Chapter 673

Rosetta had been pushed to her limits. Suddenly, she made a harsh decision and gave in.

But the bitterness wouldn’t let her be. Clenching her fists, she glared at Ivy and demanded, “Ivy, how can you turn your back on your own family like this? Aren’t you afraid that one day you’ll pay for your cruelty?”

Ivy didn’t even flinch. She pressed the call button on the nightstand.

In a moment, the nurse returned.

“Please escort this person out,” Ivy said quietly. The nurse nodded and turned to ask Rosetta to leave.

But Rosetta, fuming with anger, stormed out before the nurse could even open her mouth.

Later that day, Ivy told Jamison what had happened.

Once he understood her wishes, Jamison called Emma’s doctors to make arrangements.

The next day, Rosetta and Baillie, as Emma’s legal family, signed the consent forms. Then they were allowed in to see Emma one last time.

Emma understood what their arrival meant the moment she saw them.

Wracked with pain, her body trembled uncontrollably.

A breathing mask covered her mouth, making it impossible to speak.

Baillie stepped forward and gently removed the mask.

“Emma…” Rosetta sobbed, tears streaming down her face. She didn’t even dare to touch her, only stood at a distance, her voice breaking with grief.

Emma looked at them, tears spilling from the corners of her eyes and disappearing into her hair.

“Emma, we came to see you. Your father just had surgery–he can’t leave the hospital yet…”

Rosetta still hoped that, after twenty years of being her mother, Emma would call her “Mom” just one more time.

But with shaking lips and every ounce of strength she had left, Emma forced out words sharp as a blade.

“I… hate you. I hate… the Windsor family.”

Baillie’s face tightened; he wanted to protest, to defend himself. But before he could speak, Emma’s eyes drifted shut.

On the monitor, the frantic line of her heartbeat slowed, then faded, and finally settled into a single, steady line.

Just moments before, Rosetta had been overwhelmed with sorrow, feeling that her adopted daughter was ungrateful. But when she saw Emma slip away for good, her grief became unbearable.

Baillie caught Rosetta as her knees buckled, keeping her from collapsing. He stared at his sister’s lifeless body, his own eyes filling with tears.

Emma was gone.

The Windsor family didn’t have enough money for a proper burial. In the end, they swallowed their pride and asked the Carter family for help. All they could afford was a memorial plaque for her ashes in a small chapel on a nearby hill.

Rosetta insisted that Emma’s fate was her own doing, the result of all her wrongs.

She said that being laid to rest in a church would help cleanse Emma’s soul, and maybe she could find peace and a better life in the next world.

When Boyd relayed these words to Ivy, she was calm.

Truth be told, Ivy had never planned for things to come to this. She hadn’t wanted Emma dead. But Emma had insisted on destroying herself.

Now, with Emma gone, all those grudges and entanglements faded into nothing.

Jamison noticed Ivy’s silence. He waved Boyd away and sat down beside her, taking her hand.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing much. Just feels like everything’s finally over.”

“Yes. You can leave all of that behind now,” Jamison said softly, understanding her mood.

“Actually, the moment you went back there with me–and we left together–I’d already said goodbye to that past,” Ivy replied.

Sometimes, healing doesn’t require revenge.

Jamison’s presence was the best comfort she could ever have.

It had been twenty days since Ivy started taking her preventative medication after the high–risk exposure.

The side effects were getting to her.

Besides dizziness, fatigue, occasional chest tightness, and ringing in her ears, the worst was the constant nausea and vomiting.

Every day, about an hour or two after taking her pills, she felt so miserable that she sometimes slipped into depression.

Jamison had consulted specialists and tried various ways to ease her suffering, but nothing seemed to help much.

To make things worse, her cycle was now completely out of sync, adding to her discomfort.