I stared at the ceiling of my hotel room until dawn. But I felt more awake than any morning I'd ever woken up next to Damien.

I took a car back to the penthouse at the top of Chicago. The moment I walked in, I thought I was in the wrong place.

Gone was the familiar, sterile scent of antiseptic mixed with my own perfume. In its place was the cloying, expensive scent of another woman. One that made me want to gag.

I pushed open the door to what used to be my medical suite and froze.

The surgical light was gone. The steel trolley with my instruments, gone. The examination table, gone.

Instead, the walls were lined with luxury wardrobes. They were stuffed with expensive gowns and furs.

Isabella's closet.

"You're here."

Damien's voice came from behind me, sharp with impatience.

I turned. He was wearing a black silk robe, his hair still damp. Fresh from a shower.

And the angry red mark on his neck was pure Isabella. Staking her claim.

“My medical supplies?” My voice was steady, dangerously so.

“Packed away,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “She doesn’t like all that cold, sterile junk.”

Cold?

For four years, this “junk” had stitched him up, kept him breathing, and dragged him back from the brink of death more times than I could count.

I was the only reason his body was still a fortress.

And now, it was just “cold, sterile junk”?

"Where?"

Damien jerked his chin toward the service hallway. "Storage room. Get it yourself."

I followed him to the narrow hallway.

He opened the storage room door. My heart stopped.

All my things were thrown on the floor like garbage.

My custom-made instruments were snapped in half.

Rare medical texts—some of them priceless first editions—were crushed underfoot.

Vials of sterile medicine littered the floor like trash.

And the whiskey glasses we’d shared… shattered into a thousand tiny shards.

"Damien..." My voice trembled.

He leaned against the doorframe, annoyed. "Hurry up. Isabella needs this space soon."

I knelt, my hand reaching for the broken shards.

That's when I saw it. Beneath the opening of his robe.

The black rose I’d designed for his chest was gone. Covered by a raw, angry letter "I."

Isabella's "I."

"You changed the tattoo," I heard myself say. My voice was hollow, distant.

He shrugged. "Out with the old, in with the new."

He saw my numb expression and sighed.

"It was worthless. Just junk. I'll buy you new paints if you need them."

Worthless?

My gaze landed on a ruined leather journal amidst the wreckage.

The cover was torn open, revealing page after page of notes I’d kept on his recovery.

One thousand and one entries. Each one a testament to the worry I carried and the love I never dared to confess.

I gathered the ruined journal, its loose pages, and all the broken pieces of my life here.

Then, I fed it all into the incinerator chute set into the wall.

Damien's brow furrowed.

"You're right, Damien." My smile was cold. "Worthless things should be burned."

Including my stupid, inconvenient feelings.

Damien's jaw tightened.

I didn’t spare his expression a glance.

I pulled the papers from my bag—my resignation and the full transfer of his medical files.

“Sign these,” I said, my voice flat, “and we’re…”

My words were cut off by his phone.

"Babe, where are you? It's snowing and I'm going to slip! Come get me," Isabella whined through the speaker.

The anger on Damien's face vanished. He didn't even look at me. He just turned and walked away.

"Find your own way out. Text me when you're gone."

He left me alone in that cold, empty room.

The blizzard was raging when I walked out of the building.

I didn't have an umbrella. The snow was too thick to find a cab.

As I walked out of the building, my foot slipped on the ice. I went down hard, my body slamming against the frozen pavement.

My hand scraped against the jagged ice ringing a flowerbed. Blood bloomed instantly, a stark red against the white snow.

Tears instantly flooded my eyes from the searing pain.

But even then, my knuckles were white as I clutched the one thing I had left: the unsigned papers he’d refused to take.

Suddenly, a familiar armored car sped past.

It didn't slow down. Icy slush splattered all over me.

Through the window, I saw him.

Damien bowed his head, carefully adjusting Isabella as she nestled in his embrace.

He just wanted her to be more comfortable.

He held her like she was his most precious treasure.

A tenderness I hadn’t felt from him once in four years.

I clenched my jaw and pushed myself up from the frozen ground, my knee screaming in protest.

But I straightened my spine. I walked into the storm, away from him, and never looked back.

My last day. I was in my office, organizing the final transfer.

Four years of his life, documented. Every medical report. Every treatment protocol. Every prescription log.

I had to clean everything up. Leave no loose ends.

My phone vibrated. A text from Damien.

"Lafite from the cellar at the Swan Club. VIP 3."

Short. Cold. Like he was talking to a stranger.

I looked at the message and almost laughed.

Four years ago, when he first asked me to bring him wine, he used to add "thanks" at the end.

Now he couldn't even be bothered with basic manners.

I took the expensive bottle of Lafite and went to the Swan Club.

The door to VIP 3 was unlocked.

I pushed it open gently, planning to drop the wine and leave.

But the scene inside made me freeze.

Isabella was sitting on Damien's lap, pressed against his chest.

His fingers traced the diamond necklace at her throat. His focus was absolute. Like he was handling a priceless masterpiece.

"Does it hurt?" he murmured, stroking a tiny red mark on her neck. His voice was full of concern.

"A little," Isabella cooed, leaning into him. "The necklace got caught. It left a mark."

Damien tensed, inspecting the barely-there line.

"It's my fault," he said, kissing the spot. "I'll be more careful."

I stood in the doorway. The wine bottle nearly slipped from my hand.

How many times had I been hurt over the past four years?

When I took a hit for him during a rival family’s ambush, my face bruised and swollen?

He just tossed me a tube of ointment.

When I sliced my palm open on shattered glass in my lab, he didn’t even look up.

“You’re the doctor,” he’d said. “Handle it.”

When I dug a bullet out of his shoulder and nearly passed out from exhaustion, he never asked if I was okay. Not once.

And now he was acting like this over a tiny red mark on Isabella's neck?

"Here's the wine," I said flatly.

They both looked at me.

Isabella's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

“His private doctor,” I said, my voice flat as I set the bottle on the table. “The Boss requested it.”

Isabella studied me, her gaze turning dangerous. "Wait a minute... you're that princess from the Rossi family? Leo Rossi's sister?"

Before I could answer, a sharp nail raked my cheek. Pain exploded. A thin line of blood welled on my skin.

Damien shot to his feet, a flicker of shock in his eyes.

"Isabella, what the hell are you doing?"

But her eyes instantly filled with tears. She pointed at me, crying to Damien.

"The Rossi princess! She has everything, but she'd rather be your mistress."

"And you told me she meant nothing to you!"

The air went still.

Damien's complicated gaze flickered over me for a second. Then he gently pulled Isabella into his arms and kissed her tears away.

His voice was a frustrating mix of exasperation and adoration.

"Shhh, don't be scared. She's nothing. She can't hurt you."

Then he turned to me, his eyes cold as ice. "Even if she does like me... it's all in her head. Isabella, you have nothing to worry about."

A smirk flashed across Isabella's face. She snuggled into his chest.

"Then get rid of her! I don't want to see her again!"

Damien's brow twitched. He almost seemed to hesitate.

Seeing this, Isabella grabbed a cigar from the table.

Before Damien could move, she shoved the glowing tip of the cigar into the back of my hand.

The sick-sweet smell of my own burning flesh filled the air.

I gasped, instinctively trying to pull my hand back.

But Isabella was faster. She cried out first, pointing at her own slightly red fingers. "Ouch, it's hot! I was just offering her a cigar and she pushed me."

"Enough!" Damien finally snapped.

But his anger wasn't for Isabella. It was for me.

His eyes scanned right past the blackened burn on my hand.

"Elara! You've been with me for four years. Can't you handle a little jealousy? Or were you trying to hurt her?"

Before I could speak, Damien called for his right-hand man.

“Freeze all her payments from the gallery, effective immediately,” Damien continued, his voice devoid of any emotion. “And pull all funding for that medical conference she was supposed to present at. My family’s name won’t be attached to it.”

His man froze.

He glanced quickly at my disheveled state, then said carefully, "But, Boss, Miss Rossi... she's already engaged to the Moretti family..."

The second the words left his man's mouth, Isabella cried out in pain.

"Damien, if you're going to protect this mistress, then I'm leaving! And I'm never coming back!"

Damien's eyes widened. He forgot whatever his man just said and clung to Isabella.

"Baby, don't do this!"

He was panicking.

He held her tight, his voice a desperate whisper. "I'll handle it. Right now."

Then he turned to me, his glare like a knife.

"Elara, if there's a next time, you can crawl back to the Rossi family! And I won't care if Leo himself comes begging!"

The pain in my hand was making me sweat, but my voice was perfectly calm.

"Don't worry. There won't be."

Damien seemed taken aback by my answer. He just stared for a second.

Then he said nothing, scooping Isabella up into his arms.

"You're coming with us to the nearest private clinic," he ordered. "Isabella needs her hand looked at. And you need to answer for what you did."

I looked at the black burn on my hand and wanted to laugh.

Who did what?

Who needed to answer for it?

But I said nothing. I just followed them out.

As we were leaving, my phone buzzed.

Three texts from a number I no longer recognized.

Medical bills are covered. I'll fix the exhibition.

I was on edge. I can't lose her again.

I'll make it up to you.

From Damien.

I looked at him in the front seat, whispering comforts to Isabella. It was all so absurd.

He thought a few texts could fix this?

I deleted his number.

Just then, another notification popped up.

"Friend request accepted. — Julian Moretti"

Julian Moretti.

My future husband.

I'd actually met him once before.

In the car, Isabella clung to Damien's arm, sobbing.

"Damien, I'm scared," she whimpered. "The look in her eyes... she must hate me for taking you from her."

"She won't," Damien said, kissing her forehead gently. "I'm here. No one can hurt you."

The private clinic was just ahead.

The moment the car door opened, all hell broke loose. A rival's sedan screeched around the corner, guns blazing.

Damien reacted instantly. He yanked Isabella down, shielding her with his body.

"Get down! Don't move!" he ordered her.

His shove sent me stumbling back into a stone pillar.

A hot slice of pain seared my arm. A bullet.

Blood bloomed through my sleeve, dark against the white fabric.

When I looked up, Damien was already rushing Isabella—whose wrist was scratched by glass—into the clinic.

But he didn't look at me. All his attention was on her.

"Does it hurt? Are you hurt anywhere else?" He frantically checked every inch of her skin.

Isabella's wrist had a small cut from a shard of the broken window. It was bleeding.

"It hurts... it hurts so much..." she cried even harder.

Damien immediately scooped her up and ran for the entrance.

"Help! She's hurt!" he yelled at the doctors.

He never once looked back at me.

I stood outside the clinic, clutching my bleeding arm.

Blood dripped from my fingers, making red flowers on the white snow.

But I didn't go in.

"Miss Rossi, your arm is bleeding. You need to get that treated..."

One of the bodyguards handed me a clean handkerchief.

I pressed it to the wound, thanked him, and without a moment's hesitation, walked to the road and called for my family's driver.

"To the private airport."

The car started, heading in the opposite direction of Damien.

---

Meanwhile, Damien settled Isabella down and finally remembered me.

Half an hour later, he walked out with a tube of high-grade burn cream, looking for me. The doctor just shook his head in confusion.

"There's no record of a Miss Rossi checking in. She never came inside."

Damien froze, his hand tightening around the cream.

His phone rang. It was Leo.

The second he answered, my brother's furious roar exploded from the speaker.

"Damien Volkov! Is this how you fucking protect my sister? You let her get all shot up!"

Damien's brow furrowed. Of course. He thought I'd run crying to my brother.

His voice went hard with annoyance. "Is she with you? Put her on the phone."

"Put her on? Hell no!"

From the private airport, my brother's voice was pure ice and fury.

"You want forgiveness? Then you'll show up at her wedding. Two days."