Ava POV

The hospital corridor smelled of antiseptic and impending ruin.

Liam's grip on my arm was a vice, his fingers digging into the soft flesh as he propelled me toward Room 402 like a prisoner to the gallows.

"Give me your phone," he demanded, not breaking his stride.

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

He snatched it from my hand before I could protest.

He unlocked it-he knew my passcode, of course. Possession was nine-tenths of his love language. I had never been allowed secrets. Until today.

He scrolled through the messages, his thumb moving with frantic speed.

I held my breath.

The interface showed nothing.

It was just the dummy screen Nex had installed. No texts to Ethan. No "Protocol Zero." Just mundane reminders, a grocery list, and spam.

Liam frowned, jamming the phone into his pocket.

"You're hiding something," he muttered.

We reached the room.

He didn't knock. He threw the door open so hard it bounced off the rubber stopper.

"Eleanor, I-"

He stopped.

The room was silent.

The bed was stripped to the mattress.

The monitors were dark.

The ventilator was unplugged, the cord coiled with mocking neatness on the hook.

Empty.

Liam stood frozen.

For a second, he looked like a statue, a monument to his own failure.

Then, he exploded.

He kicked the IV stand next to the bed. It crashed to the floor with a deafening clang, rolling wildly across the linoleum.

I flinched.

He saw it.

He spun around, his eyes wild.

"Where is she?" he roared.

"I don't know," I said, forcing my voice to remain steady. "Maybe they moved her for tests."

"Don't lie to me!"

He grabbed my face, his fingers digging into my jaw until I thought the bone might snap.

"You moved her. How? Who helped you?"

"I have no one, Liam!" I cried out. "You made sure of that!"

He stared at me, searching for the truth in my eyes.

Slowly, the realization dawned on him. He had lost his leverage.

The fear in his eyes was visceral. It was delicious.

"You think this changes anything?" he hissed, spittle flying from his lips. "You think because she's gone, you can leave?"

"Yes," I said. "The engagement is over. The blackmail is over."

He laughed.

It was a sound devoid of humor, dry as old bones.

"You are property, Ava. You leave when I say you leave."

He dragged me out of the room.

"Where are we going?" I struggled against him, my bad ankle throbbing with every step as I tried to keep my footing.

"To fix your mess."

He didn't take me to the car.

He dragged me through the service exit and down the connecting tunnel to the adjacent building.

The Research Center.

Also known as "The Lab."

The heart of the Valenti money laundering operation.

We took the freight elevator down to the basement.

The doors opened to a hum of servers and the cool, sterile air of climate control.

Chloe was there.

She was sitting at a terminal, looking frantic, her face pale beneath the harsh fluorescent lights.

"Liam!" she cried when she saw us. "It's gone! All of it!"

"What is gone?" Liam demanded, throwing me toward the desk.

I stumbled, catching myself on the sharp edge of a server rack.

"The laundering codes," Chloe wiled. "The algorithm for the offshore accounts. I tried to log in, and it said 'File Corrupted.' She did it! Ava deleted them!"

I looked at the screen.

I hadn't deleted them.

I had encrypted them.

Only I had the key.

"Fix it," Liam ordered me.

"No," I said.

The slap came out of nowhere.

It cracked across my cheek like a whip.

My head snapped to the side. I tasted copper flooding my mouth.

It was the first time he had ever hit me.

I touched my cheek, looking at him. My skin burned, but my resolve turned to ice.

"You coward," I whispered.

"I said fix it!" Liam yelled, his voice cracking. "The Commission is expecting the transfer by midnight! If the money doesn't move, we are dead!"

"She's lying, Liam!" Chloe pointed a manicured finger at me, her hand trembling. "She's trying to destroy us!"

Liam looked at Chloe, then at me.

He chose the lie.

He always chose the lie.

"You want to play games?" Liam grabbed me by the hair, yanking my head back.

"Liam, stop!" I screamed.

He dragged me toward the back of the room.

Toward the main server vault.

"You want to be in control?" he snarled. "Fine. You stay in there until you remember the codes."

He opened the heavy glass door of the server room.

He threw me inside.

I landed hard on the metal grating, the impact knocking the wind out of me.

"Liam, please!"

He slammed the door shut.

The electronic lock engaged with a heavy, final thud.

He stood on the other side of the glass, his face twisted with rage.

"Midnight, Ava," he said through the intercom. "Or I don't open this door."

I scrambled to the glass, pounding on it with my fists.

But then I heard it.

A low beeping sound.

Coming from the server rack behind me.

I turned around.

A small red light was blinking on a device attached to the main hard drive.

It wasn't a standard component.

It was rigged.

I looked at the timer.

This wasn't just a lock-in.

It was a setup.

Chloe hadn't simply lost the codes.

She was purging the evidence.

And I was the evidence.

Ava POV

Ten seconds.

That was all the time I had left.

I stared at the blinking red light on the incendiary device. Plastic explosives, expertly rigged to the server core. Enough to melt the drives.

Enough to turn this glass cage into an incinerator.

"Liam!" I screamed, slamming my palms against the reinforced pane. "There's a bomb! Open the door!"

Liam was arguing with Chloe in the corridor, his back to me. He didn't look.

But Chloe did.

She saw me pointing at the device. She saw the terror in my eyes.

And then, she smiled.

It wasn't a panic response. It was a subtle, venomous quirk of her lips-a victory lap before the race had even finished.

She grabbed Liam's arm and yanked him away, pointing frantically toward the exit.

00:03.

I scrambled backward, curling into a ball in the furthest corner of the room, trying to make myself small.

00:02.

I covered my head with trembling arms.

00:01.

The world turned white.

The sound wasn't a boom. It was a physical blow, a sledgehammer of atmospheric pressure that crushed the air from my chest.

Heat, instantaneous and searing, washed over me.

The shockwave threw me against the glass wall like a ragdoll. My head cracked against the reinforced pane, and for a second, the universe dissolved.

Darkness swarmed my vision.

I slid down to the floor, gravity reclaiming my limp body.

Smoke.

Thick, black, acrid smoke filled the small room instantly. The fire suppression system should have triggered. Halon gas should be dumping from the ceiling to starve the flames.

Instead, there was only the roar of the fire.

Sabotage.

I coughed, my lungs burning as if I'd inhaled broken glass.

I looked up.

Through the toxic haze and the spiderweb cracks in the glass, I saw the corridor.

Liam was on the floor. He had been knocked down by the blast, but he was moving.

He pushed himself up, his eyes wild as he looked toward the server room.

He saw the fire.

He saw me.

I pressed my hand against the glass, leaving a bloody smear where my skin met the surface.

Help me.

I mouthed the words, my voice stolen by the smoke.

Liam took a step toward the door. His hand reached for the keypad.

"Liam!"

Chloe's voice cut through the ringing in my ears.

She was on the floor, coughing. It sounded dry. Forced.

"My leg!" she screamed, clutching a limb that looked perfectly fine. "Liam, help me!"

Liam froze.

He looked at me. Trapped in the fire. Bleeding. The architect of the destruction, in his eyes.

He looked at Chloe. The innocent bystander. The victim.

He hesitated.

That hesitation broke my heart more than the explosion ever could.

He pulled his hand back from the keypad.

He turned his back on me.

He scooped Chloe up into his arms, shielding her face from the smoke while leaving me to choke on it.

"You did this to yourself, Ava!" he yelled over the roar of the flames, his face twisted in disgust.

He kicked the outer door open.

And he walked away.

He left me to burn.

The heat was unbearable now, a physical weight pressing down on me. My clothes were smoking. I couldn't breathe.

I curled up on the floor, the metal grating searing my skin.

So this is how it ends.

Betrayed.

Alone.

No.

A spark of rage ignited in my chest, hotter than the fire around me. Rage was better than fear. Rage was fuel.

I will not die here.

I will not let them win.

I dragged myself toward the ventilation grate on the floor. It was small. Impossibly small.

But the blast had loosened the screws.

I clawed at it, my fingernails breaking, blood mixing with the soot on my hands. I kicked it with my good leg, screaming silently with the effort.

It gave way with a metallic clang.

I squeezed into the crawlspace below the floor, darkness swallowing me just as the servers above exploded into a fireball.

I woke up to the smell of bleach and burnt hair.

Pain was a living thing, pulsing in my head, my lungs, my skin. It had a rhythm, a heartbeat of its own.

I opened my eyes.

White ceiling.

I was in the private clinic. The one Liam controlled.

"She's awake."

Liam's voice. Flat. Devoid of warmth.

I turned my head. It felt like my neck was packed with broken glass.

He was standing by the window, looking immaculate in a fresh suit. Not a hair out of place. Not a smudge of soot on him.

"You're lucky," he said, not turning around. "The fire suppression kicked in eventually. Security pulled you out."

"You... left me," I rasped. My voice was a ruin, a jagged whisper.

He turned then.

His face was cold. Indifferent. Like he was looking at a stranger.

"I saved the civilian," he said smoothly. "Chloe was injured. You were the one who rigged the room."

"What?"

"Don't play dumb, Ava. The police report says it was arson. You tried to destroy the servers to hide your incompetence."

He walked over to the bed.

He didn't ask how I was.

He didn't touch me.

"Get up," he said.

"I... I can't."

He reached out and ripped the IV line from my arm.

Pain spiked, sharp and sudden. Blood spurted onto the pristine white sheets.

I gasped, clutching the wound.

"I said get up," he growled, his patience evaporating. "You have a meeting to attend. You need to apologize to Chloe."

"Apologize?" I stared at him, trying to reconcile the man before me with the one I thought I knew. "She tried to kill me."

"She is the victim here!" Liam shouted, his control slipping for the first time. "You almost killed her with your jealousy!"

He grabbed my arm-the burned one.

I screamed.

He dragged me out of the bed, ignoring my cry.

My hospital gown was flimsy. I was barefoot. Vulnerable.

He dragged me into the hallway. The floor was freezing against my soles.

"Walk," he commanded.

I stood there, swaying. Pain was everywhere, a chorus of agony.

But inside, the fire from the server room was still burning.

I looked at him.

Really looked at him.

I didn't see the Prince of New York.

I didn't see the love of my life.

I saw a small, frightened man who needed to break women to feel tall.

"No," I said.

Liam stopped. He looked shocked. The word was foreign to him.

"What did you say?"

I straightened my spine. It hurt, but it felt good. It felt like armor.

"I said no."

I took a step toward him, forcing my trembling legs to hold steady.

"You aren't a Don, Liam," I said, my voice gaining strength with every syllable. "A Don protects his own. You're just a coward in a tailored suit."

His eyes widened.

He raised his hand to hit me again.

I didn't flinch. I didn't blink.

"Do it," I challenged, staring straight into his soul. "Finish what you started."

He lowered his hand.

He looked unsettled. He wasn't used to defiance. He was used to fear.

"You're delirious," he sneered, backing away. "Go back to your room. Cool off. We'll discuss your punishment later."

He turned and walked away fast.

Retreating.

I watched him go.

I touched the bandage on my arm, feeling the heat radiating beneath it.

He thought he had broken me.

He was wrong.

He had just forged me into something sharp enough to cut his throat.