Chapter 3 - The Loyalty of a Stranger
I stood up, holding the blue box tightly against my ribs.
"How long, Allison?" I asked, my voice flat, devoid of the warmth I had given her for seven years of marriage. "How long have you been torturing her?"
Allison leaned against the doorframe, letting out a soft, amused sigh. "Oh, please, Ryder. Don't act like a martyr. Your mother is a senile, suffocating old woman who ruined our marriage before you even left for the Middle East. I sacrificed eight months of my youth taking care of her while you played hero in the sand."
"You drugged her," I said, stepping closer. "You forced her to sign away her house. You beat her with a wooden spoon."
"I managed her!" Allison snapped, her composure cracking for a second as her eyes flicked to the blue box in my hands. "I took what was owed to me! Do you have any idea how much money you sent home that I had to spend on her doctors? On that stupid, useless maid?"
"Jade saved her life today," I said coldly.
"Jade is an undocumented intruder who overstepped her boundaries!" Allison hissed, pointing her glass at me. "Give me that box, Ryder. You don't know what you're doing. If you blow this up, I will file for divorce tomorrow, take half of your Saudi earnings, and ensure your mother ends up in a state-run facility where she won't last a month."
I looked at the woman I had once loved, searching her face for a single trace of the gentle bride I had married. There was nothing left—only greed and sociopathic contempt.
"You won't take a dime," I said softly.
I walked past her, brushing my shoulder against hers. She tried to grab my arm, her manicured nails digging into my jacket, but I shoved her back with enough firm force to drop her onto the bare mattress.
"Touch me again, Allison, and the police won't wait for a warrant," I warned.
I drove straight back to the hospital, taking the blue box and my laptop directly to the precinct captain's office located on the third floor of the medical center. Detective Miller, a broad-shouldered man with tired eyes, listened in silence as I laid out the evidence.
When I played the footage from night thirty-four—where Allison poured a bitter liquid into my mother's soup while laughing on speakerphone with her brother—Detective Miller’s jaw tightened.
"Who is she talking to on the phone in this clip?" Miller asked, leaning over the screen.
"Her brother, Chad," I answered. "He runs a private investment firm downtown. I suspect he’s the one who created the offshore LLC to wash my mother's stolen money."
At 4:00 a.m., I returned to my mother's hospital room.
Jade was still sitting awake by the window, her hands folded in her lap. When she saw me walk in with fresh coffee and warm food from the cafeteria, she started to stand up, but I motioned for her to stay seated.
"You didn't have to stay, Jade," I said, handing her a hot cup. "Your shift ended hours ago."
Jade looked down at her hands. "When I came to this country two years ago, my first employer stole my passport and locked me in a basement. It was your mother who found me through a charity foundation, paid my legal fees, and gave me a job here."
She looked at my sleeping mother, tears welling in her eyes.
"Mrs. Eleanor treated me like her own daughter when everyone else treated me like furniture," Jade whispered. "When your wife started hurting her, I knew I couldn't leave. If I quit, Mrs. Eleanor would die alone. I promised myself I would hold out until you came home."
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I looked at the young woman sitting before me—a stranger who had taken a steel spoon blow to the skull to protect my mother while my own wife plotted her destruction.
"You're not a maid here anymore, Jade," I said, my voice thick with emotion. "You're family. And tomorrow, this entire nightmare ends."
