"Why stay with him for seven years? Because he's an idiot! He never touched me and still gave me money to spend. Look, he even gave us a huge wedding gift for our marriage! This house isn't much, but it cost that deadbeat every penny he had. Still worth a few million..."
When dawn broke, the master bedroom door swung open amid a tangle of cloying laughter.
But when I heard where those footsteps were heading, every drop of blood in my body rushed to my skull.
I couldn't care less that my body was already rubbed raw. Like a man possessed, I threw myself against the basement door until it gave way, then staggered and crawled to my foster father's memorial shrine.
The moment I saw what lay before me, the blood in my veins turned to ice.
My foster father's portrait had already been set ablaze with Jarvis's lighter. The fruit offerings that had once been arranged so neatly on the table had been devoured clean by the German shepherds his men had brought in. The incense burner lay toppled on the floor, surrounded by the shredded remains of the sutras my foster mother had painstakingly copied by hand. The whole room was in ruins.