Chapter 1

Briella's POV

Ronan Cooper calmly grabbed my wrist and pressed the gun against his own heart.

"Do you even dare to shoot? Briella Goodwin, even after losing your memory, you're still madly in love with me. You just couldn't bring yourself to be ruthless. Now that you know we were deeply in love, do you still have the heart to pull the trigger?" he asked.

My heart jolted violently. It felt as if I'd been slapped hard across my face. The pain burned.

So, he'd known everything all along.

He knew that even without my memories, I'd fallen for him all over again.

He knew that despite thinking we were enemies, I couldn't stop my heart from beating for him.

He even knew I had spared him again and again.

Yet, he had never hesitated to go for the kill.

To him, I was nothing more than a joke.

A black van suddenly screeched to a halt. My bodyguards dragged Sera Pierson out of the vehicle.

The moment I got word that my father, Adam Goodwin, had been kidnapped, I'd ordered my men to seize her.

A bodyguard held a gun to her head. Tears streamed down her face.

"Ron, save me!" she shouted.

Ronan's expression darkened. Twisting my arm, he restrained me from behind and pressed his gun against my temple.

"Let Sera go!" he roared.

I sneered.

"What if I don't? Taking your mistress down with me doesn't sound like a bad deal!"

He stared at me, his gaze empty.

Suddenly, he gripped my chin aggressively and forced a kiss on me. The metallic taste of blood quickly spread in my mouth.

I froze, my mind going completely blank.

"Satisfied?"

His scoff snapped me back to reality.

"You kept tabs on Sera because you were jealous, weren't you? I heard you destroyed a punch bag the first time you saw us making out by the window. Now I'm giving you what you want. We can do anything, as long as you let her go!" he said.

I stared at him in disbelief. What he said was absurd.

The sheer absurdity of it quickly gave way to the stinging anger of humiliation.

So, every display of intimacy between them had been staged just for me to see.

They just wanted to drive me insane!

I drove my elbow into Ronan's stomach with all my strength.

However, as I broke free, he slammed the butt of his gun heavily against the back of my head. A dull, crushing pain exploded in my skull, and my vision went dark.

Ronan looked at the blood on his gun handle, his eyes darkening.

The next second, a bullet struck the ground right next to my unconscious father.

My eyes widened in horror, and my heart skipped a beat.

"Ronan, how dare you!" I shouted.

"This is just a warning! For Sera's sake, I decided to let our feud go. But if you dare harm her, the next shot won't miss," he threatened.

As I looked into his cold eyes, the pain at the back of my head felt like it was about to split my skull open.

Fragmented memories flooded into my mind like fluid being pushed through a syringe.

In those memory fragments, I saw him barging in alone when I was ambushed by our enemies. I saw his bloodshot eyes fill with resolve as he roared, "You want to hurt Brie? Over my dead body!"

The determination in his eyes today was no different from back then.

Except this time, his gun was pointed at me.

My heart ached so much I could barely breathe.

Forcing back tears, I gestured for my bodyguards to release Sera.

Ronan pulled her into his arms, comforting her gently, just like how he used to hold me after surviving a crisis.

The vows he once made began to resurface clearly in my mind, one by one.

I could accept that the feud over what Dad did had become a vast, impassable sea separating us.

What I couldn't accept was him dragging me into that sea of resentment.

Also, I absolutely wouldn't accept him wanting out now because of Sera. I couldn't accept that he was leaving me to drown in it alone.

I clenched my fists tightly.

As Ronan held Sera and walked right past me, I pulled out my dagger.