Ila POV:

Jaxon didn't return. Not that night, not the next day. A nurse brought me meals that grew cold on the tray. The pain in my shoulder was a constant, throbbing reminder of his betrayal. Hunger was a dull ache beneath it, but I was too weary to eat. I drifted in and out of a restless, pain-filled sleep, my brow furrowed even in my dreams.

I woke with a start, a sharp, searing pain in my other arm yanking me from a nightmare. I looked down. My uninjured arm, the one I had squeezed my ring into, was now wrapped in a thick, blood-soaked bandage. A new, agonizing fire burned beneath the gauze.

The nurse from before bustled in, checking my IV. "Ah, you're awake. The skin graft surgery went well."

"Skin graft?" I croaked, my mind struggling to catch up. "What are you talking about?"

Her expression was a mixture of pity and professional detachment. "For the other patient. Miss Myers. She had a nasty fall, and the scrape on her leg… well, Mr. Kent was very insistent that there be no scar. He authorized the use of your tissue for the graft. A perfect match, of course." She sighed, shaking her head. "Some people have all the luck, don't they? One gets the best care money can buy, the other… well."

She trailed off, but she didn't need to finish. I understood. Jaxon had harvested my own skin to heal the woman who had tried to kill me. He had taken a piece of my body and given it to her, as if I were nothing more than a collection of spare parts.

A wave of nausea and vertigo washed over me. I clamped my hand over my mouth, my face a ghastly shade of white. He was carving me up, piece by piece, and feeding me to my replacement.

"I want to be transferred," I said, the words barely a whisper. "To another hospital."

Just as the words left my lips, Jaxon appeared in the doorway. He was carrying a bouquet of my favorite peonies and a thermal container of the chicken soup my grandmother used to make. He looked rested, clean-shaven, and utterly oblivious to the fresh hell he had just put me through.

"Ila, darling," he said, his voice smooth as silk. "Look what I have for you. I had a chef work all night to replicate your grandmother's recipe."

He sat on the edge of my bed, spooning a piece of perfectly ripe melon and holding it to my lips. His movements were so familiar, so tender, it felt like a scene from another life. He even blew on the soup, his brow furrowed in concentration, just as he always had.

But my heart was a frozen lake. I saw through the performance. This wasn't love. This was maintenance. He was tending to his broken possession, ensuring it didn't cause him any more trouble.

Over the next few days, I watched him. I watched him bring Kamila the best parts of the bird's nest soup he'd had flown in from Hong Kong, while I got the broth. I watched him kneel by her bed, his hand pressed gently to her stomach, his face lit with wonder as he waited to feel the baby kick. I watched him, through my half-closed eyelids, sneak into her room late at night after he thought I was asleep.

I heard him on the phone, introducing her to a business associate as "my wife, Kamila."

And I did nothing. I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just watched, and I waited. The woman he thought I was would have been hysterical, would have thrown things, would have demanded answers. But that woman was dead. The person who is truly determined to leave doesn't waste time on goodbyes.

When he was out of the room, I used a burner phone Dario' s people had smuggled to me.

"How much longer?" I whispered.

"Two days," the voice on the other end replied. "Your new passport and identity are almost ready. We have a flight booked out of a private airfield."

A smile, the first genuine smile in what felt like a lifetime, touched my lips. It was a strange, foreign feeling.

Jaxon walked in at that exact moment, his own smile faltering as he saw mine. "What are you so happy about?" he asked, a flicker of suspicion in his eyes.

"Just thinking of something funny," I said, my face reverting to its placid, blind mask.

He tried to kiss me, but I turned my head at the last second, his lips grazing my cheek. A flash of irritation crossed his face, but it was gone as quickly as it came.

"The doctors say you're well enough to go home," he said, his tone brisk. He pressed a kiss to my forehead, a cold, dry gesture. "Let's go home, Ila."

On the drive back to the villa-our castle, our prison-he kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror. I felt his eyes on me, searching, questioning. He knew something was different, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Jaxon, watch out!" Kamila shrieked from the passenger seat.

I looked up. A large truck, its headlights off, was hurtling towards us from a side road, barreling straight for my side of the car. There was no time to react.

The world exploded in a symphony of screeching tires, shattering glass, and the brutal, deafening crunch of metal. The car was thrown into the air, flipping over and over, before a final, violent impact sent us into darkness.

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Ila POV:

I was adrift in a long, dark dream.

The dream took me back five years, to a rainy night on a deserted coastal road. I' d found him in a crumpled heap beside his wrecked sports car, a gash on his forehead bleeding profusely, his leg bent at an unnatural angle. He was Jaxon Kent, the untouchable tech god, and he was broken. I, a simple figure skater with a first-aid kit in my trunk, had been the one to save him.

The dream shifted. We were in a hospital. He needed a rare blood type for a transfusion, and I was a match. "Take it," I'd told the doctors without hesitation. "Take as much as you need." He told me later, his eyes dark and intense, that my blood now ran in his veins. "You're a part of me now, Ila Kline," he'd whispered, sealing the vow with a kiss. "And I'm never letting you go."

He pursued me with the same single-minded intensity he applied to his business empire. He filled my small apartment with flowers, he flew my favorite Parisian macarons in daily, he wrote me poetry that was both clumsy and breathtakingly sincere. "My life was black and white before I met you," he'd said, on the night he proposed. "You are my color, my light, my entire universe."

Then the dream soured. The vibrant colors bled to gray. The image of his adoring face was replaced by the tiger's snarling maw. The memory of his vow to never let me go curdled into the reality of him choosing to save Kamila, leaving me to be torn apart.

"No!" I screamed, the sound ripping me from the depths of the dream.

I snapped awake, my heart hammering against my ribs. I was in a dark, damp room. The air smelled of salt and decay. My hands were tied behind my back, and a rough blindfold was tied so tightly over my eyes it made my head ache.

Panic, cold and sharp, seized me.

"Looks like the pretty one is awake," a gravelly voice sneered from across the room.

"Which one?" another voice chuckled. "They look almost identical. Kent certainly has a type."

Their conversation was punctuated by the rhythmic sound of waves crashing against stone. A warehouse. By the docks.

"This is about business," the first voice continued, his tone turning cold. "Jaxon Kent ruined my family. He backed us into a corner, forced my father into bankruptcy. My father killed himself last year. It' s time Kent learned what it feels like to lose everything."

Gilmer Mcgee. A name I' d heard Jaxon mutter with contempt. A ruthless business rival he had crushed without a second thought.

Suddenly, a new voice, distorted by a speaker, filled the room. It was Jaxon.

"Mcgee! Let them go! This is between you and me. They have nothing to do with this." His voice was raw with a fury that vibrated through the floorboards.

Mcgee laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "Oh, but they have everything to do with it, Kent. You see, I'm going to make you choose. Let's play a game."

Rough hands grabbed me, hauling me to my feet. Another set of hands did the same to Kamila, who was whimpering and struggling beside me. We were dragged forward and shoved to our knees at the edge of what felt like a pier. The cold, salty spray misted my face.

Through the speaker, I heard Jaxon's ragged gasp. He was watching this on a screen.

"Let. Them. Go," he snarled, each word a low, dangerous threat.

"Game number one," Mcgee announced cheerfully. "A little swim. For every ten seconds you delay transferring the company shares, your ladies get a dunk in the bay. Let's see how much you love them."

I felt myself being lifted, then flung through the air. The impact with the icy water was a shock to my system, stealing the breath from my lungs. The salt stung the open wounds on my shoulder. I was hauled up, sputtering and gasping, only to be thrown in again. And again. The water was a brutal, suffocating fist, battering my already broken body. I could hear Kamila's shrieks beside me, a soundtrack to my own silent agony.

After the third dunk, as I was being dragged from the water, my body limp and trembling, I heard Jaxon' s desperate voice through the speaker. "Stop! Fine! I'll do it! Just stop!"

"Good boy," Mcgee chuckled. "But you were a little slow. You know what that means. You only get to save one of them from the next round. So tell me, Jaxon. Which one will it be? Your precious, blind figure skater, or the mother of your unborn child?"

The world stopped. The sound of the waves, Kamila's sobbing, my own ragged breathing-it all faded away. There was only the static hiss of the speaker, and the weight of the question that hung in the air.

Choose.

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Ila POV:

"Jaxon, please!" Kamila's voice was a desperate, theatrical wail. "The baby! Think of our baby! Save us, Jaxon, save me!" She was playing her part to perfection, the terrified mother protecting her unborn child.

The silence that followed stretched for an eternity. I could hear Jaxon's ragged breathing over the speaker, the sound of a man being torn in two. A part of me, a foolish, masochistic part, held its breath, waiting for him to say my name.

"Kamila," he finally choked out, the single word a death sentence. "Let Ila go. I choose Kamila."

The strength drained from my body. My head lolled forward, my soaked hair plastering against my face. I felt nothing. No shock, no surprise. Just a profound, hollow emptiness. He had made his choice on the terrace with the tiger. This was just the confirmation.

Mcgee let out a bark of cruel laughter. "A predictable choice! The heir over the used goods. Very pragmatic, Kent." He kicked me hard in the back, sending me sprawling. "Your man chose the other one, sweetheart. Looks like you're going for another swim."

He didn't just throw me in. His men held my head under the water until my lungs burned and black spots danced before my vision. They did it five, six, seven times. I lost count. Each time I was dragged up, gasping for air, I could hear Jaxon screaming my name through the speaker, his voice a frantic, powerless roar.

"You said you'd stop!" he bellowed.

"I said you could save one," Mcgee's voice was slick with amusement. "I never said I was done playing." He hauled my limp body back onto the pier. I was barely conscious, my body a trembling, waterlogged sack of pain. "Game number two! Whiplash! Ten lashes. But again, you get to choose who is spared. So, Jaxon? Has your choice changed?"

Jaxon's response was a strangled sob. His hands, I imagined, were clenched into fists so tight his knuckles were white, drawing blood. He was in agony. But it wasn' t enough. It would never be enough to make up for this.

"Kamila," he whispered again, his voice broken. "Spare Kamila."

Kamila, safe on the other side of the pier, let out a sob of relief. "Oh, Jaxon, I knew you loved me!" Then, her voice dropped to a smug whisper, meant only for me to hear. "He chose me again, Ila. He will always choose me."

I didn't even have the strength to react. A profound numbness had settled over me. It was as if I was watching this happen to someone else, a character in a tragic play.

The first lash of the whip felt distant, a dull thud against my back. I grunted, my hands clawing at the rough wooden planks of the pier, my nails splintering. The second lash ripped through the numbness, a line of fire that seared my skin. A low moan escaped my lips.

One after another, the blows rained down. My back became a canvas of raw, bleeding flesh. My thin silk nightgown was shredded, sticking to the open wounds. I was on the verge of blacking out, the world reduced to a haze of pain and the rhythmic crack of the whip.

Jaxon was screaming, a long, continuous howl of pure anguish over the speaker. He was begging, pleading, threatening. But he never changed his choice.

"Stop! Please, for the love of God, stop!" he roared.

Suddenly, Kamila let out a piercing scream. "My stomach! Jaxon, the baby! I think I'm having a miscarriage!"

Jaxon's frantic pleas for me stopped instantly. "Kamila? Is the baby okay?" he asked, his voice tight with a new, more immediate terror.

At that moment, the final lash landed. It was harder than the rest, a brutal, vicious strike that stole the last of my breath. A spray of blood erupted from my lips, warm and metallic.

"Ila!" Jaxon screamed my name, a sound of pure horror. But he made no move. He was still focused on Kamila and his precious heir.

"Well, this is a predicament," Mcgee said, a note of genuine amusement in his voice. "Both of them look like they're at death's door. I've got a medical team on standby, Kent. But they only have enough supplies for one. So, for the final time, who do you choose to save? Your bleeding lover, or your bleeding fiancée and potential heir?"

My ears were ringing. The world was a blurry, distorted mess. I could barely hear the question, but I knew the answer. I didn't need to hear it.

Through the haze of pain, I saw a shape move. I saw Jaxon, freed from his own confinement, rush past me without a second glance. I saw him scoop Kamila into his arms, his face a mask of terror and devotion, and carry her towards the waiting medical team.

He didn't even look back.

Not once.

A sound bubbled up in my throat. It started as a faint chuckle and grew into a full-blown, broken cackle of laughter. The sound was mad, unhinged, the sound of a soul shattering into a million irreparable pieces.

My blood ran cold, a freezing tide that had nothing to do with the icy bay water. It was the chill of a love that had turned to poison, of a heart that had been utterly and completely annihilated.

A seagull landed near my head, its pristine white feathers instantly stained crimson by the blood pooling around me. It chirped once, a lonely, plaintive sound in the sudden silence.

I was dying. On a filthy pier, abandoned by the man I had given my life to. A sudden, sharp cramp seized my lower abdomen, a familiar, sickening pain. Blood, darker and thicker than the blood on my back, began to seep from between my legs.

The baby. Our second chance. Gone. Sacrificed, just like me, at the altar of Jaxon's love for another woman.

I swear, Jaxon Kent, I thought, as the last of my strength faded and the world went black, if there is a next life, I will never, ever love you again.

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