Chapter 5

The candle flames from Susan’s birthday cake still burned in my mind when the night sky lit up again. Fireworks burst above the river—too close, too loud, too wild.

For a moment they were beautiful. Then sparks rained where they shouldn’t have. Someone had left a crate too near the crowd. The wood caught, the sparks fell.

I raised my arm as the blast cracked through the air. Heat seared down my forearm, blistering skin in an instant. Blood welled from a cut where shrapnel grazed me.

“Henry! I’m burned!” Susan shrieked, clutching a faint scrape on her palm.

He didn’t look at me. He scooped her up, carried her toward the exit, and vanished into the smoke—while I staggered alone, my arm raw with pain.

The ER was all white walls and antiseptic sting. The doctor cursed as he stitched and wrapped my burns. I kept my gaze steady, refusing to flinch, even as the pain hollowed me out.

The door banged open. Henry stormed in, still bandaged from his own injuries, breath ragged. “Olivia!” His voice cracked as he dropped to his knees beside the bed. “I’m sorry. I should have—”

“You don’t need to explain,” I cut him off, my voice flat. “I don’t need apologies.”

He gripped my hand hard. “She’s my responsibility. I swear, everything I do is to save you.”

Save me. Responsibility. Words that once would have been love now tasted like chains.

He fussed, piling tonics and medicines on the table, smothering me with the carefulness that once had been affection. I made a small excuse—“I want that cake from the south-side bakery”—and he lit up like a man given absolution, rushing out to fetch it.

Relief tasted like freedom. I closed my eyes.

When the door opened again, his face was different—harder, shadowed. He thrust his phone toward me.

On the screen: Susan’s name. A timestamp. A message that read:

Help! Olivia had people take me. She’s forcing me to donate a kidney! Henry, come!

I stared. My throat closed. “That’s not true.”

“She said you led her away from the fireworks,” Henry said, voice raw. “A witness confirmed. You were the last one with her.”

“I didn’t—” The denial cracked. “She staged this. You know she delays, you’ve seen—”

But I stopped. Because I knew what he would say: We owe her.

His jaw clenched. For a moment the softness died, and the heir of the Colombo syndicate—the man made of iron and ruthlessness—looked back at me.

“If you won’t tell me the truth, I’ll find it myself.”

He didn’t shout. He didn’t rage. He simply gave the order, cold and quiet:

“Restrict her movements. No visitors. Monitor everything.”

The nurse faltered. “Mr. Colombo, where—?”

“Put her in the isolation ward,” he said. His voice was low, merciless. “Keep the temperature cold. I want her to remember what betrayal feels like.”

And just like that, guards stationed themselves at the door. Cameras turned toward my bed.

The tea the nurse placed on my table steamed faintly, but the room itself was freezing.

I lay on the narrow cot with my bandaged arm, staring at the frost along the window, and thought:

I had not been taken. I had been left.

On the nightstand, my phone screen glowed faintly. The countdown app pulsed in silence.

16 days.

Seventeen sunsets. Seventeen mornings I might or might not wake to.

Every number was a heartbeat, and every heartbeat was running out.