Chapter 8

Serena’s POV

“I didn’t want to wake up.”

The words come out thin, barely louder than the steady beeping beside my bed, but they feel too heavy for my chest. Like they’ve been sitting there since the moment my eyes opened, pressing down on my lungs, waiting for a way out.

I stare at the ceiling which looked Cracked in one corner. A faint stain shaped like nothing at all. I fixed my gaze on it because if I don’t, my thoughts drag me straight back to the road. To the sound, to the moment where I stopped caring whether I lived through it or not.

My body aches everywhere. Not sharp pain… no, this is worse. It’s a much deeper pain , it’s Like I’ve been beaten from the inside. My arm feels wrapped too tight and my leg throbs in slow, angry pulses. My ribs protest every breath I take.

I’m alive.

The realization doesn’t bring relief. It brings shame.

My eyes burn, and tears slip out anyway, sliding silently into my hairline. I don’t bother wiping them away. I don’t deserve comfort.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

Her pale and tired face flashes behind my eyes. Tubes and machines and that forced smile she wore so I wouldn’t feel guilty. I press my trembling hands to my face, my fingers shaking so badly they knock against my nose.

I try to hold it in.

I fail.

The sound that comes out of me is ugly. Broken. It starts quiet, just sharp breaths and hiccupped sobs, but it doesn’t stay that way. My shoulders shake. My chest tightens until it hurts more than my injuries ever could.

I curl inward as much as my body allows, crying into myself, into the wreckage of everything I couldn’t fix.

Someone is in the room with me.

I know that. I’ve known it since I woke up. I felt the weight of his presence even through the fog, like a shadow that didn’t move.

He doesn’t interrupt.

He doesn’t tell me to calm down. He just stays.

“I don’t even know where to start,” I say finally, my voice raw, words spilling out because stopping feels impossible. I keep staring at the ceiling, afraid that if I look at him, I’ll break all over again. “Everything just… collapsed. All at once.”

I swallow hard.

“My mom,” I whisper. “She’s been in the hospital for weeks. She needs surgery. They won’t schedule it without the deposit.” A weak laugh escapes me, bitter and hollow. “I kept telling her it was fine. That we’d figure it out. That Antonio would help.”

The name tastes wrong now.

“He didn’t,” I continue, my voice shaking. “He didn’t help. He divorced me instead. Just… erased me. Like I was nothing. Like I’d never mattered.”

Images crash into me in fragments. Antonio standing across from me, perfectly composed. His voice calm, almost bored, as he told me to deal with it, to accept it and move on.

Being called worthless.

Disposable.

A mistake.

“I lost everything,” I say, my chest tightening again. “Every penny I had.

My savings.

The account I’d been building since before I even met him.” My breath stutters. “I asked him about it. I begged him. He said it was gone and causally asked me to deal with it.”

My fingers dig into the sheets.

“And then Isabella took the phone from him,” I whisper. “She laughed. She told me to stop calling. That if I tried again, she’d make sure my mother’s care disappeared too.”

The words feel poisonous coming out of me, but I can’t stop. They’ve been rotting inside my chest, eating me alive.

“I don’t know where to start,” I repeat helplessly. “I don’t know how everything went so wrong so fast. I keep thinking I’ll wake up and it’ll just be… a bad dream.”

I turn my head Slowly and Carefully.

He’s still there.

Sitting in the chair near my bed, his posture relaxed but alert, like he’s used to waiting in silence. He looks exactly the same as before , dark suit, sharp features, eyes that give nothing away. If anything, he looks even more unreal now, like my mind invented him to fill the empty space Antonio left behind.

I study him for a moment, my eyes swollen and sore.

“You shouldn’t have saved me,” I say.

The words land flat, stripped of drama, stripped of hysteria. They’re just truth.

“It would’ve been easier,” I continue quietly. “If I’d died.”

I wait.

For judgment, For disgust on his face , For pity.

Anything.

His face doesn’t change.

The silence stretches, heavy but not uncomfortable in the way silence usually is. It feels deliberate and Controlled.

Finally, he speaks.

“Don’t worry,” he says evenly. “It’s already taken care of.”

I blink at him, confused. “What is?”

“Everything,” he replies.

I frown, my head throbbing as I try to follow. “I don’t understand.”

Before he can answer, the nurse steps closer to the bed. She keeps her voice low, professional. “Your room is private. You have top specialists assigned to your care. There are no pending charges. Your medical bills have been settled.”

I stare at her.

Then at him.

“What?” The word comes out barely formed. “That’s not possible.”

He meets my gaze calmly. “It is.”

Shock slices cleanly through my despair, leaving me dizzy in a different way. “You…you don’t even know me,” I say, my voice rising slightly despite myself. “Why would you do that?”

I search his face for guilt. For obligation. For any sign that this is an accident or a misunderstanding.

I find none.

A strange unease crawls up my spine. He’s a stranger. A powerful one. Dangerous-looking in a way that doesn’t need to be loud. I wonder if he feels responsible. If he thinks this is compensation.

Or if it’s something else entirely.

The kindness feels too deliberate.

Too intentional.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask softly.

The question slips out before I can stop it. My voice trembles, but I don’t look away. “Why do you care? Why are you doing all this?”

He holds my gaze.

The silence stretches again, thick and charged, like something important is hovering just out of reach.

“Because,” he says slowly, “you matter more than you think.”

And something about the way he says it makes my heart stumble, like it’s heard a truth it isn’t ready for yet.