The next day, Angel showed up at my door. Her baby hump was prominent.
She dropped to her knees.
“Cecilia, please… I’m begging you… save your brother.”
People stared, but I didn’t care. I let her kneel,
“Please… he was born with a heart condition. He needs surgery, but… we don’t have the money. He’s your father’s son, Cecilia. He’s your brother. Please, help us.”
Angel was uneducated, with no work experience. She’d always relied on men to support her- first her ex–husband, then my father.
Even though Dad had left everything to me, he’d given her a lot – houses, cars, jewelry, cash. Almost two million dollars.
And she still had the house her ex–husband had left her.
She should have been set for life.
But it’s easier to go from rags to riches than from riches to rags.
Hazel, used to a life of luxury, couldn’t stomach cooking her own meals, taking public transportation, or buying clothes from Target.
And her plans to study abroad after graduation? Out the window. She couldn’t even afford a weekend trip to Vegas.
Someone must have given her some bad advice, because she’d turned to gambling.
Within a month, they were broke.
Angel, stressed and panicked, had gone into premature labor. The baby had been born with a heart defect, requiring expensive surgery.
Angel had nowhere to turn.
The wealthy women she’d befriended when she was with my father had abandoned her..
Her connections had been built on Dad’s money.
Now that he was gone, they didn’t care about her anymore.
She was begging me, just like I’d begged her years ago, when my mother was dying.
I’d knelt before her, begging her to convince Dad to come back, to finish the surgery.
21:28
Reborn, My Family Tried to Bury Me, So I Burned It All Down!
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It’s your mother’s fate, she’d said coldly.
“So this is his fate,” I said, a bitter smile twisting my lips.
