Cassian Durel—the poor boy I once humiliated—finally destroyed my family. He ruined my parents, drove them to their deaths, and reduced me to scavenging through trash and swallowing other people’s leftovers. People said he had his revenge at last.

The night I threw myself into the sea, he followed me—though he couldn’t swim. A shark took his hand trying to save me. He later spent billions hiring hypnotists to erase my memories and force me to marry him. In the life he built for me, everything bent toward him; my world became only love for Cassian, exactly as he wanted.

But on our tenth anniversary I saw him slip into the nurse’s room at midnight. Her wailing overlapped with Cassian’s low, pitying voice—the voice I’d learned to mistake for moonlight. “I’m doing this to make her suffer when she wakes,” he whispered. “You’re the light of my life.”

I had hidden amnesia pills in my palm. Cassian believed I’d forgotten everything; he didn’t know I’d never truly let go. Tonight I would give myself the one real forgetting I’d never allowed: everything—him included.

——

I waited five hours. When Cassian finally returned his body still damp, the scent of Sorrel’s shower gel clung to him—sweet, intimate, unmistakable. He started at me as if I’d sprung up from the dead. A chill went through me; I forced a smile. “Why such a big reaction? Did you do something wrong?”

He avoided my eyes, shifting like someone trying to find footing. “The client was difficult. I drank too much and showered in the lounge.” The excuse hung there—pathetic. His cold-faced reputation made the business world tremble; who would dare drink him into the early hours and live?

I didn’t call him out. Instead I rolled the sleeve of my silk nightgown up, slowly.

A hideous burn scar crawled across his shoulder—raw, puckered, grotesque.

“Sorrel did it,” I said flatly. “Let her go.”

His gaze flicked to the wound; for a heartbeat his brow tightened, then smoothed. “It’s a minor injury. I’ll have the doctor bandage it tomorrow.”

“She just graduated—young girls are clumsy. Be understanding.” He began unbuttoning his shirt as if that would prove something. “I’ll have her apologize. I’ll make her cover the medical bills.”

I smiled without joy. His mother had called me a vixen once; Cassian had sent her back to their country house the same day, not even letting her pack. After all these years of being his wife, after every small indignity I’d swallowed, he treated a wound like an inconvenience—nothing more.

I slid my sleeve down to hide the ugly patch of my wrist. “I understand,” I lied. “I won’t trouble you with children’s mistakes.”

Children—my age. I pressed my fingers to my temple and breathed in slow and shallow. “Headache,” I said. The amnesiac’s side effects.

I had mimed this illness for years. This time, the pain was real.

“Why does it hurt again?” His voice sounded weary, almost bored. “It’s been years. It should have healed. Stop using this old ailment as an excuse—you’re driving everyone crazy.”

He paused, voice colder. “Don’t bother me. I have a multinational meeting tomorrow. I’m exhausted.”

Silence fell like a guillotine.

The stabbing ache that had started in my skull spread to my chest. I whispered, “Okay.”

My fingertips found the smooth cool of my wedding band. I tried to steady myself, to hold onto the anchor I’d worn for years—

But the ring slid free before I could grip it. It fell from my finger and hit the floor with a soft, final clink.

My mind felt like it was being pierced by a thousand needles, the agony swallowing my vision in black.

I bit down hard on my lip, fighting back tears.

In the haze, I saw Cassian—eyes red as blood—sliding a ring onto my finger. The image shattered, frame by frame, until it blurred into nothing.

At breakfast the next morning, Cassian didn’t see me. Panic twisted his face as he tore through the villa, then mobilized an entire search team.

They finally found me in the basement.

But I wasn’t alone.

A venomous a deadly viper coiled inches away. Its head snapped forward.

“Don’t move!”

Without hesitation, Cassian lunged, shielding me with his body.

The fangs sank into his neck. His skin turned an ugly shade of blue before he collapsed. They rushed him to the hospital, pumping out every drop of blood before dragging him back from death.

The doctor’s face was darker than soot as he pointed at Cassian’s entourage.

“Why were you more than ten minutes late? He should be dead right now!”

Everyone’s eyes turned on me like knives.

It was my fault. I had delayed the trip, insisting on retrieving his teddy bear.

The secretary who had followed Cassian for ten years finally snapped.

“How could a broken toy matter more than Mr. Durel’s life? He’s given you everything, and you— you don’t even care if he dies!”

Cassian’s face went cold.

“You’re fired. Collect your salary and leave.”

The ward fell silent.

Then he turned to me, forcing a smile onto his pale lips.

“Don’t listen to him. If it makes you happy, I’ll protect even an old teddy bear. Even if it killed me, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

I clutched the washed-out bear, smiling like a fool.

Strange… Cassian, who never forgets anything, always forgets this bear.

Because this is no ordinary toy.

He had saved five hundred dollars in high school—scrubbing toilets for five months—just to buy it for me.

For me, it wasn’t even enough for a gift box.

So, in front of all our classmates, I threw the bear in the trash. Then I slapped a hundred thousand dollar bill in his face.

“Take this and get lost. Don’t disgust me with your garbage again.”

Now my eyes dropped to his only remaining hand. Smooth. Pale. Pampered.

So different from back then, when corrosive cleaners had eaten his skin raw, leaving it swollen and blistered. Cassian’s hand should never have looked like this. Even now, I couldn’t reconcile it.

The ward door banged open. Sorrel rushed in, flinging herself at his bed and knocking me to the floor. The burn she’d given me days earlier split open; blood soaked through my sleeve.

But Cassian’s gaze filled only with pity—for her.

He didn’t even notice me until the nurse came for rounds. Then, awkwardly, he offered an explanation:

“Sorrel… she’s too empathetic. Don’t overthink it.”

He remembered my headaches and asked the doctor to check me, but his eyes never once flicked to the blood dripping down my arm.

When the doctor stepped away, leaving me in the hallway, I finally let out a breath—

But a brutal force slammed me forward.

Sorrel.

She wrenched the teddy bear from my arms and crushed it against my face, her voice shrill with venomous hatred.

The cotton gag filled my mouth; breath turned to iron.

“You bitch! I’ll make you feel Cassian’s pain!” Sorrel’s voice cut across me, close and cruel. Panic clawed at my ribs and I reflexively mouthed Cassian’s name.

The suffocation closed in. I tore at the gag until my fingers bled, nails carving long, red tracks into the floor. The ward was only a few steps away—and no one moved. Darkness pooled at the edges of my vision.

Then Cassian’s voice came, faint and impossibly calm. Relief flared. I thought I was saved. Instead he watched as if from behind glass, then spoke to the doctor at his side with that chill he always wore. “Dr. Crowe, process this memory of Elowen Drae—like before.”

Sorrel’s shriek echoed in my head. “If Cassian hadn’t kept wiping her mind, she’d learn her lesson!”

The realization hit like ice: this was not the first time he let her hurt me.

A flood of broken scenes — sharp, merciless — stabbed through my skull. On our first night together she had moved into our bridal chamber as if it were hers. She’d scalded me with coffee under the pretense of “venting,” shoved me down stairs, even pinned Cassian on the sofa while I watched him twist and struggle.

That night he broke. He pinched a cigarette between trembling fingers, bloodshot eyes boring into mine. “Elowen, the weight between us is too heavy,” he had said.

The humiliations of youth, the ruin of my family, the hand he’d lost trying to save me — these fractures ran too deep.

They strapped me into the treatment chair, electrodes cold against my scalp. Cassian approached with an expression I couldn’t read. He bent, kissed the wet tracks on my cheeks, and murmured, “Elowen, rest. Everything will start anew.”

The doctor hesitated. “Mr. Durel—this is too frequent. It’s harming her brain.”

Cassian’s voice was small and desperate. “I can’t let her hate me.”

Then the current snapped into me, a crackling violence that obliterated memory like glass. Pain and names and faces shattered and fell away. My fingers slackened; the teddy bear I’d clutched rolled into the trash beside the bed — forgotten, as always. Only this time no one would retrieve it.

I slept for a long time. When I woke, the man leaning over me was unfamiliar in a new way—handsome, earnest, panicked. I jerked my hand back. “Who are you?”

He flinched, then seized my fingers. “Elowen. I’m Cassian—your husband.” He gripped with too much force. “We’ve been married three years. You love me. You said I was your life.”

He rattled off memories like proof, but they felt hollow, as if someone had cut the roots from the words. I rubbed my aching temple and mouthed the habit of comfort. “Sorry, my head hurts.”

His smile froze. He glanced away, saw the bear in the bin, and his face soured. “What a piece of trash. Throw it out.”

I stared at the soiled toy, the dark dried stain on its fur, and then at my own lip — a sting of blood where Sorrel’s hand had opened it. Instinct made my fingers touch the wound.