My Daughter Died While His Mistress Played With Apps

My daughter needed eighty thousand dollars for emergency surgery after a car accident, and Claude Sanchez's secretary had an AI app handle the transfer.

I called back, frantic.

You're playing games with my daughter's life. Have you lost your mind?!

Maccabee Lewis fired back without a shred of doubt, sending me a screenshot of the AI's completed transfer order.

"If you haven't gotten it, that's because every app has a transfer delay. When you're asking someone for a favor, have a little patience!"

When Claude heard about it, he actually laughed.

"Ruby Fox, can't you just use the AI to pay the bill directly? It's faster than a transfer."

My daughter died right in front of me, and I wanted nothing more than to take them both down with me.

But Claude kept Maccabee firmly tucked behind him.

"It's your own fault for being stupid, trusting what an AI says."

"Enough. What's all this fuss for? Worst case, I'll just have another one with you. We'll name her Cherry too."

Looking at the man I'd loved for eight years, it finally hit me how rotten he'd been all along.

"No need." My jaw locked tight. "Let's get divorced."

"I don't want a cent of your money. I only want a life for a life."

After getting nowhere asking for help, I forced myself to dial the family I'd cut off eight years ago, my hand shaking.

I never got the chance.

The room around me went dead silent, leaving only the long, piercing wail of the monitor.

"Ms. Fox, our condolences."

"Please go to the second floor next door to handle the paperwork, then come down to sublevel one to claim the body."

A white cloth covered Cherry's face. They wheeled the gurney into the elevator.

My phone hit the floor, and my heart shattered into pieces.

I couldn't accept that the daughter who'd kissed and hugged me that very morning wouldn't wake up again, that only a few hours had passed. I sat there, frozen, refusing to sign the death certificate.

A woman in the billing line gave a cold snort.

"Putting on this whole devoted-mother act. Everybody heard your husband's secretary already transferred a million over. If you ask me, you just wanted to pocket the money, so you dragged it out until the kid died!"

"Poor child, stuck with a mother as black-hearted as you. Her father's heart will break when he finds out!"

I turned my head, and there, not far behind her, stood Claude, a stack of billing slips in his hand.

Beside him, Maccabee pouted, eyes fixed on her phone screen.

He took the phone from her and gave her nose a light flick.

"AI is just a reference tool. Treat it like something to play around with for fun, don't take it so seriously."

"Even if it's just a little anemia, you have to see a doctor. You can't go taking random medicine because an AI told you to. AI can't save your life."

Maccabee nuzzled her head into the crook of Claude's neck like a kitten.

"Of course I know that! Only an idiot would believe what an AI says."

Then she suddenly covered her mouth. "Claude, you don't think she was actually stupid enough to sit there waiting for me to transfer the money, do you?"

Claude slid his bank card through the window and gave a cold snort.

"Making a mistake that big and still trying to scam money out of us. Pure wishful thinking."

The rage tearing through my chest snapped my mind back to reality.

I rushed forward, snatched the bank card, and threw it on the floor, my teeth grinding.

"Make them pay with the AI!"

The two of them, lost in their little bubble, finally noticed me, their brows knitting.

"What, the shakedown didn't work, so now you're stalking us?"

I glared at him, tears welling up beyond my control.

In the blur was my daughter's small red hand in her final moments, slowly going stiff and limp.

It was her heart rate plunging.

It was Claude's animal sneer on the other end of the line.

He'd said, "Ruby, why don't you just pay the medical bill with the AI? It's faster than a transfer."

"Pay it!" I screamed, my voice shaking violently. "Isn't this exactly how you killed her? Why don't you dare do it now?!"

Maccabee's scream cut me off.

She was trembling, and Claude pulled her behind him at once.

"Where's security?"

"Where did this crazy woman come from? Get her out of here!"

Security grabbed my arms on Claude's order and started dragging me toward the door. The corners of Maccabee's mouth curled up so high they nearly touched the ceiling, but her voice came out small and wounded.

"It was just a little joke. Ruby, you really can't take a joke, can you?"

"Claude, from now on let's never use AI to mess with fools again, okay?"

The grief had already drained everything out of me.

My vision went black. The last thing I saw was Claude's pupils suddenly going wide, his mouth opening and closing, and then I couldn't hear a thing.

When I woke again, I was lying in the bedroom.

The pillow smelled of Cherry's favorite peach-blossom detergent.

Claude sat on the edge of the bed, holding a bowl of plain rice porridge.

"You're awake?"

I closed my eyes.

"The death certificate. Did you sign it?"

"When is the cremation?" I drew a deep breath. "I want to send Cherry off."

Claude didn't look up, blowing on the porridge one spoonful at a time.

"The doctor said you've had a severe shock and need to rest. Otherwise your heart could be damaged. It's serious."

"All I did was take Maccabee to pick up some iron supplements. Was this really necessary?"

"I'm asking you when Cherry will be cremated!"

I opened my eyes and knocked the bowl over with one swipe, the porridge spilling across Claude's expensive suit.

His brows knotted together. He stood and wiped at the stain, his patience gone entirely.

"Ruby, have you lost your mind? Haven't you put on enough of a show?"

"I already looked into it. There's no patient named Cherry anywhere in that hospital!"

"You'd actually lie and curse your own child just to smooth things over between us? You're despicable!"

"When did you look into it?" Tears shot from the corners of my eyes. I lunged and seized his collar with everything I had. "Before I called you, or after?!"

"You waited until the child was dead to go investigate. Do you even deserve to be called a father?"

"She never even got the chance to be admitted before she"

A sweet female voice floated up from downstairs. "Claude, come help me look over these documents. I need them for the afternoon meeting."

"And my luggage is so heavy. Come carry it for me, quick."

"Coming right up."

Claude answered at once, gentle as anything, and ignored every word I'd said.

I gripped tighter, my eyes bloodshot as I glared at him. "Our child's body is still in the morgue and you brought that woman home to live here?"

Slap.

I struck him across the face, and a thread of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

He froze for a beat, then clamped down hard on my wrist and threw me onto the bed, his eyes cold to the bone.

"I heard you weren't well. Maccabee didn't hold the past against you for a second. She moved in to take care of you, to take care of Cherry, never minding that you humiliated her in public before."

"You really should learn something from her. As narrow-minded and full of lies as you are, how could you ever raise Cherry properly? From now on, Maccabee will handle Cherry's upbringing too."

The door slammed shut.

Claude couldn't get away fast enough.

I propped myself up against the window and saw Claude downstairs, holding up a brand-new sky-blue dress.

"When did you buy this dress? Why haven't you worn it for me?"

A blush spread across Maccabee's face as she picked up a smaller version of the same one.

"I designed it myself with AI. I made a matching one for Cherry too. Once the mess at the company is cleaned up, the three of us should go out and unwind together."

Claude smiled at her, doting, and never once took his eyes off her.

Back when I was carrying Cherry, Claude and I picked out matching mother-daughter outfits too.

He was just as tender then.

Only now the leading lady wasn't me anymore.

My study had been turned into her bedroom at some point.

And my man, it seemed, had become hers.

If my daughter were still alive, would she have been torn from my side too?

A few tears slid down my cheeks, scalding every inch of skin they touched.

My phone rang. It was the hospital.

Ms. Fox, the body has been prepared. We can only hold it for seven days at most.

We heard you still haven't come to handle the paperwork. If you don't want to come, we can contact the child's father instead.

That absurd call from the hospital that day, and everyone remembering me as the wicked woman who let her child die to keep her money.

But I no longer had the strength to defend myself.

There's no need.

The child's father isn't in her life anymore. I'll come right away.

Cherry had never once left my side.

Her first time alone was lying by herself in a cold drawer, turning to ash by herself inside a burning box.

I don't know how many times I cried until I passed out.

My arms blistered in long strings where I'd beaten them against the cremation furnace.

The crash had been too brutal.

That tiny handful of ash, in the end, wasn't even as big as my palm.

I held the urn and sat alone at the roadside until deep into the night.

And finally I dialed the number I hadn't called in eight years.

Mom, Dad, EthanI was wrong

My brother cut me off, urgent.

You silly girl, you've finally swallowed your pride. Mom and Dad have worried about you all these years. All they ever wanted was for you to come around!

On the other end, my father growled low with rage, and my mother wept softly.

We already know what happened. I never thought much of that Sanchez boy from the start, all that ambition in his eyes. I never imagined he'd stop acting like a human being altogether! My poor little granddaughter!

Wait there. We're coming right now!

My family's voices woke memories I'd sealed away.

I couldn't stop the tears from breaking loose again.

Eight years ago, Claude was just a poor student my family was sponsoring.

Then our relationship came out, and my father flew into a rage and pulled the funding.

It was me who threw caution to the wind, took the ten-million-dollar dowry my father had set aside for me, ran off with Claude, and bankrolled his start-up.

Back then we'd just settled into a shabby little studio in a strange city, and Claude knelt on the floor, gripping both my hands, and swore to me.

Ruby, I'll work as hard as it takes. I'll bring you home in glory, and I'll make your father accept me!

When I hemorrhaged during a difficult labor, he gave a full eight hundred milliliters of his own blood and dragged us both back from death's door.

He said: Ruby, my life is yours. If you're gone, I can't go on living either.

Every pot of gold, every achievement, he credited openly to me.

Until the company grew big, Maccabee Lewis was hired on, and everything began to change.

Somewhere along the way, the two of them grew closer and closer. He stopped caring about my red, swollen eyes, stopped caring when Cherry cried that she wanted her daddy.

He handed my work, piece by piece, over to Maccabee, as if she were the lady of the company, the woman who'd fought alongside him all this way.

Until the day Maccabee made one mistake that cost the company seven figures in an instant.

I was so furious I tried to fire her on the spot.

But Claude sent me packing back home instead.

And he trotted out the same line he always used to shield Maccabee: Ruby, I married you so you could stay home and enjoy life as Mrs. Sanchez.

Then he turned around and froze all my cards, so that everything required Maccabee's approval.

His way of getting back at me for making Maccabee lose face in public

And our daughter, because of it, missed the best window to be saved, and died before my eyes with no treatment in time

Dad was right.

A man doesn't suddenly turn rotten. He was rotten all along.

I wiped my eyes, and without realizing it, I had walked all the way home.

Construction trucks roared. Dust blew everywhere.

My room and Cherry's had been gutted into one big concrete cavity, and all of Cherry's favorite dolls had been shredded and churned into the dirt.

"What do you think you're doing?!"

I screamed and rushed forward to salvage what I could.

A pair of hands yanked me aside.

Maccabee met my eyes, pleased with herself.

"Ruby, we're just renovating."

"You've always been off your head, and now you've started scheming against the child. There's no curing you, so Claude and I had no choice but to ask the app for help. It recommended we redo the place, fix the energy of the house."

Behind her, Claude nodded along.

"Change the layout, expand the bedroom a little."

When he saw me pressing my lips together, saying nothing, just staring at the ruined things, Claude added one more line.

"They're just objects. If they're broken, they're broken. When I have time I'll take you and Cherry to buy new ones. You can pick them out yourselves."

I looked at him and let out a soft laugh.

"The token of our love, the anniversary gifts, Cherry's baby teeth, those are just objects too?"

Claude's body stiffened, and something guilty crept into his eyes.

Maccabee was grinding her back teeth, but she quickly pulled on a pitiful face.

"I'm sorry, Ruby, it was all my carelessness. I never thought you'd be this angry. I'll go pick them back up right now!"

She made as if to duck under the truck's grappling claw, but her feet didn't move an inch.

That terrified Claude too, and he rushed to shield her.

"Ruby, can you stop being so snide?"

"You had too much stuff. Maccabee hadn't finished clearing it out before the machine started up. It was just an accident. You're going to blame her for that too?"

"Cherry would never be as unreasonable as you."

I gave another helpless little laugh, lifted the urn I'd been holding against my chest, and looked at him with cold eyes.

"Cherry's right here. Ask her yourself."

Claude looked at the small ceramic urn in my arms, and maybe because he was thinking he hadn't seen his daughter in two nights, the corner of his mouth twitched.

He started to reach out to open it. Maccabee beat him to it.

She quickly grabbed a handful and flung it into the air, sneering in contempt.

"Isn't this just dirt off the ground? You scooped it up by the door when you came in just now, didn't you? This is going too far!"

She curled her lip and hooked her arm through Claude's.

"Claude, I think from now on Cherry should sleep with me. She keeps wishing the child dead. What if one day she actually does something to her? It scares me just thinking about it."

"Cherry isn't mine by blood, but I would never treat her like that!"

Once again, Claude took her side.

His fingers trembled, clenched into a fist, and in an instant rage took him whole. He snatched up the urn and hurled it down.

"Ruby, what a vicious mind you have!"

"If you won't repent, I swear I'll never let you see your daughter again!"

The urn shattered in the dirt, and there was no telling which was dirt and which was ash.

"Murderers! You're murderers!"

"I'll kill you!"

I lost all control and threw myself at them, clawing.

I scratched Claude's arm and Maccabee's cheek.

One of the workers couldn't stand to watch any longer and spoke up quietly.

"Sir, you really should look into your daughter. That ash just now didn't look like"

Claude was completely consumed by fury, gripping my arm hard enough to break it.

"If something happened, it's because she's stupid! She didn't go raise the money, and she believed the app."

"So we'll just have another one, name her Cherry too. What is there to make a scene about? And besides, this is all a lie she's carefully made up!"

"Ruby, if you'd just lowered your head and admitted you were wrong sooner, things would never have come to this."

Every word was a knife sawing back and forth through my heart.

I bit down on the pain and looked at him through my teeth, my voice shaking, breaking apart.

"I really do regret stealing that money to build the company with you! Get out! Get out of my sight!"

Maccabee suddenly burst out laughing.

"Get out? Get out to where? Without Claude grinding day and night, how would the company be where it is today? If anyone's getting out, it's you."

"Ruby, eight years ago you stopped being the high and mighty Fox heiress. As one woman to another, I'd advise you to know your place. Push Claude too far and he'll throw you out on the streets, and that'll be ugly."

She drew out every syllable. "Especially for a woman on the streets. She might even end up"

A car braked sharply at the gate, and several Rolls-Royces pulled up.

A tall man in black stepped out of the lead car.

"Who said she's no longer the Fox heiress?"