Aminda POV

The overhead fluorescent lights were aggressive, searing against my retinas.

I sat perched on the edge of the hospital bed, a bandage wound tight around my head. My suitcase sat by the door, a silent sentinel.

Jayden had retrieved it for me. My flight was in four hours.

The door clicked open.

I braced myself for a nurse.

Instead, it was Colton.

He was still wearing his tuxedo, though the tie was undone-a rare sign of disarray. He didn't look worried. He looked irritated.

"You're causing a scene," he said, shutting the door firmly behind him. "Leaving in the middle of the night? Really?"

I stared at him. My head pounded in rhythm with my heartbeat.

"I'm not on your payroll anymore, Colton. I don't answer to you."

He stepped closer, and his scent-sandalwood and expensive scotch-flooded the small, sterile room. It used to be my favorite smell. Now, it made my stomach turn.

"Charlie is distraught," he said. "She thinks you hate her."

"I don't hate her," I said, my voice flat. "I don't care enough about her to hate her."

"She sent you this." He gestured to a styrofoam bowl on the tray table. "Gourmet broth. Straight from the hotel chef. She wanted to make peace."

"I don't want it."

"Stop acting like a child," Colton snapped. "She didn't have to do this, especially after you tried to drag her into the pond."

"I didn't-" I started, then stopped. What was the point? He had already rewritten history in his head to protect his perfect reunion.

The door swung open again.

Charlie breezed in, looking immaculate. Not a hair out of place.

"Colty," she whined, latching onto his arm. "Is she accepting my apology? Even though she was the one who terrified me?"

She looked at me, her gaze sliding to the soup. "Oh, you haven't touched it. Are you afraid I poisoned it?"

She let out a giggle that sounded like shattering glass.

"She's just being stubborn," Colton said, dismissing me.

Charlie wandered over to the bedside table. "And look, I brought back the little wooden box you left in the cottage. The one Colton's dad made?"

She held up the intricately carved box. It was the only thing Colton had left of his father. I had spent months carefully humidifying the wood to keep it from cracking.

"Oops," Charlie said.

She opened her hand.

The box hit the linoleum floor.

It shattered into three distinct pieces.

"No!" I gasped, instinctively reaching out.

"You clumsy bitch!" Charlie shrieked, pointing a manicured finger at me. "You knocked it out of my hand!"

It was a lie so blatant, so stupid, I couldn't believe anyone would buy it.

Colton stared down at the broken wood. His face went pale, then flushed a deep, angry red. That box was sacred to him.

"I didn't touch it," I said, panic rising in my voice.

"She did!" Charlie cried, tears instantly welling in her eyes. "She slapped my hand! And she told me she hoped the soup was poison so she could sue us!"

Colton looked at me. His eyes were black holes.

"You broke my father's box?" His voice was a low, dangerous growl.

"Colton, she dropped it. She's lying."

"Why would she break it?" he roared. "You're the one who's jealous! You're the one trying to ruin tonight!"

He grabbed the bowl of soup. It was steaming hot.

"You think this is poison?" he yelled, looking completely unhinged. "You think Charlie is the villain? Eat it!"

"Colton, don't." I shrank back against the pillows.

"Eat it!"

He grabbed my jaw with one hand, his fingers digging brutally into my cheeks, forcing my mouth open. With the other hand, he rammed the spoon into my mouth.

The soup was scalding.

It burned my tongue, searing the roof of my mouth. I choked, coughing violently.

He didn't stop.

He shoved another spoonful in. "Swallow it! Prove you're not crazy!"

Liquid splashed onto my chin, dripping down my hospital gown. It blistered my skin on contact.

I gagged, flailing my arms, trying to push him away. My head wound throbbed, sending spikes of white-hot agony through my skull.

I couldn't breathe. I was drowning again, but this time in heat and humiliation.

He finally let go.

I collapsed forward, coughing up broth and blood. The hot liquid had blistered my lip.

Colton stood back, breathing hard, the spoon still clutched in his hand. He looked down at me with unadulterated disgust.

"You're pathetic," he spat. "You're not the woman who helped me heal. You're a monster."

"Colty, let's go," Charlie whispered, tugging at his arm. A smirk played on her lips, visible only to me. "She's dangerous."

"You're right," Colton said. He turned to me. "Get out of my city. If I see you again, I'll ruin you."

He turned to leave.

The door burst open.

Jayden and Isaias stood there.

They took it all in. The broken box. The soup soaking my gown. The blood dripping from my lip where the spoon had cut me.

Jayden's face went deadly, terrifyingly calm.

"What did you do?" Jayden asked, his voice trembling with suppressed rage.

Colton straightened his jacket, composing himself.

"I taught her a lesson."

Aminda POV

The sickening crack of bone meeting bone was the loudest thing I had ever heard.

Colton stumbled back, his shoulder crashing into the wall. He looked at Jayden with a mask of pure disbelief, touching his bleeding lip.

"Jayden! Have you lost your mind?"

"I'm not the one who's insane!" Jayden roared. He didn't stop. He grabbed Colton by the lapels of his tuxedo and slammed him against the doorframe so hard the wood groaned.

"Look at her! Just look at what you did!"

Isaias rushed to my side, snatching a towel to dab the scalding soup from my neck. His hands were trembling, though his touch remained gentle.

"Amy, are you okay? God, Amy..."

I couldn't speak. My mouth felt like it was filled with broken glass and fire. I just nodded, tears streaming down my face in hot, silent tracks.

"She broke Dad's box!" Colton yelled, shoving at Jayden's chest in a desperate attempt to free himself. "She accused Charlie of poisoning her!"

"You idiot," Jayden spat, his face inches from Colton's. "Charlie has been playing you since she got off the plane! Aminda spent three months restoring that box with a toothbrush and oil! Why the hell would she break it?"

"Because she's jealous!" Colton shouted back, his eyes wild. "She's obsessed with me!"

"She's not obsessed with you," Isaias said, his voice cutting through the noise like a blade of ice. "She loved you. And you just beat that love right out of her."

Colton froze. For a second, the words seemed to penetrate his rage. He looked at me-really looked at me-huddled in the bed, covered in broth and blood.

Then Charlie stepped between them.

"Don't let them bully you, Colty," she cried, her voice pitching up into a perfect, wounded whine. "They've always hated me. They want you to be with the help because she's easy to control."

Colton's eyes hardened again. The wall went back up, impenetrable and cold.

"Get off me, Jayden."

Jayden let go, shoving him away with visceral disgust. "We're done, Colt. You and me. Done."

"Fine." Colton straightened his tie, regaining his composure with terrifying speed. "Choose the help over your brother. See if I care. But if any of you come near Charlie again, I'll have you arrested."

He looked at me one last time.

"You heard me, Aminda. You're dead to me. Disappear."

"I will," I rasped. My voice was a ruined wreck.

Colton grabbed Charlie's hand and stormed out of the room.

The silence they left in their wake was suffocating.

"I'm going to kill him," Jayden whispered, pacing the room like a caged animal. "I'm going to destroy his company."

"No," I said. It hurt to talk, but I forced the words past my swollen lips. "Jayden, stop."

"How can you protect him?" Isaias asked, looking at me with pained eyes.

"I'm not protecting him," I said. I sat up, wincing as my head throbbed in time with my heartbeat. "I'm protecting you. He's powerful. He's vindictive. And right now, he's blind."

I reached for my suitcase.

"I need to go. Now. Before he changes his mind and calls the police to stop me."

"We're coming with you," Jayden said instantly.

"No." I shook my head. "You have lives here. You have jobs. If you leave, he wins. He destroys everything."

I stood up. My legs were shaky, but I forced them to hold my weight.

"I need to do this alone," I said. "I need to find who I am when I'm not 'Colton's therapist'."

Jayden looked like he wanted to argue, but Isaias put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"Let her go, Jay," Isaias said softly. "This place... it's poison to her now."

They drove me to the airport in silence.

At the terminal, Jayden hugged me so hard I thought my ribs would crack.

"Call us," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "Every day. If you need money, if you need anything."

"I have the check," I said, patting my bag. The severance. "I'm going to use it. I'm going to build something he can't touch."

I walked through security.

I didn't look back at the city skyline. I didn't look back at the friends I was leaving behind.

I found a trash can near the gate.

I pulled out my phone. I scrolled through my photos. Three years of memories. Colton learning to stand. Colton smiling at a joke I made. Colton sleeping.

Delete. Delete. Delete.

Then, I took out the SIM card.

I snapped it in half, the plastic crunching under my fingers-a sound eerily similar to the hair clip I had broken earlier.

I dropped the pieces into the trash.

My flight was called.

I boarded the plane, found my seat by the window, and closed my eyes.

A single tear escaped, sliding down my cheek to sting the burn on my lip.

That was the last tear Colton Carlton would ever wring out of me.

When I opened my eyes, they were dry. The plane taxied down the runway, gathering speed. We lifted off, leaving the gravity of my past behind.

I looked down at the shrinking lights of the city. Somewhere down there, Colton was celebrating his engagement, thinking he had won.

He had no idea. He hadn't won. He had just set me free.

Aminda POV

The cold in Zurich was different. It was a clean, sterile kind of cold that matched the inside of my chest perfectly.

I spent my days at the clinic, burying myself in patient files and rigorous rehabilitation schedules. Work was the only anesthetic that actually numbed the ache. If I kept my hands busy, I didn't have to think about the fact that my heart was still beating in a chest that felt completely hollowed out.

"You look like you haven't slept in a week," Jayden said.

His face was pixelated on my laptop screen. The connection was spotty, but I could see the deep lines of concern etched into his forehead.

"I'm fine, Jay," I said, forcing a tight smile. "Just busy. The clinic is demanding."

"You're lying," he countered, his voice flat. "But I won't push it."

He hesitated, his eyes darting off-screen, probably at Isaias. They were always together, my only lifeline to a life I was trying desperately to amputate.

"Just say it," I said, taking a sip of stale, lukewarm coffee. "I can tell you have news."

"It's Colton," Jayden said.

The name landed like a stone in the quiet room. Heavy. Sinking.

"And Charlie."

I didn't flinch. I had practiced this moment in the mirror a thousand times. "What about them?"

"They're getting married. Next month."

I nodded. Of course they were. "That was fast."

"He's renting out the Château de Chillon," Jayden continued, his voice laced with disgust. "He's flying in a designer from Milan for her dress. He's spending millions, Aminda. It's... it's obscene."

I looked out the window at the snow-capped Alps, blindingly white against the blue sky.

When you get me walking again, I owe you a future.

That was what he had said to me. His voice, low and rough with pain. But the future he was buying wasn't for the woman who taught him to walk. It was for the woman who waited at the finish line.

"He's giving her the world," I whispered. "Just like he promised."

"He's an idiot," Jayden snapped. "He's buying a fantasy. But that's not why I called."

I turned back to the screen. "Why did you call, Jay?"

"Esther Carlton is organizing a dinner. A 'reconciliation' dinner." He made air quotes with his fingers. "She knows Isaias and I haven't spoken to Colton since the hospital. She wants to fix it."

"So go," I said. "He's your best friend."

"We aren't going," Jayden said. "Not unless you're there."

My stomach dropped. "What?"

"Esther called me. She said if you come, if you show that there's no bad blood, maybe we can all move past this. She wants to fly you in. First class. Just for the weekend."

"Jayden, no. I can't go back there."

"We won't go if you don't," he said stubbornly. "And if we don't go, Colton cuts us out of the company. He's already threatening to pull funding from Isaias's startup. He's spiraling, Amy. He's destroying everything because we took your side."

I closed my eyes.

Colton was punishing them because of me. Even from thousands of miles away, I was the wrench in the gears.

I looked at the check on my desk. The five million dollars I hadn't touched. The price tag on my silence and my disappearance.

If I went back, it would be humiliation. It would be walking straight into the lion's den.

But Jayden and Isaias had stood by me when I was drowning. They had pulled me out of the water. I couldn't let them drown now.

"One dinner," I said softly.

"One dinner," Jayden promised. "We'll be right beside you. You won't have to say a word to him."

I hung up the phone.

I walked to the window and pressed my hand against the freezing glass, letting the chill seep into my skin.

I wasn't the same girl who ran away crying. I was colder now. Harder.

I would go to this dinner. I would smile. I would show Colton Carlton that he didn't break me.

I would watch him build his future with Charlie, and I would finally, truly, say goodbye.

I just didn't know that a goodbye could be so dangerous.