Chapter 3: The Scar He Doesn’t Remember

I don’t scream. Nurses don’t scream.  

But my hand shoots out and locks around the man’s wrist before he gets within three feet of Roman’s IV line. 

The syringe wobbled. One drop of clear liquid beads at the needle tip.  

“Step back,” I say. 

My voice is ICU calm. The kind I use when a patient crashes. The kind that means I’m already calculating how to put you on the floor if I have to.  

The fake orderly’s eyes flick to mine. Then to the door. Then back to Roman, sedated and helpless. 

He’s young. Maybe twenty-five. Not a killer’s eyes. A desperate man.  

“This is protocol,” he says, but his voice cracks. “Night meds.”  

“Name,” I say. “And show me the order.”  

He yanks his arm free and bolts. 

The syringe clatters to the floor. I don’t chase him. I can’t leave Roman. 

I slam the code button with my elbow and drop to my knees, kicking the syringe under the bed so no one touches it.  

Security is there in forty seconds. Detective Singh in ninety.  

“You’re off his case,” Singh says, looking from me to Roman to the syringe now bagged by security. “So what are you doing here?”  

“Saving his life,” I say. “Again.”  

Her gaze softens a fraction. “We’ll test it. You didn’t see his face?”  

“Scrubs, mask, cheap sneakers. He was scared.” I pause. “He didn’t expect me.”  

Because I’m not supposed to be here. Dr. Patel pulled me. Julian thinks I’m gone. Whoever sent that man thought Roman was alone.  

Singh nods. “You need to go home, Monroe. You’re a target now, not just a suspect.”  

“I’m his proxy,” I say. “If I leave, Julian gets him.”  

“I’ll post an officer,” Singh says. “But you can’t do this solo.”  

She’s wrong. I’ve done everything solo since I was fourteen.  

They move Roman at dawn. 

Dr. Patel signs off despite my protest. “Hospital policy. You’re compromised, Isla. I’m sorry.”  

Private facility. Discretion, Julian had said. 

I watch the transport team load Roman into the ambulance. He’s still sedated, pale, a white bandage at his temple where they shaved for the monitors. 

His hand lies open on the sheet.  

I slip my fingers through his before they close the doors. Just for a second. 

His fingers twitch. A reflex, probably. But I pretend it’s him holding on.  

“He’ll be safe,” the transport nurse says.  

I don’t answer. Safe doesn’t exist for Roman Kade. Not while Julian is breathing.  

I go home because Singh told me. 

My apartment is two rooms above a bakery. It smells like sugar and dust. I haven’t slept here in three days. 

The mail is piled up. A plain envelope sits on top. No stamp. No return address.  

Inside is a photo.  

Me. At seventeen. Crestview High. 

I’m by the lake, hugging my knees, face blotchy from crying. I remember that day. 

Roman had told the entire school I slept with his father for money. I hadn’t gone to class for a week.  

On the back, written in sharp black ink: You were always in his way.  

Same words Julian said.  

My hands shake for real now.  

The flash drive.  

I’d forgotten about it until Roman’s scar. 

Fourteen years old, I’d found it taped under the library computer. I thought it was music. 

I plugged it in once, saw files named KAD_TECH_TRIAL_01, and got scared. I shoved it in my yearbook and never looked again. 

After my dad died, after Vegas, I forgot I even had it. 

I tear my closet apart. Yearbooks, old hoodies, a box of my dad’s things. 

There. Senior year. Crestview High. 

I flip through pages of faces I don’t miss and it falls out.  

Small. Silver. Unlabeled.  

My dad was a contractor for Kade Technologies before he died in a “site accident.” 

He’d been working on a weapons project he said was “wrong.” He started drinking. Started fighting with Roman’s father.  

Then he was gone.  

I close my fist around the drive.  

I won’t go back to the hospital. I go to the private facility.  

It’s called Lakeside Recovery. Gated. Quiet. Expensive. 

The kind of place where people disappear with paperwork to prove it was legal.  

The front desk says no visitors. 

I say I’m his wife. I show them the marriage certificate I now keep folded in my pocket like armor.  

They let me in.  

Roman’s room is on the third floor. No monitors. No nurse. Just a DNR order taped to the door.  

I rip it down.  

He’s awake. Confused. Thirsty. 

His eyes find me and the panic in them eases. “You came,” he says, voice rough. “I thought... I dreamed you left.”  

“I’m here.” I pour water, hold the cup to his lips. His fingers brush mine. Lingering. Warmer than they were in the ICU.  

“Julian said you weren’t real,” he whispers. “That I made you up. That I’m crazy.”  

Rage burns up my throat. “You’re not crazy.”  

He studies me. Head tilted, like he’s trying to place me in a memory that won’t come. 

“Why do you look at me like that?”  

“Like what?”  

“Like you’re waiting for me to break something.”  

Because you did. For years.  

I set the cup down. “You don’t remember high school, do you?”  

“No.” He swallows. “Just... flashes. You. The lake. You were crying.”  

The photo. He saw me that day.  

“I was,” I say.  

“Because of me?”  

Yes. But I look at his face. The scar I just discovered. The assault report from the day after he married me. 

He took a beating for me and I never knew. 

“Because of your father,” I say. That’s true too.  

He reaches for me. Slow, like he thinks I’ll pull away. I don’t. 

His thumb traces the inside of my wrist, right over my pulse. It flutters.  

“I don’t like that you were sad,” he says. “It makes me feel...” He presses his hand to his chest. “Wrong. Here.”  

My heart does something stupid. 

Because the Roman I knew never cared if I was sad. He made me sad.  

This Roman, this broken, honest version, looks like he’d tear himself apart to fix it.  

“Roman,” I say. “The day after we got married in Vegas. What happened to you?”  

He frowns. “Married? We...”  

Pain slices across his face. He grabs his head. 

“I... I can’t... there’s blood. And you’re... you were shaking. Someone hit me. Said if I touched you again...”  

He gasps. His eyes clear. He looks at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.  

“You,” he breathes. “It was you. In the chapel. You were crying too. You said your dad was gone. I said... I said I’d make it stop.”  

The memory is there. Fragile. New.  

“You married me to protect me,” I whisper.  

“I tried.” His voice breaks. “Did it work?”  

Before I can answer, the door opens.  

Julian stands there. No lawyers this time. Just two men in black behind him.  

“Ms. Monroe,” Julian says. “You’re trespassing. Roman needs rest. And you need to give me that flash drive.”  

My blood turns to ice.  

He knows.  

Roman shifts, trying to sit up, eyes flashing. The old Roman. The CEO. The threat. 

“Get away from her,” he snarls, and it’s the first time he sounds like the boy who ruled Crestview.  

Julian smiles. “You don’t even remember her, nephew. But you will. After we fix this. The doctor is on his way. A little injection, and you’ll sleep for a long, long time.”  

He nods to the men.  

I step between them and Roman’s bed. 

My hands are empty. No code cart. No security. Just me.  

And the flash drive in my pocket.  

“Roman,” I say without looking at him. “If you trust me, even a little, you need to get up right now.”  

His hand finds mine. Weak, but there.  

“I trust you,” he says.  

Julian’s smile drops. “You don’t even know her.”  

Roman pushes himself upright, swaying, pain all over his face. But he doesn’t let go of me.  

“I know enough,” he says to Julian. Then to me, softer: “Isla. Do you have a plan?”  

I do. It’s stupid. It’ll probably get us both killed.  

But he called me Isla. Not my wife. Not a girl. Isla.  

“Yeah,” I say. “Run.”