“The ones your wife insists he takes,” Lila said evenly. “They slow circulation. I’ve seen this before. They don’t heal—they weaken.”
A chill ran through Jonathan’s stomach.
Vanessa—his second wife—had pushed hard for those medications. Her private physician had prescribed them, claiming they were essential. Jonathan had never questioned it. He hadn’t wanted to.
“You can’t make accusations like that,” Jonathan snapped. “Not without proof.”
Lila finally looked up at him, her gaze steady and unafraid.
“Then check,” she said simply. “Test the medicine. You’ll find out.”
The wind rustled through the trees. Ethan looked from Lila to his father, hope flickering where resignation had lived for years.
And Jonathan realized, for the first time, that what frightened him most wasn’t the possibility she was wrong—
—but the growing fear that she wasn’t.
Jonathan was about to dismiss her when Ethan suddenly gasped. “Dad—I can feel her hands!”
For the first time in years, Ethan’s face lit up. Jonathan stared, speechless, as his son blinked through tears.
Lila stood, brushing dirt off her palms. “Stop the pills, Mr. Pierce. They’re killing what’s left of his strength.”