Chapter 3: The Truth Behind the Bruises
"Mom! Mom, look at me!" Leo roared, throwing the blue pillow across the room and dropping to his knees beside the bed.
Evelyn gasped violently, her chest heaving as the crisp, filtered oxygen flooded back into her burning lungs. She coughed raggedly, her fragile hands trembling as she clutched her son's camouflage-patterned uniform.
"Leo... oh God, Leo..." she wheezed, her voice cracking. "The bruises... it wasn't a fall... She did this to me. She beat me, Leo. She put something in my tea... the ledger... in her safe..."
The dark secret the elderly mother knew almost cost her everything. The truth behind those bruises is finally coming to light. Leo’s chest heaved as he stared at the purple, mottled marks on his mother's delicate wrists and throat—marks he had originally been told were from medical IV lines and her "fall." His blood turned to absolute ice.
From the wreckage of the shattered drywall, Veronica groaned, coughing up blood as she tried to crawl out from the plaster dust. Her expensive designer dress was shredded, her nose broken, and her arrogant composure completely obliterated.
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"You... you're a monster, Leo!" Veronica shrieked, clutching her fractured ribs as two hospital security guards and an on-duty NYPD officer rushed into the chaotic room. "He assaulted me! Arrest him! Look at what he did to me!"
"Shut your mouth before I forget you're a woman," Leo said, his voice dropping to a deadly, rhythmic whisper that made the responding police officer instinctively reach for his holster. Leo pulled out his military-grade smartphone, which had been automatically recording a livestream feed to his home security cloud since he entered the hospital wing. "Officer, check the room's security footage and my live sync. You will see this parasite attempting to suffocate a high-risk ICU patient with a pillow."
