DARREN“Have you gone completely insane?!” Lucien slammed the table with his fist. “Why the fuck did you go there?!” He leaped to his feet and refilled his whiskey glass, deciding that he hadn't drunk enough to handle what I had just told him. Looking at him, I thought that maybe I could use another drink as well.“I wanted to see her. I needed to know that she's getting better.” I told him the truth—a part of it. “Besides, you wanted me to get close to her. I DID get close to her.”“Close to fucking her,” Lucien corrected, his fists opening and closing as he returned to the sofa. “Do me a favor and fuck her after we get any reasonable information. You remember what the plan was about, don't you?”I pinched the bridge of my nose. “She was a mess, Lucien. I'm not sure if she mended herself completely even now. I won't tell her to dig out something that can break her even further.”His brows rose. “So what now? Do you want to give up on our only chance to get some real evidence?”I glar

LILLY I hadn't talked to Callan for more than a week. He called me twice, but I pretended to be busy. Certainly, I had a lot of work to do, but I could have found an hour or two for lunch if I wanted to. This wasn't stalling for time. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that, for now, I didn't want him anywhere near me. This wasn't what I needed. Nonetheless, this was yet another issue I could add to the pile of complicated things around me. It took me a few more days before I decided that I needed someone to talk to about my messed-up life. Raven took me to a pub run by her friend, Joffrey. The pub was full when we got there, but as a friend of the owner, she got us a table on the balcony, far from the crowd and nosy people. I started talking as soon as our drinks arrived, and I seriously needed alcohol. That night, I told her everything. I finished describing my screwed-up situation with my father's involvement in Darren's father's death, including what I had found in my

LILLYSomeone installed a hammer inside my head. It kept hitting the same spot over and over again. Waves of nausea rose and fell, threatening to erupt. I tried to kill the dryness in my throat, gulping down the glass I suddenly found within my reach, but it could hardly satiate the thirst I felt. I groaned, rolling over on the bed—I froze. This was NOT my bed. This definitely was NOT my bedroom. And the scent I kept inhaling...“Shit,” I breathed out and heard a soft chuckle in response. I pushed through the brutal headache and looked around the room. Dread chilled my bones as my eyes zeroed in on the bedroom's owner.“Good morning,” came Darren's cheerful reply. He stood a few feet away from the bed… shirtless.A reflex forced my eyes to the sheets as if to check my clothing. Thankfully—or not—underneath the sheets, I was still dressed in my yesterday's clothes, a black button-up shirt, and a pair of jeans.“You may not remember, but you were drunk yesterday,” he explained, slowly

DARRENMore than two weeks had passed since I brought Lilly to my apartment. More than two weeks since I heard her confession and decided to ignore it. And almost two weeks of feeling like the world's greatest asshole.Of course, there was a moment—a brief one—when I thought I was doing the right thing by pushing her away. That belief died quickly… right by the time I walked to my bedroom and realized I could still feel her scent. I didn't want it to fade away. I wanted to keep it there—keep her by my side.Idiot. I should have said something. I should have stopped her. She had taken me by surprise, and I decided to ignore what had happened, creating all kinds of excuses for it. I told myself that she had been too drunk to remember or that she hadn't been aware of what she had confessed to me. It made everything easier—easier for me. That way, I didn't have to analyze what was going on between us or wonder how I should describe what I felt in her presence.“I've got news for you, but

LILLYThree days ago, my team and I had finally met Josie Lacroix, Kathrine's three-year-old daughter. I tried hard to ignore the fact that she was Kenneth's daughter as well. I struggled even more not to think that the child that Kenneth had killed would have been her age and could have looked just as lovely as Josie did. But the hardest part was to quit seeing the little, lovable girl and only notice the patient with a terrible illness—put in an indifference filter.Two of the best oncologists working for the Hayes Clinic and one more genetic engineer joined our team to help us design the treatment. Leukemia, for me, was like entering uncharted waters. I spent more than a week learning everything I could to fully understand what we were dealing with and then read a decade-worth of studies describing all the possible treatments. Certainly, transplanting the bone marrow from the right donor would have been the most efficient solution, but there was no donor for Josie, and she didn't h