Chapter 5 - The Final Promise
Daisy’s heart monitor began to falter, the erratic green spikes smoothing into dangerous, flat waves of exhaustion.
She turned her head with immense effort, her sunken brown eyes pleading with a mother's desperate, dying ferocity.
"Annie... is she safe, Alister? Did she find you?"
"She's at the estate, Daisy," I cried, tears streaming freely down my face onto the faded bedsheets.
"She has your stubborn chin, and she put an egg on my plate because she wanted me to have the best thing."
A beautiful, radiant smile broke through Daisy's pain, illuminating her face with the ghost of the woman I had worshipped.
"She loves you so much... I told her every night that her daddy was an honorable man who would protect her."
"I will give her the world, Daisy," I swore, placing my hand over her fragile, fading heart.
"I will tear down anyone who ever dared to hurt you, and our daughter will know every single day how much her mother loved her."
Daisy let out a soft, long sigh of surrender, her cold fingers relaxing within my grip.
"I can sleep now, Alister... take our baby home."
The monitor gave a continuous, flat tone as Sister Beatrice entered the room with bowed head and folded hands.
I buried my face in Daisy’s hands, letting the agony of four stolen years wash over me in the sterile silence of room fourteen.
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When I stood up twenty minutes later, the sorrow had crystallized into an icy, merciless rage that would spare no one.
I picked up the leather diary, snapped the lock shut on my briefcase, and walked out into the cold Pennsylvania rain.
