Chapter 8

I walked away from the burning penthouse, the sirens growing louder in the distance. The cool night air felt like a baptism, washing away the stench of smoke and despair. For the first time in four years, I felt a flicker of something like hope.

Tears streamed down my face, but they weren't for her. They were for the man I used to be, the man I had killed to survive. I swore to myself, right there on the street corner, that I would never shed another tear for Eve Yates.

My first stop was not a pristine hospital, but a dingy, back-alley clinic in a part of town Eve would never set foot in. I had cash, enough to pay for discretion. The "doctor" was a grizzled man with yellow-stained fingers who looked at the gash on my shoulder and the bruises on my ribs with a cynical eye.

"Looks like you pissed someone off," he grunted, cleaning the wound with a rag that looked questionably clean.

I didn't answer. I just endured the sting of the cheap antiseptic and the rough pull of the stitches, my mind a million miles away. I was a musician who had once played for cheering crowds, a man who had married into one of the richest families in New York. Now I was here, in a filthy clinic, being patched up like a common thug.

The irony was so bitter it almost made me laugh.

The cold, metal instruments he used were a brutal reminder of the other violation, the one I couldn't see. The one that had stolen my future. A wave of pure, cold hatred for Eve washed over me, so intense it made me dizzy.

I paid the man and left, hailing a cab. I gave the driver an address on the other side of the state, a secluded estate I only knew from a map Jillian's lawyer had sent.

The exhaustion finally caught up with me in the back of the cab. I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window and fell into a heavy, dream-filled sleep.

I dreamt of the fire. I was standing inside the burning penthouse, and Eve was calling my name, her voice filled with a desperate terror. "Bennet, don't leave me! Please!"

I saw her as she was when we first met, young and vibrant, her eyes full of life, not cold possession. I saw our first date, our wedding day, all the good memories that had been buried under years of pain.

But then the dream shifted, and I was back in the hospital, Kason smirking from his bed, my father's cane raining down on me, Eve's face a mask of cold cruelty as they wheeled me into the operating room.

I turned and walked away from her in the dream, my heart a leaden weight in my chest. The path ahead was dark and treacherous, and I was alone.

"Sir? Sir, we're here."

The driver's voice pulled me from the nightmare. I woke with a start, my heart pounding, my body covered in a cold sweat.

I looked out the window. We were at the gates of a massive, sprawling estate, surrounded by a thick forest. It was a fortress.

A butler, looking formal and severe, was waiting for me. He led me through the opulent house, his footsteps silent on the marble floors. The place was grander than Eve's penthouse, but it was understated, a quiet display of old money, not the flashy declaration of new wealth Eve preferred.

Something felt off. The air didn't smell of medicine and decay, as I had expected from the home of a terminally ill woman. Instead, it was filled with the subtle, clean scent of gardenias, my favorite flower. A scent I hadn't smelled in years because Eve hated them.

The butler led me to a sunroom at the back of the house. A woman was sitting in a high-backed chair, her face turned away from me, looking out at the vast, manicured gardens.

"Ms. Bell?" I asked, my voice hoarse.

She turned. And my breath caught in my throat.

Jillian Bell was not the pale, sickly woman I had imagined. She was vibrant, her skin glowing with health, her eyes a warm, intelligent brown. She looked nothing like the dying woman described in the tabloids.

"Bennet," she said, her voice soft but firm. She stood and walked towards me, holding a small, velvet box. "Welcome. I believe this is yours."

She opened the box. Inside was a simple, elegant wedding band, a family heirloom, the lawyer had said.

I didn't take it. I just stared at her, my mind racing. The gardenia scent, her healthy appearance, the lack of any medical equipment.

"You're not sick," I said, the words a flat statement.

It wasn't a question. I had been a pawn in someone else's game for so long, I could recognize the moves from a mile away.

"You lied to me."