The biting cold of the pool water shocked Erna's nervous system, dragging her back from the edge of unconsciousness.

Ignoring the agonizing throb in her forehead and the water burning her trachea, she grabbed the stone edge of the pool and dragged her heavy, soaked body out.

Her trench coat clung to her skin like a wet shroud. Drops of rain mixed with the warm blood trailing down the side of her face.

Erna gasped for air. She looked up. Her eyes locked onto Apollo. It was the gaze of a cornered, bleeding wolf.

Apollo stared at the gruesome gash on her forehead. The fingers pressing against his temple twitched. A sudden, inexplicable wave of panic clawed at his chest.

But his arrogant pride crushed it instantly. He forced a cold smirk onto his face. "Your acting is getting more realistic every day."

Erna didn't speak. She walked on unsteady legs across the slippery tiles, heading straight for a heavy outdoor glass table.

Sitting in the center of the table was a massive, solid crystal ashtray. It gleamed coldly under the dim terrace lights.

Erna reached out with her freezing, purple-tinged fingers and grabbed the heavy crystal.

She spun around. Without a single warning, she hurled the solid block of crystal directly at Apollo's head with every ounce of strength she had left.

They were too close. Apollo didn't have time to dodge. He instinctively threw his arm up to protect his face.

The heavy edge of the crystal smashed brutally into the junction of Apollo's shoulder and neck.

Thud.

The sickening sound of impact echoed in the rain. The custom fabric of his suit tore open instantly, and dark blood began to seep through.

The sheer force sent Apollo stumbling backward. Pain exploded in his shoulder.

"You bitch!" Apollo roared. He lunged forward like a rabid animal, raising his fist to strike her down.

Before his fist could fall, a massive hand shot out from the shadows.

The hand, adorned with a Patek Philippe watch, clamped around Apollo's wrist. It looked effortless, but it carried the unstoppable, crushing force of a hydraulic press.

Apollo's forward momentum was violently halted. The bones in his wrist ground together, sending a shooting pain up his arm that forced his body to twist awkwardly to the side.

A man over six foot three, wearing a pitch-black tailored overcoat, stepped into the light.

His face was a mask of absolute, chilling indifference, but his dark eyes were swirling with a murderous, violent rage.

It was Cary Warren. The proxy of the powerful Warren family in Washington D.C., and Erna's legal guardian.

Cary discarded Apollo's wrist like a piece of rotting garbage. He didn't even waste a second looking at the bleeding heir.

He walked straight to Erna. The violent storm in his eyes instantly melted into a deep, suppressed agony as he looked at her shivering, bleeding form.

Cary stripped off his heavy cashmere overcoat. With movements that were both incredibly gentle and completely dominant, he draped the thick fabric over her head and shoulders like a protective canopy, shielding her from the freezing rain without letting the cashmere soak against her drenched clothes, before pulling her firmly into the warmth of his chest.

His massive frame completely blocked Apollo's view of her, creating an impenetrable fortress.

Apollo clutched his bleeding shoulder, his face twisted in fury. "Who the hell are you? Do you know what happens when you touch me in Manhattan?"

Cary slowly turned his head. He looked at Apollo the way a man looks at an insect right before stepping on it.

He didn't answer. Cary simply raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

Four men in black tactical suits stepped out from the shadows, forming a solid wall between Cary and Apollo.

Ignoring the blood and mud, Cary bent down and scooped Erna up into his arms.

The moment Erna's head hit his broad chest, the last string holding her consciousness together snapped. She passed out cold.

Cary carried her away, his long strides eating up the distance.

Apollo was left standing alone in the freezing rain. He stared at the puddle of Erna's blood on the tiles. Another fragmented memory of Erna, covered in blood and crying, flashed through his mind, making his heart violently contract.

Two hours later, the VIP floor of Manhattan's most exclusive private hospital was completely locked down by Cary's security team.

The heavy double doors of the emergency treatment room remained tightly shut. Inside, Erna was undergoing concussion protocols and getting her forehead stitched.

At the far end of the hallway, the elevator doors chimed open. Apollo stepped out, his face dark as thunder, a white gauze pad taped over his injured shoulder.

A team of five elite corporate lawyers trailed behind him. They were here to use every legal threat in the book to force the hospital to hand Erna over and control the PR fallout.

Cary sat on a leather bench outside the treatment room. His long legs were crossed. He was staring down at a tablet in his hands.

Hearing the commotion, Cary didn't even lift his eyes. He simply made a subtle motion with his index finger.

The four massive bodyguards immediately stepped forward, forming an impenetrable human wall that stopped Apollo and his lawyers thirty feet down the hall.

"Get out of my way!" Apollo shoved at the nearest bodyguard. "I demand to see my legal wife!"

Cary finally looked up. A chilling, mocking darkness swirled in his deep eyes.

He tossed the tablet onto the polished floor. It slid and stopped right at Apollo's feet. The screen displayed a real-time stock chart. Cherry Media Group's stock had plummeted five percent since the market opened.

"Consider that a minor warning from D.C. capital," Cary's voice was low, smooth, and terrifyingly calm.

Apollo's lead attorney looked past the bodyguards and narrowed his eyes at the man sitting on the bench. A flicker of recognition hit him. He quickly pulled out his phone, his fingers trembling as he typed a name into a private legal database. As the profile loaded, all the blood drained from the lawyer's face. He scrambled to Apollo's side and whispered frantically in his ear.

"Mr. Cherry, stop. I just confirmed it. That's Cary Warren, the senior partner of the most ruthless law firm in D.C. He has the entire Warren family backing him. We cannot afford a war with them."

Hearing the name Warren, the arrogant fire in Apollo's chest was instantly smothered by a cold wave of reality.

Cary stood up. His towering height sucked the oxygen out of the hallway.

He casually adjusted his platinum cufflinks. "If you take one more step toward her," Cary said, his tone dead flat, "I will erase the Cherry family from Wall Street."

Apollo ground his teeth together. He stared at Cary, desperately searching for a weakness in the man's armor, but found only an endless, terrifying abyss.

Just then, a nurse adjusted the blinds on the observation window of the treatment room door.

Through the clear glass panel, Apollo's line of sight bypassed Cary's shoulder and landed directly on the hospital bed.

Erna was lying there, unconscious. Because she was no longer wearing the high-collared trench coat, her pale neck was completely exposed under the harsh fluorescent lights.

Wrapped around her throat was a horrific, dark purple ring of bruises. The exact shape of Apollo's hand.

The moment Apollo saw those bruises, it felt like a rusty saw blade was dragged violently across his heart.

A migraine, ten times worse than the last one, slammed into his skull. He swayed on his feet.

An image burned into his retinas: Erna lying in a pool of blood, sobbing his name, her eyes filled with absolute despair.

The physical pain in his chest and the crushing weight of guilt terrified him. It completely violated his belief that she was just a parasite he hated.

Cary noticed the shift in Apollo's gaze. He took one step to the side, his broad body completely blocking the crack in the door.

Cary's eyes turned lethal. He looked like a predator whose mate had just been threatened.

"Throw them out," Cary ordered coldly.

The bodyguards moved in, physically grabbing Apollo and his lawyers, shoving them backward toward the elevators like stray dogs.

Apollo was forced into the elevator car. As the doors slid shut, he stared at the closed door of the treatment room, clutching his throbbing head, spiraling into total psychological chaos.

The hallway fell dead silent. Cary turned around, pushed the door open, and walked into Erna's room.

The lights in the VIP hospital room had been dimmed to a soft, warm glow. The faint, sterile smell of antiseptic hung in the air.

Erna slowly fluttered her eyes open. A dull, throbbing pain radiated from her forehead, making her suck in a sharp breath through her teeth.

She turned her head against the pillow. Cary was sitting in a single armchair near the window, holding a cup of black coffee.

His bottomless dark eyes were locked onto her face. There was a heavy, intense emotion swirling in them that she couldn't decipher.

Seeing her wake up, Cary set the coffee cup down. He stood up and walked to the edge of the bed, his large frame blocking out most of the light from the window.

He raised his hand, his long fingers moving toward the purple bruises on her neck. But he stopped, his hand hovering just an inch above her skin, his jaw clenching tight.

He pulled his hand back. "How do you feel?" he asked, using his usual cold, restrained tone of a guardian.

Erna pushed herself up against the headboard, wincing slightly. "Thank you for getting me out of there tonight, Cary."

Cary's brow furrowed slightly. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, a subtle physical reaction to the polite distance in her voice.

He pulled a chair closer and sat down. "That divorce agreement you drafted is incredibly stupid. Walking away with nothing is a fool's move."

"I don't want his money," Erna said quietly.

"As an old friend of your mother, Cassandra, and as your legal guardian, I will not sit back and watch you be bullied," Cary stated.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a thick envelope stamped with gold foil. He held it out to her. "This is the activation paperwork for a massive trust fund the Warren family set up for you."

Erna looked at the envelope but didn't move her hands.

"Sign it," Cary urged, his voice dropping an octave. "You can leave New York tonight. Go to Europe. Start over anywhere you want. I will use my firm to ensure Apollo Cherry pays a devastating legal price for what he did to you."

It was an offer that would guarantee her a life of absolute luxury and safety.

But Erna just looked at him. Her eyes were startlingly clear, stripped of any naivety.

"I am grateful for the protection the Warren family has given me," Erna said, her voice steady. "But I am done being an accessory to someone else's power."

She looked down at her hands. "Three years with the Cherry family taught me one thing. Power and wealth that are handed to you can be snatched away just as easily."

She looked back up at Cary. "I am not taking the trust fund. I am staying in New York. I'm going back to Columbia to finish my degree. I will build my own ground to stand on."

Cary stared at her stubborn face. A flash of deep admiration crossed his eyes, immediately swallowed by a dark, restless frustration that he couldn't completely control her.

He rubbed his thumb over his platinum cufflink, a dark, possessive storm brewing in his eyes before he forcefully swallowed it down, his rigid posture masking an intense urge to lock her away from the world.

"The capital circles in New York are filthy," Cary warned, his voice turning icy. "An orphan with no backing will be chewed up and spit out."

Erna smiled faintly. "Because I've seen the filthiest parts, I know I have to be the one holding the knife."

The room fell into a suffocating silence for a full minute. It was a silent war of wills.

Finally, Cary exhaled. He put the envelope back into his jacket. "Fine. But you will accept the security detail I assign to you. That is non-negotiable."

Erna knew this was the absolute limit of his compromise. She nodded slowly.

Cary stood up. His shadow fell over her once more.

He looked at her for a long moment. "Call me if you need anything."

He turned and walked to the door. When Cary pulled the door open, he stopped.

Standing in the hallway, sweating profusely and arguing with the bodyguards, was Jax Koda-one of Manhattan's notorious playboys. He was clutching a piece of paper in his shaking hand.