Benedict POV

The silence in the office was suffocating.

Benedict looked from the flyer to his father, then to Yvonne. His gaze darted back and forth, confusion warping his features.

"Dad, what are you saying?" Benedict asked, his voice barely a whisper. "Yvonne would never..."

"Shut up, Benedict," William snapped. He did not look at his son. His lethal glare was fixed solely on Yvonne.

"Where is my grandson?" William asked. His voice was quiet now, which was far more terrifying than his shouting.

Yvonne let out a breathy, incredulous laugh. She walked around the desk, putting distance between herself and the CEO.

"Grandson? William, surely you do not believe the lies that woman told you," she scoffed. "She was a fling. A mistake Benedict made years ago."

"She was his wife in every way that mattered!" William roared. "And that boy was my blood!"

Yvonne crossed her arms. Her mask was slipping. The sweet fiancée was gone; the cornered animal was emerging.

"She’s a gold digger," Yvonne spat. "She came here last night screaming, making a scene. She was high on something! I did what I had to do to protect the hospital's reputation."

"You blocked a dying child from receiving care!"

"I followed protocol!" Yvonne yelled back. "The ER was at capacity! We can’t just let every hysterical woman off the street waltz in because she claims to know the CEO's son!"

Benedict picked up the flyer. His hands were trembling.

"She left me a note," he whispered. His eyes drifted to the trash can where he had tossed it earlier.

Yvonne's eyes darted to the trash can, then back to Benedict.

"She was harassing you, Ben. Just like she always does. I was trying to protect you."

"Protect me?" Benedict looked at her—really looked at her, as if seeing a stranger. "By letting my son die?"

"Oh, stop it!" Yvonne threw her hands up. "It was a snake bite! He was probably dead before she even got here. Why is everyone acting like I murdered him? He was a common patient!"

A common patient.

The words hung in the air.

I watched Benedict's face crumble. I saw the moment his heart broke. Not for me. Not yet. But for the realization of the monster he was sleeping with.

William stepped forward.

"I have launched a formal investigation," he announced. "The police are on their way to seize the security tapes. And you, Yvonne... you are suspended. Immediately."

Yvonne's face turned purple.

"You cannot do that! My family—"

"Your family is the only reason you aren’t in handcuffs yet!" William shouted. "Get out of my hospital."

Yvonne grabbed her purse. She looked at Benedict, expecting him to intervene. Expecting him to save her.

"Ben?" she whimpered, trying to summon crocodile tears.

Benedict did not look up from the flyer. He was transfixed on Jeremy's picture.

"Get out," Benedict whispered.

Yvonne straightened her spine. She smoothed her scrubs. She looked at them with pure, unadulterated hatred.

"Fine. But you will see. You will all see. She is not worth this. She never was."

She turned on her heel and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

I stayed in the shadows. I watched William sink into a chair, burying his face in his hands. I watched Benedict reach into the trash can and retrieve the crumpled note.

He smoothed it out on the desk, his tears falling onto my handwriting, blurring the ink.

Too late, I thought.

It is too late for tears.

Ava POV

The investigation moved with terrifying speed; William Sinclair did not waste time.

By noon, a team of forensic investigators had cordoned off the emergency room entrance. Yellow crime scene tape snapped violently in the wind, a stark contrast to the relentless gray day.

I floated above them, a silent sentinel watching the aftermath of my own murder.

They were hunting for blood. They were scouring the pavement for DNA.

One investigator, a woman with sharp eyes and a no-nonsense ponytail, was kneeling exactly where I had fallen. Right where Francis had shoved me.

I remembered the pain. I remembered the sickening sound of metal scraping against the tile as I collapsed.

My pendant.

Not the ruby necklace Benedict gave Yvonne. The other one. The small, silver locket I always wore. It held a tiny chip of the same ruby, a leftover shard from when Benedict had commissioned the main necklace for his mother—before he stole it back to give to Yvonne.

It had snapped off when I hit the floor.

It was small. Tiny. Easily missed deep in the grout lines of the tile.

The investigator was scanning the floor with a UV light. She was moving too fast. She was going to miss it.

No, I thought, panic flaring in my chest. Look down. Look closer.

I focused all my energy, all my will, on that tiny spot of silver and red. I could not touch it. I could not speak. But I could... push.

Not physically, but mentally. I focused on the investigator's subconscious.

Look. Look. Look.

The investigator paused. She frowned, the rhythm of her work breaking. She tilted her head, as if she had heard a whisper over the wind.

She moved her light back.

There.

A tiny glint.

She reached into her kit and pulled out a pair of tweezers.

"What do you have?" her partner asked, stepping closer.

She carefully picked up the fragment. It was a piece of silver setting, holding a jagged shard of ruby.

"Looks like jewelry," she said, her voice muffled by her mask. "Broken in a struggle."

She placed it in an evidence bag. She held it up to the gray light.

On the back of the silver setting, microscopic but visible, were initials.

B & A.

Benedict and Ava.

My name. Linked to his.

I felt a surge of triumph that tasted like ash.

The investigator stood up.

"Bag it and tag it," she ordered. "This places the victim exactly where the witness said she was. And if the fracture lines match the jewelry the suspect was wearing..."

She looked toward the hospital doors, her eyes narrowing.

"We've got them."

I looked up at the window of Benedict's office on the third floor. I knew he was up there. I knew he was suffering.

"Good," I whispered to the wind.

Let it burn. Let it all burn.

Benedict POV

The fragment of metal sealed inside the evidence bag was smaller than a dime, yet it sat in my palm with the crushing density of a collapsing star.

I sat at my desk, the air in the office stagnant, thick enough to choke on, as if I were drowning on dry land.

My hands trembled violently as I held the plastic up to the harsh fluorescent light.

A twisted silver setting. A jagged, blood-red chip of ruby. And on the back, etched in microscopic letters I had paid a jeweler a fortune to engrave seven years ago: B & A.

Benedict and Ava.

Acid climbed my throat, hot and vile.

The memory of the day I reclaimed it clawed at me. I had told her it was too ostentatious for a stay-at-home mother. I told her my mother wanted it for the family collection.

I had lied.

I had pried the main stone loose for Yvonne simply because she claimed she needed a ruby to match her gown for the hospital gala.

But Ava... Ava had scavenged this scrap. This tiny, broken setting. She had worn it like a talisman. She was wearing it last night when she came to me, begging for help.

And I had crumpled her desperate note and tossed it into the trash.

My gaze fell to the autopsy report. Jeremy Fuller. Age six. Cause of death: Delayed treatment.

I killed him.

I didn't pull a trigger, but I might as well have put the gun to his temple. I let the woman I vowed to cherish and the son I neglected die on the cold tiles of my own hospital, all while I fretted over a cocktail party.

A sound tore from my throat—a low, guttural keen that belonged to a wounded animal, not a man. I gripped the heavy crystal paperweight on my desk and hurled it across the room.

It collided with my framed medical diploma, shattering the glass into a thousand shaming shards.

The door swung open.

Yvonne stood in the frame. She didn't look concerned; she looked annoyed, her gaze flicking dismissively over the debris.

"Really, Ben?" she sighed, stepping delicately over the wreckage. "You're acting like a petulant child. Your father is already overreacting, and now you’re throwing tantrums?"

She strode toward me, her heels clicking a sharp, authoritative rhythm on the floor. That sound used to ignite my desire. Now, it grated like a drill against a raw nerve.

I looked at her. I truly saw her for the first time.

I saw the flawless makeup. The tailored, expensive scrubs. The absolute, chilling void of empathy in her eyes.

How had I been so blind?

"Get out," I rasped. My voice was a whisper, but it felt like swallowing gravel.

Yvonne rolled her eyes, planting a hand on her hip.

"Stop this melodrama. We need to strategize. If that woman talks to the press—"

"She is dead, Yvonne!" I roared, shooting to my feet.

Yvonne flinched, retreating a step.

"She is dead," I repeated, stalking around the desk to close the distance. "And my son is dead. Because of you. Because of me."

Yvonne crossed her arms, her defensive walls slamming into place.

"It is not my fault she was weak. And that boy... he was likely terminally ill already. You cannot blame me for following hospital protocol."

"Protocol?" A dry, hysterical laugh escaped me. "You blocked the door. You called her a whore. You watched a child turn blue and suffocate while you chattered about a party."

I stopped inches from her face, invading her space.

"We are done, Yvonne."

She blinked, stunned. "Excuse me?"

"Get out of my office. Get out of my life. If I see you in this hospital again, I will personally drag you out by your hair."

Yvonne’s face twisted, the mask of civility shattering completely.

"You are pathetic," she spat. "You think you’re some tragic hero? You’re just a weak man who couldn’t keep it in his pants. You deserve this misery. That brat deserved to die just to teach you a lesson."

The world seemed to stop spinning.

The silence in the room was absolute, heavy as a shroud.

My eyes drifted to the scalpel resting on my desk tray. For a second—one terrifying, seductive second—I wanted to wrap my fingers around it. I wanted to carve the same pain into her that she had inflicted on them.

But I didn't.

"I am the one who deserves to die," I said, my voice hollow, void of all warmth. "But I am going to live. I am going to live every single day remembering what I did. And I am going to make sure you never hurt anyone ever again."

Yvonne sneered, turning on her heel.

"You will come crawling back," she threw over her shoulder as she reached the door. "You always do."

She slammed the door, leaving a ringing silence in her wake.

I sank to the floor, clutching the evidence bag against my heart as if it contained the last beat of my life. I curled into a ball, pressing the cold plastic against my fevered forehead.

"I am sorry," I whispered to the empty, judging room. "I am sorry, Ava. I am sorry, Jeremy."

I squeezed my eyes shut, praying for the darkness to swallow me whole.

Somewhere in the still air, a cold draft brushed against my wet cheek. It felt like a hand. A soft, familiar touch trying to wipe away my tears.

But when I opened my eyes, there was nothing there but empty air and the wreckage of the life I had destroyed.