Adrian came home three days after the scandal broke.

Flying back from Switzerland, almost at the fastest speed possible.

The moment he stepped through the door, Mr. Harris pressed a gun into his hand.

He carried his suitcase, staring at me in confusion.

“What’s the meaning of this?”

I toyed with the grip of my pistol, eyes sharp, beckoning him closer.

The next second, my men dragged Clara forward.

After days of hunger, she still held her head high the instant she saw Adrian.

She defied me fearlessly, shouting, “Victoria Hayes, I’m not afraid of you!”

“If you dare touch me, Adrian will never forgive you!”

I rose lazily from my chair, watching Adrian’s blood-red eyes.

Then shoved the barrel of my gun against Clara’s mouth.

Ignoring her struggles, I tilted my head toward Adrian.

“Two choices: kill her yourself, or I’ll do it for you.”

I smiled faintly, my nails trailing across her cheek.

“Only then, her death won’t be so pretty.”

Across the long mahogany table, Adrian’s fury gradually cooled.

He met my gaze with icy calm.

“And what if I choose neither?”

“Victoria, are you really going to go against me?”

At that moment, my brow twitched.

Adrian already knew my answer.

Since we were ten, Adrian had always been the one to take care of me quietly.

Ruthless to outsiders, soft as a saint to me.

The only times he ever confronted me were when I crossed his bottom line.

When I lost control, pulled a gun at the wrong time.

He couldn’t stop me, but he also couldn’t bear to knock me out.

Instead, he threw his own body in front of those who had broken my taboos.

“Coco, if you have to shoot, shoot me.”

“Don’t hesitate.”

My aim was notorious in the underworld.

Adrian didn’t fear death—he’d point at his own head.

More than once, my finger pulled the trigger, the muzzle smoking.

Adrian closed his eyes, and somehow the bullets always missed.

When I finally threw the gun aside in frustration, he would rush forward and hold me.

Using his body to steady me.

Eyes full of irrepressible joy.

“Be good, I know you won’t hurt me.”

I’d bite his hand in rage, showing my ferocity.

“Adrian, try using yourself as leverage one more time!”

But Adrian never listened. He always shielded others.

Sometimes I thought Adrian was sent from above to suppress me.

Without him, I’d have been killed by my enemies dozens of times, buried beside my father.

But this time, the person he wanted to protect couldn’t be saved.

“Adrian, since you won’t choose, I’ll choose for you.”

I pressed the barrel into Clara’s palate.

Her mind went blank, nearly fainting from terror.

“I’ll give you three seconds…”

“Three…”

Faster than the countdown was Adrian’s move.

He twisted Harris’s arm, pressing the gun to his temple.

For Clara, Adrian dared to threaten my man.

A man who had raised me, prepared everything for me, practically like my own uncle.

Fury tore through me. “Let him go, Adrian!”

His jaw tightened, unable to meet my eyes.

“Give Clara back to me.”

“Please, Coco.”

Even at that moment, he still called me by my nickname.

Was it to make me feel even more disgusted?

I forced down the surge of hatred in my gut and leveled the gun at Clara’s left leg from the small of my back.

With a bang, blood sprayed across my cheek.

Ignoring the red haze in my eyes, I roared,

“Adrian, you know exactly how insane I am!”

“I swear, if you lay one more finger on Harris, she’ll die even worse!”

My finger rested on the trigger. I watched Adrian’s startled gaze and smiled.

I was betting he’d relent—beg for peace.

But the moment I yanked Clara by the hair,

a bullet tore through the palm of my right hand.

The drilling pain flooded my brain a breath too late.

The gaping hole was so deep I could see bone, shredded flesh sloughing off like pus with torn tendons.

As I trembled from the agony, Adrian’s men burst through the door.

The roses he had planted for me were trampled into the dirt under their boots.

He scooped Clara into his arms—payback for those eighteen stabs three years ago.

“The second time, Coco.”

“No matter how much I indulge you, I will never allow Clara to fall in front of me again!”

Adrian rushed out with the woman.

His men formed a wary circle around me, not sparing a glance for the bloody crater in my right hand.

Jaw clenched, I collapsed bonelessly onto the sofa.

I stared at my right hand, the fingers refusing to curl no matter how I tried—despair swallowing me whole.

No one knew better than Adrian how much I’d paid to hold my place in the underworld, licking blood from the knife’s edge.

I’d held a gun since seven, won the shooting championship in Newport City’s underground, and survived countless close calls with this hand.

My bullets were the noose around our enemies’ necks, the ladder beneath my feet.

Now it was ruined.

Nearly twenty years—gratitude or hatred, it no longer mattered.

Adrian, there is no “later” for us.

When the doctor came to stabilize me, Adrian’s people let him through, no resistance.

After a rough dressing, the doctor’s face turned grim.

“You need surgery immediately.”

“Ms. Hayes, even if you never hold a gun again, we must ensure it doesn’t affect your daily life.”

“Any further delay and you could lose the hand!”

I said nothing and pushed myself toward the door.

I was stopped at the front entrance of my own mansion.

“Mr. Cole has given orders. Ms. Ward’s surgery isn’t finished.”

“Ma’am, you can’t leave yet.”

Through the carved door, I stared at the layers of men surrounding the estate—and fell silent.

Adrian truly lived up to his so-called “knight’s code” in the underworld.

To save Clara’s life, he would do anything—

even if it meant turning me into a cripple from this day on and handing over generations of the Hayes empire.

I gave a cold laugh and dialed Adrian in front of everyone.

“Adrian, I’m leaving. I’m getting treatment.”

Silence for a few seconds on the line. Then his voice went cold.

“Wait.”

“Clara’s still in emergency care—the bullet hasn’t been removed.”

“Coco, if I let you out now, do you think she’ll survive?”

Everyone in Newport City knew I paid back blood for blood.

His men straightened at once, guns raised to block my way.

“Ma’am, don’t make this harder on us.”

Sweat beaded down my forehead.

I dropped the phone and said, ice-cold, “Hayes family, listen to my order.”

“Kill anyone who dares stand in your way today.”

I drew a long-unused combat knife from my back.

Bloodshot-eyed, I let go of reason completely.

Anyone who blocked me—I slashed for their throat and heart without hesitation.

Until today, these men were brothers.

They were the ones who helped the Hayes family get this far.

After today—bridges are bridges, roads are roads.

I won’t feed men who eat our bread while bowing to another name.

I don’t know how long I killed before going numb; my arms were slick with blood—

some theirs, some mine.

A black van stopped in front of me.

Instinctively, I raised my blade to kill.

Then I saw the driver was one of our own.

Everything in me gave out. I collapsed into the seat.

My lieutenant steadied me, hesitating. “Are we still going to St. Mary’s Hospital?”

That hospital—Adrian had built it up for me years ago.

He’d gathered the world’s best specialists in wrist injuries—

all because I once said, “My hand hurts.”

The internet always joked that St. Mary’s was better at plastics than rehab.

I never believed it.

Now I finally had my answer.

I turned away decisively, watching the city blur past the window.

“No. Summon the best doctors in Newport City to Newport General Hospital.”

“From now on, Hayes business is done by the Hayes.”

Eyes closed, I endured the searing pain in my hand.

Adrian kept calling, tireless.

I hung up each time, and he found another way to reach me.

At last, I answered, impatient.

“What—calling to tell me your darling isn’t out of surgery and I should pay with my life?”

“Don’t trouble yourself, Adrian. I’m not pathetic enough to rush over and watch you fawn over another woman.”

On the other end came his roughened breathing—

then the screech of brakes. A black Porsche fishtailed to a stop at the intersection,

blocking my route to Newport General completely.

Adrian shoved open his door and strode toward me.

“Coco, get out.”

“I’ve assembled the best medical team. Your men can’t come.”

“You—come with me alone.”

I looked at him with scorn, as if he were a stranger.

He was the one who put a hole through my right hand.

He was the one who blocked me from getting treatment at my own front door.

And now he wanted to perform “devotion” in front of me?

Or am I that cheap—

the kind of woman who knows he has someone else in his heart and still cripples herself to climb toward him?

I let out a cold laugh, rolled up the window, and said, flatly,

“No need, Mr. Cole. I’ll handle my own affairs.”

“As for you and Clara—wait for me.”

“What the Hayes are owed, the Hayes will take back.”

The driver slammed the accelerator.

We rammed the Porsche without hesitation and sped toward Newport General.

Adrian stood beneath the streetlamp in a black coat, hands bloody,

stiff as a post.

After surgery, when I woke from anesthesia,

my lieutenants had already compiled a list of those who’d defected to Adrian.

“Miss, please review.”

“We’re monitoring Adrian—he’s still at the hospital. No movement.”

On the big screen, Adrian and Clara were perfectly visible.

They tried to block my view, but I insisted on getting out of bed and staring at the feed.

On screen, Adrian was holding Clara fresh out of surgery.

He touched her gruesome wound with aching tenderness.

“Clara, the doctors said you’ll be fine.”

“For me—bear with it a little longer, okay?”

Clara’s face was pale; hatred swam in her eyes.