Elena POV:

Killian didn't hesitate. He was at Dallas’s side in an instant, his entire focus on her, effectively turning his back on me.

“Are you okay? Did she hurt you?”

“I just startled her,” Dallas whimpered, her voice a masterful performance of trembling fragility. “I don't know why she's so angry.”

Killian’s fury ignited. He spun on me, his face twisting into a mask of cold rage. “What the hell is wrong with you? You’d attack her over some stupid high-school grudge?”

“She bullied me, Killian,” I tried to explain, my voice shaking. “She gave me this scar.” I thrust my wrist forward, but his gaze never left Dallas.

“That was years ago. Kids are cruel,” he dismissed, his tone laced with ice.

Dallas placed a delicate hand on his arm, a soft, manipulative gesture that only seemed to fuel his anger toward me.

My bag had fallen during the commotion, spilling its contents across the dusty floor. I dropped to my knees to scramble for the few mementos I had of Leo—a worn photograph, a small, lopsided clay bird he’d made for me in art class.

“Here, let me help,” Dallas said, her voice dripping with saccharine concern. She bent down, her fingers closing around the little clay bird.

And then she crushed it.

I watched, frozen, as the last thing Leo ever made for me crumbled into dust between her fingers.

A scream tore from my throat, a sound of pure grief and rage. I lunged at her, my vision blurred by tears.

Killian shoved me away.

Hard.

I stumbled backward, my wrist connecting with the hard edge of the doorframe with a sickening crack. Pain exploded up my arm.

He scoffed, looking down at the gray dust on the floor that had once been a bird. “It was a stupid bird, Elena. I'll buy you a hundred more.”

He didn't remember. He had completely forgotten that Leo made it for me.

That piece of clay was worth more than his entire empire, and he didn't even know it.

Elena POV:

Exhausted and numb, I sank into the back of the Maybach. Killian and Dallas sat in the front, their whispered conversation a dull hum I couldn’t bring myself to process. I felt invisible, a ghost in the backseat of my own life.

I replayed every instance of Dallas's cruelty, every single torment Killian had dismissed as a misunderstanding or a harmless prank. He had never seen it. He had never wanted to see it.

The world outside was a blur of city lights until a sudden, blinding glare filled the car. A large truck, its horn blaring, slammed into the passenger side of the Maybach with a deafening shriek of twisting metal.

The car crumpled like a tin can. Airbags deployed with a violent hiss. My head snapped back against the headrest, and the side window shattered, showering my face in shards.

I felt a warm trickle of blood trace a path from a cut on my forehead.

Killian’s first and only instinct was to protect Dallas. He threw his body over hers, shielding her from the impact, frantically checking her for injuries. He didn’t so much as glance into the rearview mirror.

He wrenched his door open and pulled a whimpering Dallas from the wreckage, shouting for medics, his entire focus on her.

My vision blurred. My head was pounding, and a thick knot of shock and grief in my throat kept me from calling out his name.

Through the shattered window, I watched him carry Dallas toward the flashing lights of an ambulance without a single backward glance, without a single thought for me.

Before the darkness pulled me under, I remembered a promise he’d made on a starry night years ago, his lips against my ear.

“No matter what happens, Elena. I will always choose you.”

I woke up in a sterile white hospital room. The air was thick with a cloyingly sweet scent. The room was filled with peonies, massive bouquets of them on every surface.

A flower I am violently allergic to.

A fact he once knew as well as he knew his own name.

Elena POV:

A nurse bustled in, her expression a bright mask of professional cheerfulness that felt like sandpaper on my raw nerves.

"Oh, you're awake! Mr. Emerson had us fill the room with these for you. Isn't he the most romantic man?"

She gestured to the peonies, their cloying scent clogging my throat, making my eyes water and my skin begin to itch.

Romantic. He'd forgotten my severe allergy.

It wasn't just a detail; it was everything.

He didn't love me. He loved the idea of being a man who loved his wife, a man who filled her hospital room with flowers. The specific flower, the specific woman, didn't matter.

The door opened and Killian stepped inside, holding a vase of lilies—another flower he should have known I disliked.

He looked tired, a shadow of a bruise under his eye.

"You're awake," he said, his voice tentative, as if testing the temperature of the room.

I said nothing. My eyes remained locked on the vase of peonies on the nightstand.

With a surge of cold energy, I shoved it.

It crashed against the floor, shattering, sending a spray of water and petals across the white linoleum.

"Get out," I whispered, the words barely audible.

Instead of leaving, he knelt, playing the part of the caring husband, picking up the larger shards of glass.

"Elena, let's just talk."

He cut his finger. A drop of red welled on his skin. His eyes instinctively flickered to mine, that old, familiar search for sympathy.

I turned my head away, staring at the blank wall.

"It was a tactical decision," he said, his voice low as he straightened, wrapping a tissue around his bleeding finger. "In a hit, you protect the most vulnerable asset first. Dallas was on the passenger side. It was just… tactics."

He offered me a box of my favorite chocolates, a peace offering. I slapped them out of his hand.

They scattered across the floor, mixing with the broken glass and ruined flowers.

"I said, get out."

The mask slipped. The patient, concerned husband vanished, and the ruthless Don I knew so well emerged.

His jaw tightened, his eyes hardening to ice.

"Don't be stupid, Elena. Who do you think is paying for this room? Who paid for every single one of Leo's medical bills before…"

He trailed off, the threat hanging in the air between us.

My finger, trembling slightly, pointed to the door.

Killian stared at me for a long, hard second. Then he turned and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

The sound echoed in the silent room, and finally, the tears came.

Hot, silent tears of grief and a sheer, soul-crushing exhaustion.