Chapter 1

I was already severely injured. Wyatt Clark, my fiance, pushed me away with so much force that I lost my balance. I fell hard onto the floor in the hospital hallway.

I heard the sound of skin and flesh tearing across my back, along with my short, muffled groan. I knew then that the glass shard stuck in my back had already sunk all the way in.

I curled up on the floor, squinting against the harsh lights as everything in front of me began to spin. "P-Please help me…"

I saw one of the nurses stand up from the nurses' station, look at me, and then sit back down. "P-Please help me up and get me a doctor…"

They ignored me completely. They were either busy organizing patient records or had turned away, scrolling through their phones without a care.

"P-Please—"

"Please get up on your own and take a seat in the waiting area for now, Ms. Johnson."

It was then that one of the nurses spoke up, sounding rather annoyed. "Dr. Johnson has stressed repeatedly that anyone who tries to curry favor with you to get ahead will be severely punished.

"Just last week, Dr. Lister, the one who allowed you to skip the queue for your premarital checkup, got reassigned to the Environmental Services Department to handle the dirty hospital bedsheets!"

I was momentarily stunned. Faye Lister—or Dr. Lister—hadn't actually let me skip the queue. She had simply handed me my medical report while she was organizing the other reports.

I had no idea that Mom, who had always prided herself on "never showing favoritism", would reassign Dr. Lister to janitorial work for that.

I tried to explain myself, but the movement tugged at the wound on my back. I was instantly hit with a fresh wave of dizziness, causing me to break out in a cold sweat.

Meanwhile, the nurses kept chatting away. "Dr. Johnson might be strict, but there's no denying how fair and just she is."

"I know, right? I'd suggest none of you try anything stupid. If Dr. Johnson won't hesitate to punish a doctor, we nurses could easily lose our jobs over one wrong move!"

The cold, hard floor and the warmth and dampness of my back created a strange sensation. My breathing turned heavy, but my consciousness stayed clear—the adrenaline was doing its job, and I knew the worst would hit once it ran out.

I dug my fingernails into the grooves between the tiles, trying with everything I had to push myself up, but every effort just sent me crashing back down harder.

"Oh, my goodness!" A middle-aged woman in the waiting area clapped a hand over her mouth and pointed toward me, exclaiming, "There's blood all over the floor!"

In that instant, the nurses at the nurses' station finally registered the situation, though they still hesitated, nudging one another to act.

In the end, Maeve Warner, the young intern nurse, hurried to my side. She turned deathly pale the second her hands touched my back to help me up. "W-What happened to your back…"

She gently pressed the area with her fingers, eliciting a sharp gasp from me. "There's something hard underneath the skin…"

She said tremblingly, "It's not just an ordinary scrape. It feels like there's something embedded deep in the flesh. Is this internal bleeding?"

She immediately got to her feet and hurried toward the trauma room, almost tripping as she went. She then knocked frantically at the door, the sound echoing across the ER.