“I don’t want to leave you here. I want you to go with me.”

“What’s the matter? Go where?” I sat straight up, pulling the sheet over my naked body.

“The baby. He’s in critical care.”

“Oh no! What happened?” I had to be sure I heard him right.

“See if Aisha can stay here. Pack a bag. We gotta get to Arizona.”

“But—”

“But, nothing . . . we family now. Right?”

I didn’t recall saying that but there I found myself getting up and getting ready.

Chapter Eleven

CHARLI LI

Cedar Sinai Hospital Beverly Hills, California

“Miss Li. You healed quite nicely. But still take it easy,” Dr. Bowers, my surgeon, gave me a warm, but stern look over his rimless glasses. The private hospital had been my home for the past six months, and the staff had become family. I was going to miss them.

“Thank you, Dr. Bowers. I’m so pleased with your work.” I held the hand mirror and turned my face from side to side, admiring his handiwork. My eyes had been widened from their original slant. He had taken out some of my Asian crease through Epicanthoplasty. My pug nose now had an aquiline look. I no longer looked Chinese or part Jamaican. I looked—Caucasian! I burst into tears of joy. Imagine waking up with a new face!

“Well, thank God, modern science, and your father for these hands.” He chuckled, ignoring my tears.

Dr. Bowers didn’t even have to tell me. My father’s money allowed me the best plastic surgeons money could buy. The right amount money would afford anyone to be transformed. The left side of my face had been scarred almost beyond recognition, and my right leg scarred in the pit bulls attack. Images of the dogs’ teeth ripping my skin flooded me. My mandatory therapy sessions that Dr. Bowers required were more important than the surgery. Without those intense sessions I would not be alive.

* * *

“Now, Charli,” my father said in a gentle tone as he pushed my wheelchair toward the curb where his driver waited in front of the hospital. “You can take as much time off as you need.”

“No, Father. I’m ready to go back to work. Seven months is too long. You can understand that.”

When we approached the curb, my father’s driver jumped out the car and opened the back-passenger car door to the limousine.

Once inside the backseat, with the window closed for privacy, my father began the sermon I knew was coming. “Charli, I know you’re a grown woman, but I forbid you to even think about that thug who was responsible for all this.”

“But, Father—”

“We’ve had to pass on quite a few opportunities while you were in recovery. We lost time. We lost money and I almost lot you. He is responsible and I will take care of it.”