The Countdown to Us

Coming back from city hall, I was completely out of it.

Before getting in the car, I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes first. Only when my eyes weren't red anymore did I tell the driver to take me home.

Victor couldn't stand seeing me cry. He'd given orders to everyone around him—anytime, anywhere, if they saw me upset, they had to report it.

Now wasn't the right time to blow things open.

I got a call from Victor.

"Baby, what made you think of going to city hall today? Did you make it?"

Hearing the careful, almost tiptoeing tone in his voice, I almost laughed.

He'd always been the type to panic the second he heard I'd left the house. This time, though, he was asking about errands.

So even he had a guilty conscience.

"I think I ate something bad today. Had to rest for a while as soon as I got to city hall."

"Still didn't get the certificate replaced. I'm so unlucky."

The moment those words left my mouth, I heard him let out a quiet breath on the other end.

"Flora, let me worry about the certificate. Just get back to the estate and have the family doctor check you out thoroughly."

And just like that, my Don husband started ordering the best gastroenterologists from the entire West Coast to be summoned.

He always freaked out this much over my health.

I thought about it, thought about it—and the tears started falling before I could stop them. I quickly turned my gaze out the window.

A love forged through gunfire and bloodshed—turns out even that could fade without you noticing.

We first met at the West Coast delivery dock. I was an exchange student fresh off the plane; he was the Black Hand's first-in-line heir, running from a rival family's hit.

I threw him a dry-ice bomb to buy him an escape window. No reason, no fear—I just thought those deep sapphire eyes were beautiful.

After we got together, he put his West Coast operations on hold for my studies and moved to an apartment near my school. Every day like a regular guy, showing up at the campus gate right on time to pick up his girlfriend. Every morning riding a bicycle down the big streets to the bakery half an hour away to get my favorite blueberry bread.

Every time the bullets started flying, he'd throw himself over me before the first shot even cracked the air.

The day my exchange program ended, I asked him to wait two years for me.

He cried so hard he could barely breathe—but he still dropped to one knee and proposed.

That night, my ring finger threaded through his soft hair, over and over, as I told him I'd come back, I'd love him forever.

The two years apart, our contact was spotty. His father's health was failing, and rival factions kept circling closer.

One day I was in the lab doing gem identification when a news alert popped up on my phone.

He'd been shot three times. His father was dead.

The day I rushed back to the West Coast, I'd braced myself for everything—paralyzed, wheelchair-bound, vegetative state—I didn't care.

I was marrying him right then and there.