Chapter 3_ Blackthorne

Arthur's POV

They call me a man with a heart of stone, a soul stained black by the world I command. I have never known pity. I have never understood the concept of mercy. To me, people are either assets or obstacles, and I have spent my life removing the latter. But fate is a twisted poet, and it chose a Tuesday night to test the limits of my coldness.

I was heading to the hospital for my quarterly check-up—a billionaire's life depends on his health, as the saying goes. Traffic was at a standstill, a sea of red brake lights stretching into the grey horizon. I rolled down the window of my SUV, the scent of wet asphalt and iron filling the cabin. That’s when I saw her.

She was a broken doll tossed onto the pavement. Blood, dark and thick, pooled around her head, staining the hem of a white hospital gown. By her side stood a man. He didn't look like a grieving lover; he looked like a man checking to see if a pest was finally dead. I felt a flicker of something—a strange, sharp tug in my chest—but I ignored it. I signaled my driver to take a sharp right, cutting through a side street to reach the hospital.

Hours later, after my appointment, the universe forced my hand again.

I was walking toward the elevators when I saw the same girl being wheeled in on a gurney. She was pale, a ghost of a person. The man from the street was there, and now he had a woman with him. They stood near the elevator bank, whispering.

"I saw her fingers move in the ambulance," the man hissed, his eyes darting around. "I want her dead. After all, that's what you and your dad want. We can't let her wake up."

They brushed past me as the elevator doors opened, laughing softly as if they had just won the lottery. I froze. My chest tightened with a rage I hadn't felt in years. Family betraying family—it was a story I knew too well, but seeing it play out so coldly disgusted me.

I looked at the nurses pushing her toward the double doors of the morgue wing. They were moving slowly, far too slowly for a living patient. I didn't think. I acted. I stopped the gurney with a firm hand, my presence alone making the orderlies stumble back.

"How much were you paid to kill a living person. Do you think you have a right to kill a person because of money," I said, my voice vibrating with power.

"Sir, she's practically brain dead, the family said—"

"I don't care what they said." I leaned in, my shadow swallowing the young doctor. "Fix her. Or I will buy this hospital just to fire every person in this hallway."

That was the beginning of my obsession.

I watched her every day for sixteen months. I watched as her shattered bones were knit back together by the best surgeons money could buy. I watched her skin heal, her face return to its haunting beauty. I made sure she was surrounded by silk and luxury, even while she slept a sleep that looked like death. I felt a primal urge to protect her—not out of love, but out of a need to see the look on her betrayers' faces when she finally rose from the grave.

I was genuinely happy when she woke up. But today, the beauty I had cultivated so carefully was looking at me like I was a monster.

Her hazel eyes were wide, vibrating with a mixture of terror and disgust. I stood there, the silk sheet barely covering my lower half, the adrenaline of the act I had just been interrupted in still humming in my veins. It was awkward—more than awkward. Seeing your savior for the first time in months while he was buried in a nameless blonde was not the reunion I had envisioned.

"Let me go," Lira gasped, her voice trembling as she struggled against my grip.

Behind me, the blonde woman I had been using scrambled to find her clothes. She looked at Elira with a sneer, but one look from me silenced her.

"Leave now. I’m quite busy now," I barked.

She didn't need to be told twice. She grabbed her rumpled dress and scurried out the door, the click of her heels echoing like a countdown.

I turned my full attention back to the woman pinned against the wall. I looked down at her legs—the legs I was told would never walk again. "I'm happy to see you're able to walk now, Lira," I murmured, trying to soften my voice, though it still sounded like a growl.

"Let. Me. Go," she repeated, her eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp fire.

She shoved my chest with a force that surprised me. I let her go, watching as she turned and practically ran for the stairs, her oversized white gown billowing behind her.

"Fuck," I hissed, rubbing my face.

She was breathtaking. Even in her anger, even in her fragility, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I retreated to my room and stepped into the shower, letting the cold water hammer against my skin. My thoughts were a mess. Why did I feel guilty? I didn't owe her fidelity. I had saved her life, paid her bills, and given her a home. But the memory of the disgust in her eyes made the sex I’d just had feel like a hollow, boring chore. I hadn't even cummed; the moment I saw her, my body had simply checked out.

I stayed awake long into the night, the silence of the mansion feeling heavier than usual.

I finally fell into a restless sleep, but it wasn't peaceful. I dreamt of cold steel sliding in between my ribs, and the pain was so vivid I jerked awake, gasping for air.

But the nightmare didn't end when I opened my eyes.

The room was bathed in the silver glow of the moon. And there, straddling my waist, was Lira. Her face was a mask of cold fury, her hair falling around her like a dark veil. But it was the object in her hand that froze the blood in my veins.

A steak knife from the kitchen was pressed firmly against my throat. The cold metal bit into my skin, just enough to draw a tiny beads of blood.

"Fuck! Lira, what are you doing?" I rasped, keeping my hands visible on the silk duvet. I could overpower her in a second, but the look in her eyes stopped me. She wasn't scared anymore. She was lethal.

With her free hand, she reached into the pocket of her gown and threw a handful of photographs onto my chest.

"Tell me the truth, Mr. Blackthorne. I swear to God, I’ll kill you right now if you lie to me."