Chapter 5
Four years ago, I swore I’d keep her safe at all costs. That promise started that morning.
Waking up in bed with a stranger.
Body ached with bite marks that took a week to heal.
I remembered leaving a crumpled $100 bill and a short note on the nightstand: I only had this much.
When I rushed home back, I found everything had changed.
My father was sitting at the kitchen table and tears streaming down his face.
“Your brother… he’s no more.”
Alan. My protector. My best friend. Gone.
That day took everything from me.
The weeks after blurred together. Noah’s betrayal. Miley’s knife-in-the-back lies. Alan’s death. I kept moving only because Dad needed me to. I threw myself into medical school, determined to live the dream Alan and I once shared.
But then came the nausea. The missed periods I hadn’t even noticed. The doctor’s words echoed like a sentence I wasn’t ready for:
“Two months pregnant.”
Abortion crossed my mind. But I was born to save lives. I didn’t take them. So I decided. I’d raise her. Alone.
Dad never knew. How could I tell him, with Alan’s death still raw? An unmarried daughter, pregnant? It would’ve broken him. So I left the country. Came back years later with Stella in my arms, and a smile I wore like armor.
But Ria’s suspicion today was a warning. If she figured it out, Dad would too. And then? Would he reject me? Worse—would he reject her?
“Mumma! I finished my milk!”
Her little voice pulled me back. She waved the empty bottle like a trophy.
“Very good!” I said, kissing her hair.
But inside, my chest felt like it was caving in.
I’d protect my daughter until my last breath. But this secret… This secret was a ticking bomb.
And I didn’t know when it would blow.
I taped the woman’s hand and ignored her high-pitched yelp like I’d just tried to chop it off.
“Be gentle!” she whined.
“I am,” I said evenly. I wrapped the bandage with practiced precision. Years in the ER had trained my hands to be fast and efficient, not gentle.
“That’ll be seventy,” I told her, tallying the tape, ointment, and, frankly, my time.
Her jaw dropped like I’d just pulled a gun on her. “Seventy? For a couple bruises? You’re robbing me!”
“Seventy? For a couple bruises? You’re looting me!”
I raised a brow. “It’s still cheaper than the average in this neighborhood.”
She shoved fifty bucks into my hand and muttered curses under her breath before storming out.
She slammed the door so hard my windows rattled..
I stared at the bills and my jaw tightening.
Three days since opening my clinic and I’d already been stiffed twice. Five patients total. Not exactly the thriving practice I’d dreamed of.
I pocketed the money, locked up and stepped into the damp evening air.
The rain had paused.
Ria was home with Stella, so I wasn’t in a rush. I pulled the shutter down and started for the bus stop. Halfway there, it started raining again.
I popped my umbrella and ducked under a nearby pavilion.
That’s when I saw him.
A man sprawled face-down in the middle of the concrete. Rainwater pooling around him like he’d been discarded there.
Not moving. Not twitching.
My heart kicked up a notch.
The street was dead silent—no pedestrians, no stray dogs, not even the hum of traffic. Just rain hammering the ground.
I stepped closer, my shoes splashing in the puddles.
“Hey,” I called, crouching beside him. No response.
His white shirt turned transparent. It was torn at the shoulder, and the metallic tang of blood cut through the smell of wet concrete.
My training kicked in. I pressed two fingers to his neck. Pulse—weak, but there.
Not dead. Yet.
Without thinking, I tore a strip from my scarf and pressed it to the wound. I lean my weight into it to slow the bleeding. My fingers were already dialing emergency services.
“Male, mid-thirties, unconscious, possible stab wound,” I said, my voice steady even as adrenaline burned through me.
But something in my gut said this wasn’t random. People don’t just collapse in deserted pavilions with stab wounds unless they’re neck-deep in trouble.
I adjusted my grip on the scarf, feeling the steady thump of his heartbeat against my palm.
I dropped to my knees beside him. My scrubs already soaked through. “Hey! Can you hear me?” My voice sounded too loud in the empty street.
I slid my hand under his nose. His breathing was faint, uneven.
Panic tightened around my ribs. My phone was slick in my hands, the battery icon flashing a red warning. Ten percent.
Too risky to wait for an ambulance. He wouldn’t last.
I tried to lift him. God, he was heavy—dead weight in every sense.
My shoulders screamed, my pulse spiked, and I gritted my teeth for another heave. Still no use.
“Damn it,” I muttered, scanning the alley like I might find a miracle. And then—I did.
A laundry cart, rusting quietly against the wall.
I sprinted to it, ignoring the sting in my calves, and shoved it through the puddles back to him.
“Alright, stranger,” I panted, “you’re coming with me whether you like it or not.”
Hauling him in was like wrestling a sandbag the size of a man. I finally got him wedged inside.
By the time I rolled him inside, my arms were jelly.
I locked the door, cranked the heater and took in his condition under proper light.
I hesitated at the first button of his shirt. Then I pushed on, peeling the wet fabric away.
The breath hitched in my throat.
Six-pack abs, sculpted and hard like something from a movie trailer. But the admiration lasted less than a second—because right below them, the damage was brutal.
Deep stab wounds. Not one. Not two. Multiple strikes, each driven with lethal intent, the kind that said this wasn’t about warning him.
I counted at least three in the same spot, seven inches deep, raw and angry.
My gaze swept across his torso. Faded scars, jagged lines, overlapping new ones. The kind I’d seen before on my father after years as a police officer. But these… these told a darker story.
“Why?” I whispered, almost to myself. “What kind of life puts you here?”
He didn’t answer—of course he didn’t but I leaned in, tapping his cheek. “Hey. Open your eyes. Tell me who did this.”
His eyelids twitched. For one fleeting second, his gaze met mine—dark, piercing, even through the haze of pain. His lips parted, but whatever words he had drowned before surfacing.
His head rolled forward, landing against my lap with a dull thud.
I swallowed hard, forcing my hands to steady. No time for hesitation. I cleaned the wounds, stitched the gashes, and hooked him to an IV. My fingers worked on autopilot.
Little by little, the tight lines of pain on his face eased.
His breathing evened out.
And that’s when I caught myself staring.
Without that guarded, cold-eyed mask he’d worn earlier, his face was… devastating. Handsome in a way that was almost unfair.