Whenever someone in our family was buried, a piece of uncut jade of immeasurable value was placed in the coffin alongside them.
I had told Ian this secret the day we set our wedding date.
Ian dragged me to the foot of my mother's grave.
He waved a hand at the bodyguards behind him.
"Dig it up."
"Ian Delgado, you animal!"
I stumbled toward him, half-running, half-falling over my own feet. But before I could get close, a shovelful of dirt from my mother's grave hit me square in the chest.
A few yards away, Ian waved his phone in the air.
"Clara, you'd better behave yourself. One little slip of my finger, and this video goes live..."
Through the nauseating sounds of Ian and Nadia pawing at each other, I saw my mother's bones.
And there, in the open grave, the burial jade. Fifteen years underground, and it still gleamed like the day it was placed there.
Ian's eyes lit up with greed. He snatched the jade and tucked it inside his coat, then tossed my mother's bones out of the grave one by one, scattering them across the dirt like garbage.
"Ian Delgado, you'll die for this!"
"Whether I die isn't up to you."
Nadia sauntered forward, all languid grace, and seized my chin between her fingers.