arms as they hung at his sides, trembling with grief. Bradley was practically screaming. Sierra's voice was icy, her tone utterly cold. "Stop being so unreasonable. Your mother died because she was unlucky. And you missed her because you chose to wait those ten extra minutes, so it has nothing to do with me." "And one more thing, Bradley..." A faint hint of mockery filled Sierra's striking eyes. "You were the one who chased after me and confessed your feelings." She continued, "You were dying to become my husband as soon as possible, so why are you acting as if you feel differently now? If you really have the guts, then go ahead and call off the wedding next month yourself." With her pale, flawless skin and her chin raised slightly, Sierra was sure Bradley wouldn't dare. Then she left with Harvey at her side. Bradley stood frozen in place as bitter self-mockery and regret swept over him like a merciless flood. It was true that he had followed Sierra around and confessed to her 99 times. He had also been foolish enough to be overjoyed when she finally said yes, so much so that he quit his position at a top investment bank and came to work at Perkins Group without a single complaint. But later, he found out by chance that Sierra wasn't marrying him because she loved him. She just needed someone to take care of the household and share her workload. He simply happened to fit the role of a housekeeper and secretary, and that was all he was to her. Inside the hearse, Bradley held Kristey's cold hand tightly and pressed it against his tear-streaked face. His voice shook as he choked out, "Mom, I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. I don't want to marry Sierra anymore, and you'd be okay with that, wouldn't you?" Chapter 2 Holding a funeral was no small expense. Bradley checked every bank account he had, but he could only scrape together 200 dollars, which was pitifully little. Ever since joining Perkins Group, everything he did for the company was treated as his duty and nothing more. Because of that, Sierra had never paid him a salary. Bradley had been forced to live off his savings, and now, he was completely broke. Still, the funeral had to happen, so he contacted the finance department and asked for a six-month advance on his salary. To his surprise, the finance manager hesitated and stammered, "M-Ms. Perkins already told me ahead of time not to give you any special favors..." "How is this a special favor?" Bradley exclaimed in disbelief. Perkins Group prided itself on taking care of its people. In the past, whenever employees made similar requests, they had always been approved. Bradley couldn't understand why it was suddenly considered special treatment when it came to him. Furious, Bradley asked the funeral home to keep Kristey's body for a little longer. Then, he rushed over to the Perkins Group building. Sierra was in a meeting, so Bradley explained that he needed to see her about something important. However, David refused to let him through. He said firmly, "I'm sorry, but Ms. Perkins doesn't allow anyone to interrupt her during meetings. That applies especially to you, Mr. Jaeger." But the very next second, Bradley watched Harvey walk up with a laptop in his arms and push open the conference room door. Sierra's icy gaze softened the moment she saw him. She raised her fair, slender hand to pause the meeting. Then she smiled at Harvey and asked gently, "What's wrong?" Harvey sat beside her. "Sierra, I forgot how to change the formatting in a document." And so, in front of everyone, Sierra personally began teaching Harvey. Outside the conference room, mocking and pitying looks fell on Bradley one after another. Someone whispered, "Harvey really is the exception to Ms. Perkins' rules. As for Bradley, anyone who didn't know he was her fiancé would think he was just free labor." Another chimed in, "Last time, while Bradley was busy cleaning up the team's mess, Ms. Perkins took Harvey to a fancy restaurant for a candlelit dinner that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in one night!" Bradley forced a bitter smile. Sierra had spent six figures on Harvey in a single night, yet he was so broke that he couldn't even come up with a few hundred dollars. She taught Harvey the most basic things, yet whenever he had encountered a problem and asked her for help, she had merely glanced coldly toward the door. She would say, "Get out. As my fiancé, you should at least know how to do these things." Sierra's patience was reserved only for the people she cared about. It was such an obvious truth, yet he hadn't understood it until he was battered and broken. When the meeting finally ended, Bradley took a deep breath and stood in front of Sierra. "I need an advance on my salary." He had expected her to refuse. Instead, Sierra just nodded, cool and composed as ever. She replied, "Fine. But I have a condition. There's a project on a tight deadline, and you'll complete it together with Harvey." Everything Sierra ever gave him always came with strings attached. Bradley fell silent for a moment before forcing a bitter smile. In a hoarse voice, he agreed. He had already sized it up, and the proposal wasn't difficult. With his skills, it would only take him two days. Meanwhile, the funeral just had to be held within seven days. However, he never could have imagined how much trouble Harvey would cause him. First, Harvey "accidentally" spilled coffee all over Bradley's laptop, and every file was lost. Then, he mistakenly sent the draft to a competitor, which meant Bradley had to come up with an even more flawless proposal. What should have taken two days was dragged out until the seventh. When Bradley turned in the brand-new proposal after staying up all night, his eyes were completely bloodshot. Finally, he got the notification that his salary had been deposited. But when he took a closer look, he saw that his six-month advance was only 2,000 dollars. Bradley couldn't believe it, so he went to a coworker in the finance department to demand an explanation. The coworker insisted that there was no mistake. "Your pay is based on the company's minimum standard. On top of that, Ms. Perkins deducted most of it. The reason was... that you didn't complete the task the way she required." Just then, Harvey walked over as well. The moment the coworker saw him, he broke into a warm smile and spoke in a fawning voice. "Harvey, your 500,000-dollar project bonus just came through, and Ms. Perkins personally had it rushed. Congratulations!" "Sierra is way too generous." Harvey arched an eyebrow, then turned to Bradley with a smile. "I should thank Bradley too, since the project got a great rating and the bonus turned out pretty nice." He seemed grateful on the surface, but it was really a hidden provocation. Bradley's heart sank, and his voice turned cold. "I completed that entire project by myself! You didn't contribute anything, so why are you the one getting the bonus?" Harvey looked as if he had been frightened, and his face went pale. "This was Sierra's decision..." Bradley couldn't stand another second of Harvey's exaggerated, phony act. He immediately pulled out his phone and called Sierra. Chapter 3 Bradley had made five calls in a row, but no one picked up. When he tried a sixth time, the call was automatically cut off. It seemed that Sierra had blocked his number. Bradley's fingertips turned white from gripping the phone. Right at that moment, Harvey also pulled out his phone and called Sierra. The phone had only rung once before Sierra quickly answered, as if she couldn't bear to make him wait even a second longer. Her voice was full of concern as she asked, "Harvey, is something wrong?" Bradley forced down the metallic taste of blood rising in his mouth and demanded sharply, "Sierra Perkins! What gives you the right to put my project and my bonus under Harvey's name?" The moment she heard Bradley's voice, Sierra's tone turned ice-cold. "Bradley, how long are you going to keep making a scene? Harvey is an intern, so he needs projects to build his résumé. Yet, you're fighting with an intern over credit? Don't you feel ashamed of being so petty?" It felt as though a sharp blade had torn a bloody wound through Bradley's heart. Still, he swallowed all his bitterness and stubbornly retorted, "I was the one who did the work, so the bonus should belong to me! "If you don't give it to me right now, I'll make this public! And then we'll see who's still willing to work with Harvey, someone who only got ahead through connections!" Sierra's icy voice cut straight through him. "Bradley, since when are you this pathetic? Does picking on an intern make you feel superior? It's only 500,000 dollars, and you're being this greedy over it." After a short pause, she lowered her voice and instructed David, "Give Bradley a bonus too." Even over the phone, Bradley could hear the impatience in her voice. She was acting as if she were doing him the biggest favor in the world. His eyes began to sting, but Bradley quickly blinked the tears away before they could fall. The bonus soon landed in his account, so Bradley immediately headed to the funeral home. On the way, he also bought a plane ticket out of town. He booked a flight for ten days later, allowing himself time to settle his mother's funeral arrangements before leaving. When he received confirmation that his ticket had been booked, Bradley was still relieved to think that he had some luck left. At least he had managed to make the deadline and could give Kristey a proper, dignified farewell. However, the moment he pushed open the door to the room where Kristey was being held, his eyes widened in horror. A thick, sickening stench of rot filled the air, and her body, which had been perfectly intact before, was now swollen and bloated. Countless maggots were crawling all over her, and she was no longer recognizable as the woman she had been. The sight hit him like a punch to the gut. Bradley's eyes went wide, and he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Yet the staff member looked completely unbothered. "Mr. Jaeger, we called you three days ago to ask whether you wanted the body refrigerated, because it would decompose in this hot weather. But you said she was already dead anyway, so there was no point wasting money..." However, Bradley did not recall receiving any call from the funeral home. As he thought back carefully, he vaguely remembered Harvey holding his phone and fiddling with something three days earlier, when Bradley had been so busy that he could barely think straight. When Bradley had asked him about it, Harvey had simply smiled and said he had picked up the wrong phone by mistake. With Kristey's body already decomposing, cremation was the only option left. Bradley couldn't even give his mother a proper funeral or a viewing. Her final goodbye to this world had been ugly and stripped of all dignity. During the cremation, Bradley cried so hard that he nearly passed out. The urn was small enough to fit inside his backpack, so he decided to take it home and find a place to keep it safe for the time being. However, the moment he stepped through the door, he saw Harvey. There were even signs of Harvey all over the house. Bradley's suits had been thrown on the closet floor and replaced with Harvey's warm-toned shirts. His mug had been tossed into the trash, and Harvey's laptop now sat in its place on the table. When Harvey saw him, he smiled brightly. "Bradley, I'm going to be staying here for a while, so sorry for the inconvenience. Sierra was worried that renting an apartment on my own wasn't safe, so she told me to move in here. She said it was basically an employee housing benefit." Bradley's fingertips trembled slightly. It was simply ridiculous. After all, this was the home he and Sierra were supposed to live in after the wedding, yet she had casually turned it into employee housing. But after only a brief moment of disbelief, Bradley strode forward and fixed Harvey with a sharp gaze. "Harvey, were you the one who answered the call from the funeral home?" Harvey pretended to be surprised. He frowned and thought about it for a while before suddenly acting as though he had remembered. He blinked innocently, saying, "Bradley, you're not mad at me for not telling you, are you? You were so busy back then, so I was just trying to help and didn't want to slow you down. Besides, you're so broke, and she was just some dead old hag. You could've dumped her in the woods for the coyotes to eat and saved yourself the cremation fee!" As he spoke, Harvey's lips curled into a smug smile. "Bradley, you should actually thank me for saving you money." "Harvey, shut your mouth!" An overwhelming surge of rage, guilt, and grief exploded in Bradley's chest. His whole body shook, and he slammed his fist right into Harvey's face. At that very moment, Sierra appeared in the doorway, her voice dripping with icy fury. "Bradley, what the hell are you doing?" Chapter 4 Bradley wasn't the least bit afraid. Right in front of Sierra, he gave Harvey a hard kick. Harvey hadn't seen it coming, and he fell to the floor in a pathetic heap. His eyes were watering from the pain as he cried out, "Ouch, that hurts! Bradley, how could you do this to me?" Bradley cut him off sharply, "Stop putting on this fake act! Harvey, do you have the guts to repeat what you just said?" "That's enough, Bradley!" Sierra rushed over and helped Harvey up, her face full of worry. Then she turned to Bradley, and her voice was bone-chillingly cold. "So he stopped them from refrigerating her body. Is something that small really worth all this yelling?" Hearing the woman's dismissive tone, Bradley stared at her in disbelief, his voice trembling at the end. "...You knew about this, too?" Sierra replied, "He asked for my opinion. I thought it was sweet of him. He knew you were short on cash, so he took care of it for you." Her voice was cool and mocking as she added, "Besides, Mrs. Jaeger grew up in the countryside. People should know their place, even in death. You should have had enough sense to understand that." Stunned and humiliated, Bradley felt a painful lump in his throat, as sharp as a blade cutting him open. He shook his head over and over, his voice going cold with every single word. "Sierra, how could you disrespect my mom like that..." Before he could even finish speaking, Bradley let out a hopeless laugh. The truth was, Sierra had always been like this. In all the time they had known each other, she had never once visited Kristey. When Kristey offered to come see her, Sierra claimed she was too busy, and she hadn't even saved his mother a seat at their wedding. He'd spent so long fooling himself that the moment reality came crashing down, it tore him to pieces. "That's just the way it is." Her eyes were icy and unreadable. "But that's no excuse for picking on Harvey, Bradley. Apologize to Harvey." Bradley grabbed the vase on the table and smashed it hard against the floor. Glass shattered everywhere, and a few shards cut into his leg, but he didn't even feel the pain. He lifted his head and spoke slowly and clearly. "Sierra, in your dreams." Sierra simply looked at him, unbothered. Her icy stare landed on his backpack as she asked, "I'm guessing your mom's ashes are in that bag? Do you really want to risk disturbing her peace even after death?" Bradley froze, and a chill ran through him. There was a moment of dead silence before Sierra coldly called for her bodyguards, making it clear that her patience had run out. "...I'm sorry." Bradley lowered his unbearably heavy head, his voice hoarse. "Mr. Goldstein, I'm sorry." "Is a verbal apology all you're going to offer?" Sierra asked flatly. So Bradley bent forward and bowed. It was just like all the other times when, over some tiny mistake, she had dragged him up in front of company-wide meetings to publicly admit his faults while the employees in the audience looked at him with pity. "I'm sorry. I was wrong." As he lowered his head as far as it could go, a single cold tear slipped silently from the corner of his eye. Chapter 5 In the middle of the night, a bodyguard kicked the bedroom door open. Then, a huge bucket of ice water was dumped all over Bradley. The freezing water jolted him awake, its chill shooting straight to his brain. Through his blurry vision, he saw Harvey sneering at him. "My face still hurts, and you're over here sleeping like a baby? Not a chance, you bastard." Harvey raised his hand and signaled the bodyguards to force Bradley's jaw open. Then, he quickly poured a bowl of murky liquid down Bradley's throat. When they finally let go, Bradley couldn't stop himself from leaning over the side of the bed, gagging and heaving. When he spotted tiny flecks of ash in the liquid he had thrown up, his pupils contracted in horror. He exclaimed, "What the hell did you make me drink?" "You seriously can't tell?" Harvey suddenly let out a laugh. "That's the taste of your dear old mom!" A loud ringing suddenly filled Bradley's ears. He whipped around and saw that the urn he had locked away had been smashed open, and it was completely empty inside. It hit Bradley all at once that Harvey had mixed his mother's ashes into water and forced him to drink it. "Harvey!" Bradley's whole world was turned upside down. His voice turned shrill as he completely lost control, and he lunged toward Harvey. However, the bodyguards grabbed him before he could reach him. "Let go of me!" Bradley struggled like a cornered animal, his voice rough and furious. "Do you know who I am? I'm Sierra's fiancé, so let me go!" The bodyguards hesitated for a moment. Harvey said casually, "Sure, but the person Sierra actually cares about is me." That one simple sentence was all it took for the hesitation to disappear from the bodyguards' eyes. After all, Sierra's favoritism toward Harvey was so obvious that her own people felt entitled to disregard Bradley's status as her fiancé. "He's trying to hurt me, so why aren't you holding him down?" Harvey barked. A sharp pain immediately shot up Bradley's arms, as if they were about to be torn right off. His arms were twisted behind his back and shoved down hard, and he was forced to his knees in a humiliating position. "Harvey!" Bradley's chest heaved rapidly, and his eyes were bloodshot and brimming with tears. "You should rot in hell!" The moment he said it, he saw Harvey pull out a black-and-white photo. In the picture, Kristey was smiling gently and warmly, yet the sight of it hit Bradley like a knife to the heart. His whole body shook, and his voice finally cracked. "Harvey, please don't... Give it back to me. I'm begging you..." It was the last memorial photo he had of Kristey. Yet the more desperately Bradley begged, the more brazen Harvey became. "So you do get scared sometimes?" He pulled out a lighter and drawled, "Too bad for you. You messed with me, and I never forget a grudge." The flame reflected in Bradley's eyes, and he screamed, struggled, and roared like a madman. Even so, black smoke still rose into the air. Harvey pretended to sound apologetic. "Mrs. Jaeger, I'm so sorry about this. But you have no idea how disgusting your precious son is. He shamelessly threw himself at Sierra and practically offered himself up to her, and that's the only reason he got this engagement. "Are you watching this? He's such a joke, groveling at my feet like this. He's lower than dirt. You're the one who brought him into this world, honestly, wouldn't you say you had it coming too?" Bradley shook his head as hard as he could. He didn't want Kristey to hear any of this. All he had ever wanted was for her to rest in peace. Through his tears, he desperately tried to deny Harvey's accusations, but he eventually broke down completely. "Shut up! Harvey! Shut your mouth!" His desperate screams tore at his throat until it burned with pain. By the time the photo had burned to nothing, Bradley had screamed himself hoarse and couldn't make a sound. The bodyguards finally let him go, since he had no fight left in him. He just collapsed on the floor, cradling the still-warm ashes in his hands as the tears kept pouring down his face. ... Sierra was sitting beside Bradley's hospital bed. When she saw him slowly open his eyes, she looked at him with a distant expression. "Feeling better? Harvey accidentally spilled water on the photo, and that was his mistake. I already docked half a day of his intern pay." She paused, then added calmly, "But you didn't need to make such a big deal out of it and act like it was the end of the world." Bradley thought, "Just half a day's pay..." He met her cold, emotionless eyes and asked, "Where's Harvey?" Sierra's delicate brows furrowed slightly. "Why are you still looking for him? I've already punished him on your behalf..." "Sierra!" Bradley clenched his fists and cut her off, his voice raw. "Half a day of intern pay? The cufflinks you gave him were worth a fortune, and the watch you bought him cost as much as a luxury home! Are you punishing him, or are you letting him get away with it? Tell me, where the hell is he?" Sierra's expression went cold. "So what else do you want from me? Bradley, why do you keep fighting me over a dead woman? There's literally nothing left of her. Fine. She was your mother, but I'm going to be your wife!" Wife. Bradley repeated the word in his head, but it only left a cold, bitter taste in his mouth. His eyes were blank and empty as he mumbled, "Sierra, if you'd said that to me a while ago, I probably would have been so happy that I'd walk around in a daze all day like an idiot." "But now..." He lowered his eyes and suddenly let out a quiet laugh. He laughed until his eyes turned red and his thin shoulders started to tremble. "Sierra, what makes you so sure I'm still going to marry you?" Sierra's breath caught, and her heart clenched. "What did you just say?" At that exact moment, Bradley's phone buzzed. It was a travel reminder letting him know that he would be leaving the city in ten days. Sierra reached over, grabbed the phone, and tapped the screen to light it up. Chapter 6 Bradley had set his notifications to hide message previews ahead of time. Without his passcode, Sierra could only see his lock screen wallpaper. She noticed that it was a photo of the fountain pen she had given him for his birthday this year. The truth was, Sierra hadn't cared about Bradley's birthday at all. In fact, David was the one who had reminded her and had even picked out and bought the pen. Later, she had just casually handed it to him as a birthday gift. It was a cheap pen with zero thought behind it, yet Bradley had taken a picture of it and set it as his lock screen so he could look at it all the time. That alone showed just how much he loved her. Sierra's tense nerves suddenly relaxed, and her anxiety melted away. She said indifferently, "Stop saying things you don't mean. The wedding preparations are almost complete. Once you're discharged, you can start getting ready for the rehearsal. After that, you'll be my husband, and you'll live a life of wealth and luxury." What Sierra didn't know was that Bradley's flight was booked for the day before the wedding. It was a wedding that was destined to take place without a groom. Bradley didn't argue with Sierra further. He simply stayed silent until she grew impatient and left, and then he quickly checked himself out of the hospital and took a cab to Perkins Group. There, he found Harvey in the executive assistants' office. Just as Harvey looked up in shock, Bradley grabbed the liquor bottle he had bought and smashed it hard over Harvey's head. Liquor splashed everywhere, and blood instantly began streaming down Harvey's forehead. He touched it in a daze, too stunned to react. However, Bradley wasn't going to let Harvey off that easily. He dragged Harvey out into the open office so that all of their coworkers could see what a mess he was. When Sierra heard the commotion, she rushed over and shouted, "Bradley, let go of him!" But Bradley ignored her. Sierra was so furious that she ordered her bodyguards to break his wrist. Her face darkened with fury as she shouted, "Bradley, have you lost your mind? Are you really going to throw a tantrum here at the company?" The sound of his bone snapping was sharp and clear, yet Bradley felt strangely calm. "He owed my mother this much." While the two of them were in a standoff, Harvey picked himself up off the floor and cried even louder. "Sierra..." Just as he was about to reach Sierra, he stumbled and slammed right into Bradley. They were about to tumble down the staircase, but Sierra quickly reached out and pulled Harvey back. Bradley saw it clearly—Sierra could have easily saved him, too. Yet, she hadn't lifted a finger. She had simply stood by and watched, utterly indifferent. Her gaze stayed completely blank as she watched him tumble down the stairs. His head hit the steps and left a pool of blood on the floor, while his arms and legs were covered in countless bruises and red marks. In the end, Bradley lay at the bottom, unable to move. Sierra gave everyone a firm order, leaving no room for argument. "No one is allowed to call an ambulance for Bradley." One of their coworkers couldn't bear it. "But Ms. Perkins, he's still bleeding. He could go into shock..." "Then he brought it on himself." With that, Sierra helped Harvey up and walked away without looking back. Bradley passed out from losing so much blood. By the time the cold shook him awake, it was already late at night, and every light in the building had been turned off. He was covered in blood, and no passing driver dared to take him in. With no other choice, he stumbled along on foot in a daze until the sun rose the next morning, and then he collapsed right outside the hospital entrance. This time, Sierra didn't come to the hospital to see him. Instead, still angry, she deliberately went through the entire wedding rehearsal with Harvey. Harvey's Instagram was filled with posts of Sierra smiling as she slipped a wedding ring onto his finger. In one photo, she wore a white wedding gown and walked down the aisle beside him, and in another, she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the lips. It was as if they were the ones who were about to get married. By now, none of it stirred any emotion in Bradley. His heart had already been torn to shreds, and all that was left was a cold, silent numbness. The day he left, the sun was shining, and the weather was perfect. Bradley received a text from Sierra, written in her usual confident, matter-of-fact tone. It was short and to the point, as if she were completely certain that Bradley would show up on time. She wrote, "The wedding is tomorrow. The ceremony starts at noon sharp." Bradley smiled faintly, then deleted her number and blocked her. Before snapping his SIM card in half, he made one final call to arrange an anonymous delivery—a special gift for Sierra at the wedding the next day. He was certain she would love it. As he boarded the plane, the flight attendant nodded at Bradley and wished him a pleasant trip. Bradley smiled back, and his eyes held the same calm, easygoing confidence he used to have. "Thanks, I will." From now on, Sierra would no longer be a part of his life. He would simply be himself, the brilliant, outstanding Bradley he had always been.