How a Dying Woman Rewrote Her Epilogue

Patricia was completely shaken by what had happened.

She just couldn't understand how she'd ended up like this. She came from the

best possible background—her father was a man of power, her mother one of the

country's rare self-made businesswomen—so how on earth had she fallen so far?

All she could do was clutch at the bars between them, fingers tangled in Watts's

sleeve, her eyes red as she stared at him. “You’ve thought of something, haven’t

you? Watts, you know me—I can’t survive in a place like that! It’s torture! And for

three whole years?”

She had never, in all her life, felt this kind of fear.

Never could she have imagined tripping up over something like this. If it hadn’t

been Jarrod who was caught with the banned substances, she would have

walked away untouched. But the night before she left for her art show abroad,

Jarrod had pushed her too far. She’d let her emotions get the best of her, let

herself spiral out of control—and, just her luck, that was the night she got caught

red-handed.

Watts glanced down at Patricia’s grip, noticing how she’d wrinkled his shirt sleeve.

His obsessive nature recoiled at the sight; he hated things like this, and Patricia

knew it—she just never cared. Only her own feelings ever mattered.

“If there was a way out,” he said, indulging her just one last time, “do you really

think you’d still be here? I warned you ages ago: you and Jarrod were never right

for each other. You trying to dominate him was always doomed to fail.”

managed a

just wanted

him, her voice hardening. “Didn’t you

to get close to

father into

seemed to echo in the

Liked her?

he’d said those very words to

since he was seven that he and Patricia weren’t

blood.

then, Patricia hadn’t turned into the

only after she discovered the truth about herself and fought with her

the country. From that

out of control.

college, just

during Patricia’s

after Jarrod had left

and volatile she was

diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

had been there for

her lowest. For

of her, but

about what he

she clung stubbornly

wasting years of

clashed with Jarrod

well,

spectacularly. Both failures weighed

he’d

on.

looking at the woman in front of him, even his feelings seemed

and fade.

cooled, and

her hand off his

nothing to be

Jarrod’s revenge—Patricia, I don’t