CHAPTER 3:

Isabella's POV

"You don't even know what happened, and you're standing here holding onto me like this?" I snapped, twisting against his grip. 

"Let me go!"

That's when the security men stepped out of the doorway. Mark Donald moved between us, calm and immovable.

"Mr. Ashford." His voice cut through the tension. "She's not the one you should be shouting at. She's the one who found her sister and called for help."

"You need to investigate this properly before accusing her."

"Is she your fiancée?" Mark asked, glancing at me.

"Yes."

Adrian's eyes didn't leave mine, even as his jaw ticked with the effort of holding himself back. 

He didn't apologize. He didn't soften. He just turned, sharp and cold, and stalked toward the operating room doors like he could force them open through sheer will alone.

I watched him go and felt something crack quietly in my chest.

He hadn't asked if I was okay. He hadn't noticed the blood on my hands, or the way I was still shaking, or that I'd been the one screaming for help while everyone else filmed. He only cares about Scarlett. He only saw her. He had only ever seen her.

It shouldn't have hurt. I had no right to expect anything else. It hurt anyway.

I checked on Dr. Alfred about Scarlett's condition.

The doctor's words that night were worse than anything I'd let myself imagine.

Spinal trauma. Nerve damage. They wouldn't know the full extent until the swelling went down, but I needed to prepare myself. She might never walk again. Her condition was critical.

Critical.

“Fuck.” I sat with that word like it was a stone lodged in my stomach. Then I did the only thing I knew how to do: I called our uncle.

Uncle Raymond, who lived in Manchester and ran a private rehabilitation clinic there. He was always the practical one, the one who never asked a question he didn't need answered.

He picked up on the second ring. When I told him what happened, he didn't hesitate.

"I'll be there by morning. We'll move her the moment she's stable enough to travel."

"Thank you, Uncle Raymond. I need her to walk again." My voice caught. "I need her to remember."

He went quiet for a beat. "Remember what, Isabella?"

I didn't answer. I wasn't ready to say out loud what I'd started to suspect, that Scarlett hadn't simply fallen. That the argument with Marcus had cut too deep, too specific, to end in a random accident. That my sister, whatever her flaws, had never once been careless with her own safety.

I sent him the hospital address and hung up.

Julian was harder to reach, but he needed to know. When he finally picked up, I told him everything.

"You're calling Uncle Raymond? Arranging her treatment?" His voice was low, furious, the kind of controlled anger that scared me more than shouting ever could. 

"Isabella, she spent months building a lie on your back. She let you take the blame tonight and didn't say a word to stop it. And you want to pay for her recovery?"

"She's still my sister, Julian. I'm doing this for a reason."

"She tried to destroy your life."

"I know what she did." My grip tightened on the phone. "Better than anyone. But I need her to walk again. I need her to be strong enough to finally tell the truth, because I don't think that fall was an accident. I think Scarlett knows exactly what happened on those stairs."

Silence stretched on the line.

"You think someone pushed her," Julian said finally.

"I think," I said slowly, the words strange and dangerous in my mouth, "that whatever really happened that night, Scarlett is going to make sure I'm the one who pays for it."

I hung up before he could answer.

Down the hall, Adrian was trying to push past Dr. Alfred to see her.

"She's my fiancée. I need to see her condition."

Mark Donald intercepted him, voice firm. "The doctors are monitoring her closely. No visitors right now." He said carefully.

Adrian's jaw tightened.

The securities forced Adrian to go home, and they gave me a small room to sleep in, in case they needed information about Scarlett overnight, as the investigation is still ongoing.

I was barely awake when Uncle Raymond arrived the next morning.

I met him outside. He stepped out of the car in his long coat, already barking orders before his shoes hit the pavement.

"Where's her doctor? I want to speak to doctor Alfred directly."

"Room 412," I said, hurrying to keep up. "He's expecting you."

Inside, Uncle Raymond took over the room like he owned it. He flipped through Scarlett's chart, fired off questions at the attending doctor, and within twenty minutes had arranged everything: transfer papers, a private ambulance and a bed already waiting at his clinic in Manchester.

"I have staff who will handle her properly," he said, snapping the folder shut. "She'll get the best care there. My doctors. No mistakes."

"Thank you, Uncle."

He studied my face for a moment. 

"You didn't have to authorize this, Isabella. Not after everything she did to you. Julian told me everything."

"I know."

"Then why?"

I didn't answer right away. The truth, that I needed Scarlett alive, healed, and talking, wasn't something I could say out loud yet. Not even to him.

"She's still my sister," I said instead.

He nodded slowly, like he accepted it even if he didn't quite believe it.

They moved Scarlett onto a stretcher soon after. She looked impossibly small under the blankets, her golden hair spread across the pillow, eyes closed from the sedatives.

"Rest," I whispered. "Just get better."

I walked them out to the car. Uncle Raymond settled her into the back seat himself, checking her IV line twice before shutting the door. Then he climbed behind the wheel and rolled down his window.

"I'll call you when we arrive." 

"Thank you, Uncle Raymond."

He pulled away, and I stood on the curb in the cold morning air, hand raised, watching Scarlett's pale face vanish behind the tinted glass until the car turned the corner and disappeared.

I have not given up that one day Scarlett would be better and walk again.

I went home to rest once my uncle was gone.

I was in my room around seven that evening when I heard a cough outside my door. My chest tightened. I stepped out to check.

He was already there, blocking the doorway before I could react. My heart sank. My eyes went wide.

Adrian.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you," he whispered.