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.

The hospital alarm shattered the silence, a shrill, rhythmic shriek that felt like a hammer striking glass.

"Code Red. Mass Casualty Incident. ETA two minutes."

The automated voice blared through the speakers, repeating the message in a sterile monotone that made the rising panic feel exponentially worse.

I hovered in the corner of Benedict's office, watching him. He was still on the floor, his face streaked with tears, clutching the bag that held my locket.

When the alarm sounded, his head snapped up.

For a second, he looked lost. He looked like a man who wanted to stay on the floor and let the building burn down around him rather than face another moment of reality.

But then, the doctor took over.

He wiped his face roughly with his sleeve, smearing the tears rather than drying them. He stood up. His movements were stiff, mechanical, but steady. He put the evidence bag in his pocket, tucking it right against his heart.

He took a deep breath, inhaling the air that I could no longer breathe.

I followed him as he ran out the door.

The hallway was controlled chaos. Nurses were sprinting with IV bags. Orderlies were pushing stretchers. The elevator doors pinged open, and the first wave of patients arrived.

It was a bus crash. A drunk driver had swerved into a school bus.

Blood was everywhere. It soaked the sheets, dripped onto the floor, and the air smelled heavy with iron and fear.

Screams bounced off the walls, a cacophony of pain.

Benedict didn't hesitate. He waded into the sea of bodies.

"Bed 3 needs intubation!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the noise like a scalpel. "Get a central line in Bed 5!"

He was moving on autopilot. His hands were steady as he inserted a tube into a teenager's throat, but his eyes were dead. He was a machine made of flesh and bone.

I floated above him, watching.

I saw the way he flinched every time he saw a child. I saw the way his hand trembled for a fraction of a second when he saw a boy with dark hair.

He was punishing himself. He was taking the hardest cases, the bloodiest wounds, trying to wash away the guilt with work.

"Dr. Sinclair!" a nurse yelled. "We need you in Trauma 1!"

Benedict ran. I drifted after him, pulled by the invisible tether that bound me to him.

Trauma 1 was a war zone. A young girl was coding. Benedict jumped on the bed, starting chest compressions immediately.

"One, two, three, four."

"Come on," he grunted, sweat dripping down his forehead. "Do not die on me. Not tonight."

He pumped her chest, putting his entire weight into it. I knew what he was doing. He wasn't just saving her. He was trying to save Jeremy. He was trying to rewrite the past ten hours.

"We have a pulse!" the nurse cried.

Benedict slumped back, breathing hard. He looked at the girl's face. She was alive.

He didn't smile. He just nodded and stepped down.

"Next," he said.

He walked out into the hallway, wiping blood from his gloves.

That was when the doors swung open again.

Paramedics rushed in, pushing two gurneys side by side.

On the first gurney was a man, his chest crushed, gasping for air.

On the second gurney was a woman in blue scrubs.

Yvonne.

She was covered in blood. Her leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, bone protruding through the skin. She was screaming.

"Help me!" she shrieked. "Ben! Ben, help me!"

A nurse ran up to Benedict.

"Dr. Sinclair, it is your fiancée! She was in the parking lot... the drunk driver hit her car after he hit the bus!"

Benedict froze. He looked at Yvonne. Then he looked at the man on the other stretcher.

Yvonne saw him. Her eyes widened.

"Ben!" she screamed, reaching out a bloody hand. "It hurts! You have to help me!"

Benedict stood there, the chaos swirling around him. He looked at the woman who had let our son die. He looked at the woman who was now begging for the very mercy she had denied us.