“Your body is completely shutting down. At best, you have three months to live.”

I woke up to the steady, hollow beep of a heart monitor. I wasn’t in the VIP wing of Greenville General, where Julian was kept in a state-of-the-art suite.

I was in a cheap, unheated trauma ward on the outskirts of the city. The paramedics who pried me from the crushed metal of the Maybach had dropped me at the nearest public clinic.

Oliver hadn't bothered to arrange a transfer. He hadn't even called.

The doctor stood at the foot of my thin, stiff bed, holding a clipboard. His eyes were full of a heavy, uncomfortable pity.

"Late-stage leukemia," he said, his voice quiet.

The irony was almost suffocating. The woman who had been kept as a human blood bag, whose bone marrow was endlessly harvested to keep a billionaire alive, was dying of poisoned blood.

"Your system is entirely depleted," the doctor explained, flipping through my charts. "Years of severe malnutrition. Unhealed physical trauma. And the excessive, unregulated marrow extractions... they destroyed your body's ability to regenerate. There is nothing we can do."

Three months.

I didn't cry. I didn't ask for a second opinion. I just nodded, pulled the IV needle out of the back of my hand, and swung my bruised legs over the side of the bed.

"You can't leave," the doctor protested, stepping forward. "You have fractured ribs, internal bleeding—"

"I have to go get my dog," I interrupted, my voice flat and hollow.

I walked out of the hospital in the thin, paper-like scrubs they had put me in. The storm from the night of the crash hadn't stopped. The freezing rain plastered the thin fabric to my skin, but I didn't feel the cold. I didn't feel the agonizing pain in my chest. I felt absolutely nothing.

I walked for three miles in the pouring rain.

My only thought was Barnaby. He was a stray golden retriever I had found shivering in an alley two years ago. I had smuggled him into the servant's quarters of Oliver's estate.

He was the only living creature in that massive, sprawling mansion who was happy to see me. He was the only one who didn't look at me with absolute disgust.

When I finally reached the towering iron gates of the Sterling estate, my bare feet were bleeding.

The head of security stepped out of the guardhouse, holding a large black umbrella. He looked at my soaked, battered state with a familiar sneer.

"Where is Barnaby?" I asked, my voice raspy.

The guard crossed his arms. "The mutt? Mr. Sterling ordered us to throw it out last night."

My breath hitched. "Out? Where?"

"Out on the street," the guard replied carelessly. "Miss Beatrice was startled when she came home from the hospital. The dog barked at her. She said it gave her a fright. Mr. Sterling was furious. He told us to kick it out the gates and make sure it didn't come back."

Thrown out. Into a freezing, blinding storm.

I didn't argue. I didn't scream at the guard. I turned around and began to walk down the winding, unlit mountain road that led away from the estate.

I searched the dark, wet ditches. I called his name, my voice cracking and fading into the heavy rain.

"Barnaby."

I walked for another mile.

Then, I saw a patch of gold resting against the cold, gray asphalt.

He was lying on the side of the road, just past a sharp curve. The rain was washing over his matted fur. A passing car had hit him and didn't even bother to stop.

I slowly walked over to him. My knees finally gave out.

I collapsed into the thick, freezing mud beside his body. I reached out with a trembling hand and touched his head. He was completely cold. The soft, warm eyes that used to watch me with such pure, unconditional love were closed forever.

Because he barked at Beatrice.

Because my husband wanted to comfort the woman who stole my locket.

I knelt in the mud, the freezing rain beating down on my back, my hands buried in Barnaby's wet fur.

In the past, I would have broken down. I would have screamed at the sky, sobbing until my throat bled, asking God why I was being punished. I would have run back to the mansion, demanding an explanation from Oliver, begging him to show just an ounce of humanity.

But as I knelt there, staring at the only thing I had left in the world, something inside me quietly snapped.

It wasn't a loud, dramatic break. It was a silent, absolute death.

I didn't shed a single tear. I didn't scream.

The obsessive, desperate love I had harbored for Oliver Sterling for ten long years—the love that made me endure the marrow extractions, the abuse, the humiliation, the crushed ribs—evaporated into thin air. It was gone. Erased.

I looked down at my hands, stained with mud and Barnaby's cold blood.

I had three months left to live.

I wasn't going to spend them crying over a man who treated me worse than dirt. I wasn't going to spend them being a blood bag for a family of parasites.

I gently picked up Barnaby's heavy, lifeless body. I held him close to my chest, ignoring the sharp agony of my fractured ribs.

I stood in the cramped, windowless room at the end of the servant’s hall that had been my bedroom for three years. I packed a single, small duffel bag with two changes of faded clothes.

Before leaving, I walked up the grand staircase to Oliver’s private study. Sitting in his top drawer were the divorce papers he had drafted a year ago to keep me obedient.

I pulled the thick stack of documents out, picked up his expensive fountain pen, and signed my name.

When I reached the section for the billion-dollar compensation clause, I drew a single, hard line through the empty boxes.

I folded the papers, left them dead center on his mahogany desk, and walked out of the estate forever.

My last stop was Greenville General Hospital. I bypassed the chaotic emergency wing and took the private elevator up to the VIP floor. Julian’s room was quiet.

"Live well, Julian," I whispered to his sleeping form. "My debt to your brother is paid in full."

I turned and walked out of the hospital, stepping into the freezing, overcast courtyard. I had three months to live, and I planned to spend them as far away from Greenville as possible.

"Where do you think you're going?"

The sharp, mocking voice made me stop.

Beatrice was standing alone beneath the hospital awning. Oliver was nowhere in sight—likely inside settling her discharge paperwork or retrieving the car.

She wore a pristine designer coat, her arm wrapped in a delicate bandage from the crash. When she saw the cheap duffel bag in my hand, a cruel smirk spread across her face.

"Running away?" Beatrice sneered, stepping into my path. "Finally realized Oliver will never love a pathetic blood bag? Good. It saves me the trouble of having him throw you out."

"I left the signed divorce papers on his desk," I said, my voice completely dead. "You can have him."

I tried to step around her, but my absolute apathy infuriated her. Beatrice was used to me crying. She was used to me begging.

"Don't you walk away from me!" she hissed, lunging forward and grabbing my arm with her good hand. Her perfectly manicured nails dug into my bruises. "You don't get to leave on your terms, Carmella! You leave when we say you're done!"

"Let go of me," I warned, my voice dangerously low.

"Or what?" she taunted, raising her hand to slap me. "You're nothing! You're a stray—"

I didn't think. I just reacted.

I violently ripped my arm out of her grip and shoved her backward. I didn't push hard, but Beatrice stumbled in her designer heels and fell hard onto the wet pavement, scraping her knees.

"You bitch!" she shrieked, her eyes wide with fury. "I'm going to tell Oliver you attacked me! He'll kill you!"

I didn't wait for Oliver to walk out those hospital doors. I wasn't going to let him drag me back to that mansion.

I turned and ran.

I sprinted out of the hospital gates and into the freezing rain. My fractured ribs screamed in agony with every step, and my lungs burned, but I didn't stop.

I ran down the slick, gray sidewalk, desperate to disappear into the city.

I reached the busy main intersection. The pedestrian light was red, but I couldn't wait. I just needed to get to the other side. I needed to be free.

I stepped off the curb and bolted into the street.

I didn't hear the screeching tires over the sound of the pouring rain. I only saw the sudden, blinding glare of headlights to my left.

A massive, pitch-black Maybach was hurtling through the intersection.

Time froze. I turned my head, staring directly into the chrome grille of the armored car.

Smash.

The impact was devastating. The heavy steel shattered my remaining strength, throwing me violently through the freezing air.

I hit the wet asphalt with a sickening thud. My duffel bag skidded away, spilling my faded clothes into the muddy puddles.

The world instantly tilted on its axis. A high-pitched ringing drowned out the sound of the rain. I lay on the freezing road, completely paralyzed, my blood pooling onto the street.

Through my rapidly darkening vision, I looked back toward the hospital gates.

Beatrice was standing on the sidewalk. She wasn't screaming or faking a cry anymore. The delicate, victimized mask had completely slipped. As she stared at my broken body bleeding out in the street, a slow, chilling smirk spread across her face.

The sleek black Maybach skidded to a halt just a few feet away. The heavy, armored doors flew open.

I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.

The last thing I saw before my eyes rolled back was a pair of immaculate, expensive leather shoes stepping out of the black car and rushing toward me.

Then, everything went pitch black.