Liv POV

I never made it to the airport.

My body, a traitor of bone and blood, had given out before the taxi even hit the main highway. The darkness took me there, and I woke up back in the white room, the sterile hum of machinery replacing the relentless sound of rain.

My father, David Hayes, sat in the corner. He looked like a man shrinking inside his own cheap suit, folding in on himself like wet cardboard. He had brought a bag of toiletries and a stack of magazines, placing them on the bedside table with trembling hands.

"You need to eat more, Liv," he said, his gaze fixed on the floor tiles. "Marcus... he worries."

He didn't worry. He worried about optics. And my father, a low-level soldier in the D'Angelo empire, worried about his pension—and his neck.

"I'm fine, Dad," I lied. My voice was a scrape of sandpaper against stone.

Marcus came every day. He played the part of the devoted husband for the nurses, adjusting my pillows, pouring my water with practiced precision. But his eyes were always elsewhere.

They drifted to the window, to the door, checking his watch, checking his phone. He was a body occupying a chair, his soul already halfway down the hall.

I stopped letting him feed me. I stopped letting him touch me. When he reached for my hand, I pulled it under the sheet. It was a small rebellion, a silent war waged in the cold inches between us.

One afternoon, the pain meds made the world fuzzy, but my hearing was razor sharp. I heard footsteps outside my door, then a pause.

I slid out of bed, dragging my IV pole. The burns on my legs screamed, a hot, tearing sensation with every shuffling step, but I needed to see.

Marcus was standing in the alcove at the end of the corridor. He was hunched over, his broad back blocking the harsh hospital light.

He pulled something from his breast pocket. A silver pocket watch. Old, tarnished, completely out of place against his Italian silk suit.

It was hers. I had seen it in the photos I burned. Izzy holding it up to the camera, laughing.

He ran his thumb over the engraved lid. The gesture was so tender, so intimate, it felt like I was watching him stroke a lover's skin. His knuckles turned white as he gripped it, his jaw tight, fighting a war inside his own head.

"Give it back."

Izzy stormed into the frame. She looked frantic, her hair disheveled.

"Why did you take it, Marcus?" she hissed, grabbing his arm. "It's all I have left of that summer."

Marcus didn't let go. He looked down at her, and the raw, bleeding agony in his eyes made my stomach turn.

"Because if I don't hold onto something of yours," he whispered, his voice cracking, "I'm going to burn this whole city down just to feel warm."

"You have a wife," Izzy said, but she didn't pull away. Instead, she leaned into him, drawn like a moth to the flame.

"I have a distraction," he corrected, his voice low and lethal. "I have a duty. You know who holds my soul, Isabella. You know."

I backed away from the door, my breath hitching in my throat.

I managed to get back to bed before my legs gave out. I lay there, staring at the ceiling tiles, counting the cracks in the plaster.

Later, two nurses came in to change the IV bag. They thought I was asleep.

"He's intense, isn't he? The husband," one whispered.

"Intense? He's obsessed," the other replied, checking my chart. "But not with her. You know the stories. Ten years ago, he nearly abdicated his position for the cousin. He was ready to walk away from the Family, the money, the legacy—all of it."

"What happened?"

"She left. Ran off to Europe because she didn't want him to lose his crown. He went mad. They say he only married this one because she has the cousin's nose. Poor girl. She's just a ghost he's trying to touch."

A ghost.

I closed my eyes, letting the darkness take me. They were right. I wasn't fighting for my marriage. I was fighting a memory. And you can't kill a memory. It's already dead.

Liv POV

One step. Then another.

I was walking. It was supposed to be part of the physical therapy, but it felt more like a cruel joke designed to put weight on skin that felt like it was being peeled off layer by layer.

I turned the corner near the vending machines and saw her.

Izzy.

She was wearing a white coat, looking pristine, immaculate, untouched. She saw me and froze. For a second, I saw guilt in her eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a defensive hardness.

I turned to leave. I couldn't look at her. Looking at her was like looking at the reason for my own extinction.

"Liv, wait," she called out.

She ran after me. Her heels clicked sharply on the linoleum, an aggressive staccato against the hospital's hum.

"We need to talk," she said, reaching for my arm.

"Don't touch me," I said, my voice low.

"You're being childish," she snapped, grabbing my wrist. "Marcus is tearing himself apart. You need to understand the history—"

"I understand enough," I said, yanking my arm back.

She didn't let go. She pulled harder, her fingers digging into flesh that was still screaming from the burns.

We were at the top of the emergency stairwell. The door was propped open by a janitor's bucket.

"Let go!" I shouted.

I wrenched my body away. The momentum threw me off balance. My slipper caught on the linoleum.

I fell backward.

The world lurched. I saw the ceiling, then the wall, then the dizzying blur of stairs.

Izzy lunged. Not to push me, but to grab me. It was instinct.

She caught my sleeve, but my weight was too much; it dragged her down with me.

I tumbled down the first flight, my body slamming against the metal railing. Pain exploded in my ribs, my shoulder, my burned legs. I landed in a heap on the landing, gasping for air, vision swimming.

Above me, there was a sickening crack.

Izzy had fallen too. She hadn't tumbled as far, but her head had struck the concrete wall with a force that sounded like a gunshot.

She lay still on the upper landing. Blood began to pool around her blonde hair, bright red against the white floor.

"Izzy!"

The door above slammed open. Marcus.

He took the stairs three at a time. He didn't look at me. His eyes slid right over the wife crumpled at the bottom of the landing, clutching her broken ribs.

He fell to his knees beside Izzy.

"No, no, no," he moaned, a sound of pure devastation. He gathered her into his arms, ignoring the blood soaking his shirt. "Isabella, look at me!"

"Marcus..." I whispered. "I think... my arm..."

He snapped his head toward me. His eyes were black pits of rage.

"You did this," he snarled. "If she doesn't wake up, Liv... I swear to God, I will destroy you."

He turned back to Izzy, lifting her effortlessly. "Help! I need a doctor!" he screamed, running back up the stairs, carrying his world in his arms.

He left me there.

I lay on the cold concrete, listening to his footsteps fade into silence.

Minutes later, a nurse found me. I was drifting in and out of consciousness.

"We need a gurney here!" she yelled. "Mrs. D'Angelo is down!"

I woke up hours later. My arm was in a cast. My ribs were taped.

My phone rang on the bedside table. It was Marcus.

I answered. I don't know why. Maybe I wanted to hear the nail in the coffin.

"How is she?" I asked. My voice was dead.

"Concussion. Seven stitches," he said. He sounded exhausted, but the panic was gone. "She's going to be fine."

"That's good," I said.

"How could you be so careless, Liv?" he asked, his tone shifting to annoyance. "She was trying to talk to you. You put her in danger."

He didn't ask about my arm. He didn't ask about the burns that had reopened.

"I broke my arm, Marcus," I said softly. "And three ribs."

Silence.

"I'll send the best orthopedic surgeon," he said finally, his voice devoid of warmth. "Just... stay put. I can't leave her right now. She's scared."

"I know," I said. "You can't leave her."

I hung up.

I looked at the window. It was dark outside. My contract with this marriage was over. I had fulfilled the terms. I had been the distraction. Now, I was just the casualty.