Chapter 2: Contractually Yours

Jem's POV

“Fuck, he'll jump!” The voice screamed inside my head.

Without thinking, I bolted across the street, water splashing around my feet with every desperate step.

I didn't weigh the risks or consider the fact that I was already drowning in my own problems. I just got close and grabbed the man from behind, yanking him down from the ledge with every last bit of strength I had left in me.

We hit the wet ground hard.

The impact knocked the air clean out of my lungs, but my arms stayed locked around him instinctively, like letting go meant something worse than the fall I had just caused.

"No—don't—please don't—" The words kept tumbling out of my mouth before I could organise them into anything sensible.

Then everything happened at once.

The SUV door suddenly burst open again.

Another massive figure stepped out immediately.

Before I could lift my head or even register what was happening, the huge man had already charged forward and sent a deadly punch to my side.

I barely had the time to blink before he yanked me upward by my collar and slammed me back down against the wet ground like I weighed absolutely nothing.

"Who the hell are you?" The massive figure growled above me, already pulling back to deliver another blow. "Did someone send you to attack my boss?”

"Wait—" I choked, barely finding air. "I thought—I thought he was going to jump—I didn't mean to grab him like that.”

The massive man frowned down at me, his voice dropping dangerously low. "Liar. Are you a spy? Start talking before I make you."

He pulled his fist back to hit me again when a voice suddenly cut through the rain, loud and sharp;

"Shark, enough!"

Shark froze instantly, then slowly stepped back, muttering quietly, "Yes, boss.”

I lay there on the wet ground, gasping, my ribs screaming, rain washing freely across my face. Then through blurred vision I finally looked up properly at the man I had just tackled off a bridge ledge.

He was standing a few feet away, completely soaked, looking down at me with an expression I couldn't read.

Up close he was even more overwhelming than he had seemed from across the street. Sharp jaw. Long shoulder length hair and dark seductive eyes that carried something heavy and unreadable inside them.

The rain ran freely down his face and he didn't even blink against it.

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Who are you?" he finally asked. His voice was calm. Dangerously calm.

"Nobody," I managed, still trying to breathe properly. "I just—from across the road, it looked like you were going to jump—" I stopped, suddenly feeling completely ridiculous lying on the ground explaining myself to a man who clearly had no interest in being saved.

Something shifted briefly in his expression.

"I wasn't going to jump," he said quietly. "I just needed the rain."

I stared at him.

He stared back.

And then without another word, he turned and walked back toward the SUV like none of this had happened. Like I wasn't still lying on the ground with bruised ribs and rainwater in my mouth.

I scrambled to my feet immediately. "Wait—"

He paused without turning around.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly. "For grabbing you like that. I genuinely thought you were going to jump. I didn't mean to invade your space—"

"I know what you thought." He simply said still without turning back to look at me.

Then he kept walking.

Something inside me moved without permission. My hand shot forward and caught his wrist before I could stop myself.

The moment my fingers touched his skin, everything stopped.

It wasn't pain. It wasn't electricity exactly.

It was something else entirely, something that started where our skin connected and spread through my entire body in one sharp overwhelming wave, like two live wires finding each other in the dark.

I jerked back immediately.

He pulled away at exactly the same moment.

We both stood completely still for a second, staring at each other with matching expressions of pure confusion.

Then his face closed off again, brows furrowing as he looked down at his hand then back at me. "What was that?" he asked, his voice low and sharp.

"I don't know," I said honestly, glancing at my own hand too.

Then without another word, he let out a quiet hiss and got into the SUV without looking back.

Shark slipped into the driver's seat and the engine started immediately. The car pulled away slowly into the rain until the red tail lights disappeared completely around a distant corner.

And I sat there alone in the middle of the road, soaked through, my hand still tingling where I had touched him, my ribs aching, my mind completely empty of every single problem that had been destroying me an hour ago.

I don't know how long I stood there in the rain feeling completely lost about this man.

That touch. That feeling. Whatever it was.

I had never felt anything like it before in my life.

I was still standing there trying to understand what had just happened when something small caught my eye near the edge of the pavement.

It looked like a tiny glass vial rolling slowly toward the drain, green liquid glowing faintly inside it like something alive.

I reached forward without thinking, catching it just before it disappeared into the gap.

It was cold in my palm. Delicate. The thin black label wrapped around it read three words that made my breath catch completely.

“Life Extension Serum.”

I stared at it for a long time while the rain continued falling around me.

Then slowly, one person came to mind.

My sick mom.

My grip around the vial tightened instantly, as though it had suddenly become something precious.

My heart swelled with hope.

If this truly is a ‘Life Extension Serum,’ then maybe my prayers have finally been answered. I can take this to Mom… and she can have another chance. Another chance to live.

I don’t know how this vial ended up here, but one thing is certain—I saved it.

Because if I hadn’t picked it up, it would have slipped into the drain and disappeared forever.

And maybe… just maybe, this wasn’t a coincidence.

Maybe this wasn’t an accident at all.

Maybe this was the answer I had been begging the universe for.

And even though I had no idea who this vial belonged to, I was glad it had found me.

Because right now, this tiny glass bottle felt like the only good thing that had happened to me all day.

And I was going to use it to save my mom.