Fake Sickness, Real Consequences

I woke up with a warm, tingling sensation running across my back.

Luca’s hand was pressed against the soft skin at my waist, his fingertips lazily tracing circles. The touch was so hot that it made my breath hitch.

Instinctively, I tried to shift forward, hoping to escape the heat of his palm. However, the arm he had wrapped around my waist tightened sharply.

“Why are you running?” he murmured against my ear. “You were obedient enough last night.”

I bit my lip and didn’t respond, curling my fingers into the silk sheets underneath me.

He seemed pleased by my silence. His fingers drifted to my most sensitive spot, testing and teasing to send a shiver through my entire body.

My breathing scattered instantly. It felt like someone had shoved a burning coal into my chest, heat rising all the way to my throat.

Just when my mind was about to blur, his phone on the nightstand buzzed loudly.

The screen lit up, and Helena’s smiling face flashed across the lock screen.

Luca’s movements halted.

The hand gripping my waist slowly loosened, and the desire in his eyes was quickly replaced by familiar indifference.

“Get up,” he sat up and said with the same tone he always used, as if our heated tangle just moments ago had been nothing but a dream. “Helena had another nightmare about the fire. I need to go.”

His warmth lingered on my skin as I lay there with my eyes closed, catching my breath.

The memories of my previous life slammed into me.

When I had been bleeding from a gunshot wound, I called Luca.

However, he let out a careless, mocking snort. “Eva, is this another one of your tragic‑act routines? Helena’s waiting for me to have breakfast with her. Stop bothering me.”

The busy tone of the call hanging up in my ear had cut deeper than the bullet.

When I opened my eyes again, I was wide awake.

I really had gone back seven days before I was shot.

“Luca,” I called out. My voice was still hoarse from what we’d just done, trembling ever so slightly that I didn’t even notice it myself. “I want to end our agreement. I’m leaving the Vittori family.”

His hands paused halfway through fastening his tie. Finally, he turned and looked at me with a faint, mocking smirk.

“Trying to play hard to get? You’ve been with me for ten years and still don’t understand how I work. I waited for Helena to wake up for a decade. Whatever tricks you’re pulling won’t work on me.”

He walked over, bracing a knee between my legs and trapping me between the headboard and his body. Then he grabbed my chin firmly enough to make me lift my head to meet his gaze.

His eyes turned cold.

“Don’t forget. If it weren’t for you, Helena wouldn’t have been in a coma for ten years. You’re here to pay your debt. And you dare talk about leaving?”

“I didn’t push her!”

I had said those words countless times before.

Ten years ago, during that shootout, Helena had followed us on her own. I never even saw her there. “She went into the danger zone herself. It has nothing to do with me!”

“Still arguing?”

His fingers tightened on my jaw, sharp with anger, pain shooting up to my gums.

“At the last family meeting, you wouldn’t even apologize to her. And now you’re still talking back? It seems you really need to be taught a lesson!”