Chapter 5

Adrian stared at me, those gray-brown eyes cold enough to frighten, like he wanted to swallow me whole.

What I'd said must have dragged him back to before. How he'd betrayed his family, given up everything for me, and how I'd thrown him away for the measly million his father handed me.

He would never understand how he could have lost to that million.

My stomach was churning, agony rolling through it. I didn't want to say anything more. I turned to go, and then the ground dropped away under my feet, and the next second Adrian had thrown me over his broad shoulder.

Like some thug who wouldn't hear a word of reason, face cold, he carried me straight out of the underground bar.

Everyone stared, shocked. I fought and struggled, telling him to put me down.

He clamped my hands tight and pressed down on the cut on my wrist, snarling at me. "Eve, you must be a demon God sent to torment me."

"You're a demon. You stole my soul."

He threw me into that black Cullinan, leaned over to pin my legs, gripped my face, and cursed viciously. "Sometimes I really want to put a bullet in you."

His expression said he hated me to the bone.

But his eyes always seemed to be telling me he still loved me.

My stomach hurt too much to speak. Cold sweat beaded on my forehead as I glared at him.

Adrian frowned, opened the glove box, dug out a bottle of stomach medicine, shook out two pills, and pushed them into my mouth.

At the very back of that glove box I saw the cheap perfume bottle I'd emptied years ago and couldn't bear to throw out, a hair tie gone frayed and white at the edges, and the worthless little silver pendant Adrian had bought me five years back...

Everything of mine was hidden in there. In the five years I was gone, it had kept this young Don company through countless bloody nights in my place.

Tears spilled out of me. I turned my head fast and wiped them away before Adrian could see.

All these years, and he still remembered my stomach was bad.

Even with me gone, this cold-blooded mafia boss still kept painkillers in his car out of habit.

And I'd hardened my heart, and with everything I had, I shoved him away.

I forced myself to smile at him. "Don, stop chasing me, all right? The way you are now, it's repulsive."

"You probably don't even know. I got married a long time ago. My kid's already three..."

"Don't tell me you still want to patch things up with a woman covered in mud like me. Adrian, don't embarrass yourself."

I shoved him back two steps. His tall frame went rigid.

The instant I sat up to get out of the car, he lunged, pinned me hard against the leather seat, hand around my throat, voice shaking through his teeth. "Eve, I don't believe you."

"You'd better tell me you're joking."

I looked him dead in the eyes and said calmly, "Fine. I'll prove it to you."

I took Adrian to a run-down hospital.

The smell of disinfectant filled my nose.

I stood outside the dialysis room, and through the glass I pointed at the unconscious little boy inside, hooked up to a ventilator, and told Adrian, "That's my child."

His name was Damian. He was the last light I had in this world.

He was the only reason I was still alive, my one hope.

He was stubborn, just like Adrian.

He looked like me.

He'd inherited every good thing from both his parents.

He was such a good kid.

But he'd fallen ill, a boy not yet five, thin and small.

But his eyes stayed as innocent as a fawn's.

It broke your heart.

Adrian stared at that child for a long, long time, then clenched his fist and drove it into the glass of the room.

He dropped his head. This man who could summon storms was suddenly as broken as he'd been five years ago.

That night, the last thing Adrian said to me was this.

Eve, you've really got nerve.

From today, this cursed debt between us ends, once and for all.

I watched the last spark of light die in his eyes.

He didn't ask who the child's father was.

And he didn't recognize that the boy lying in that bed was his own flesh and blood.