101
The door clicked open with a soft hiss.
Kingsley stepped into the dim, sterile room, the air thick with antiseptic and the low hum of machines. A heart monitor’s beeping ticked like a steady but fragile metronome.
He froze at the sight of her.
Katherine lay motionless on the hospital bed, pale against the white sheets. Her head was wrapped in thick bandages, and a tube was feeding oxygen into her nose. An IV line snaked down her arm. Her face, usually full of light and laughter, was bruised, swollen, and still.
A small gasp escaped Kingsley’s lips.
He took a step forward, then another, until he reached the edge of her bed. His hands hovered at his sides like he didn’t know where to put them, how to touch something so breakable.
“Katherine…” he whispered, voice cracking.
His knees hit the floor.
He knelt beside her bed, silk nightwear brushing the cold tiles, bare feet pressing into the linoleum, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t feel anything but the searing pain in his chest.
“I’m here… I’m here now, baby.”
Tears welled in his eyes as he studied her, eyes fluttering closed as if refusing to believe this was real. “They told me what happened. God… if I had been there, if I hadn’t let you walk into this world alone…”
He reached up slowly and gently brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, careful not to disturb the bandages.
“You don’t have to fight alone, okay? I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I should have been here sooner. I should have protected you from everything. Especially from her.”
His voice hardened.
“I know it was Beth who did this to you.”
His jaw tightened, eyes burning with unshed fury. “I swear to God, Katherine… I will make her pay. I will teach her a lesson so brutal she’ll regret ever laying a finger on you. If it’s the last thing I do…” He lifted his head and looked at her, voice breaking, “I’ll make sure she regrets it for the rest of her life.”
Silence answered him, except for the machines ticking steadily beside them.
He looked at her, his lips trembling. “But I need you to come back to me. Please. You can’t leave me like this. We were just starting over. You said yes. You said you’d be my girl again.”
His breath caught in his throat.
“I haven’t even gotten the chance to marry you again. To make it right. To love you like I should have from the beginning.”
The monitor beeped steadily, the only answer in the silence.
Kingsley reached for her hand, laced his fingers through hers gently, and leaned forward to kiss the back of it. “Please fight. I’ll be here. Every second. I’ll cancel everything. I’ll sleep on the floor next to you if I have to. Just… just don’t go. Not like this.”
His forehead lowered to her hand, and the tears spilled freely.
Outside the room, through the small glass pane in the door, Carolina watched him, pressing her hand over her heart.
And down the hall, far from the ICU, Beth’s name flickered across the hospital’s visitor log, unsigned but entered by a nurse, lingering like a shadow not yet stepped into the light.
The fluorescent lights above cast a sterile glow across the polished hallway floors. The reception desk was quiet, the nurse behind it subdued and weary. Kingsley stood at the counter, his credit card still warm from the sizable transaction he’d just made.
“Everything has been handled,” he told the billing officer calmly. “Private VIP suite, full monitoring, round-the-clock nurse rotation. No limitations. Whatever she needs, she gets.”
“Yes, sir,” the nurse replied gently. “She’ll be moved once the staff prepares the room.”
Kingsley gave a tight nod and turned without another word. His bare feet whispered against the tile as he made his way back to the ICU, still dressed in his silk nightwear, shirt slightly rumpled, the hem of his pants brushing the floor.
He pushed open the door slowly.
Inside, Katherine still lay unmoving. Machines continued their relentless vigil. Carolina sat beside her now, hunched over and quietly weeping, Katherine’s hand held delicately in her own. Her thumb stroked it gently, like a prayer in motion.
Kingsley paused, the sight nearly undoing him.
Then, with soft steps, he crossed the room and placed a hand on Carolina’s shoulder.
She looked up, startled, eyes red-rimmed and puffy. “You’re going?” she asked, her voice cracking.
He nodded once, jaw set, eyes still locked on Katherine. “Yes.”
“But… it’s late. Why don’t you wait until morning?” she pleaded. “Stay. Just for tonight. Be here with her.”
He knelt slightly so they were eye to eye.
“I will,” he said. “I’ll be back. But first, I need to deal with something.”
Carolina swallowed, her brow furrowed. “Kingsley…”
“I know it was Beth,” he said, voice hardening like steel drawn through fire. “I know she had something to do with this. And I can’t just sit here. Not while the woman I love is lying there broken because of her.”
His fists clenched at his sides. “I’m going to teach Beth a lesson she will never forget. I’ll make her pay for what she did to Katherine. I swear it.”
Carolina’s eyes widened, but she said nothing. There was something both terrifying and reassuring in the fury simmering beneath his words.
Kingsley softened slightly. “I’ve already settled everything. The VIP suite will be ready soon. Once she’s transferred, she’ll be more comfortable. And so will you, whenever you come to sit with her.”
He looked at Katherine once more, eyes dim with pain. Then turned and walked out the door, his footsteps echoing softly in the silent hall.
War had been declared.
And Kingsley Rowe was not going to lose this time.
The car sped through the quiet Manhattan streets, headlights cutting sharp swaths of light through the darkness. Rain had started to drizzle, tapping softly against the roof, but Kingsley didn’t notice. He sat in the back seat, still barefoot in his silk nightwear, shirt wrinkled, pants clinging to his damp ankles from where he’d stepped into a puddle at the hospital curb. His jaw was locked. His eyes were far away.
The city blurred past the window, but inside the vehicle, Kingsley’s thoughts were a roaring storm.
Katherine.
He could still see her pale face beneath the harsh hospital lights. Tubes. Wires. Monitors. Her chest rose and fell like a ghost’s breath.
Unconscious. Fragile. And worst of all… silent.
And then, like a serpent sliding through his thoughts, came Beth.
How could she?
How could she touch her? Hurt her?
He remembered the venom in Beth’s eyes this evening when she caught him rushing out the door. The tremble in her voice when she asked where he was going. The way she shivered when he’d spoken through clenched teeth:
“I swear to God if I find out you had a hand in this…”
Then came Nathan’s voice in his head, echoing like thunder in a cavern.
“She framed Charles, Kingsley. She plotted to marry into wealth, and when it backfired, she destroyed him. Strategically. Without mercy. That girl is dangerous.”
He should have seen it sooner. The cold ambition behind Beth’s beauty. The hunger in her eyes. Not for love. Not for loyalty. For domination. She wanted to own everything. Everyone. Even him.
But she touched the wrong woman.
As the gates of the Rowe estate opened, Kingsley sat up straight. His heart thumped like a war drum. The mansion loomed ahead, its glass and stone façade glittering beneath the rain, a palace of elegance hiding a venomous queen inside.
The car stopped.
Kingsley stepped out, feet landing on the wet stone driveway, uncaring of the cold that bit through his soles. He strode toward the front doors, the soaked hem of his silk pants slapping against his ankles. The guards tried to greet him, but one look at his face made them step back in silence.
He didn’t knock. He didn’t call out. He stormed in.
The grand hallway was quiet, save for the faint ticking of the crystal clock above the staircase and the echo of his wet steps on marble. Somewhere inside this palace, Beth was waiting.
And Kingsley Rowe was done being her pawn.
Tonight, she would see the man she thought she could manipulate transform into the storm she never saw coming.
The double doors to the master bedroom flew open with a thunderous crash.
Beth, lounging on the edge of the bed in a satin robe with a glass of wine in her hand, jumped at the sound.
Her gaze snapped to the doorway, startled, then narrowed with calculated calm. “Kingsley,” she said coolly, rising to her feet, “you’re soaked, barefoot…? What is the matter with you?”
But she didn’t get to finish.
Kingsley marched inside, water dripping from his silk shirt, the fury in his eyes as sharp and cold as broken glass. His hands were clenched at his sides, knuckles white. Every word he spoke vibrated with rage.
“What did you do to Katherine?”
Beth blinked. “What?”
He stepped closer, voice rising, trembling with grief and fury.
“What did you do to her, Beth?”
His eyes, bloodshot, wounded, wild, searched hers for some crack of remorse. But there was only ice.
Beth’s lips parted to speak, but before a sound could leave her mouth, a sharp prick stung Kingsley’s neck.
His hand flew up in reflex, fingers brushing something metallic and warm hands gripping him from behind.
He staggered, turning just slightly, his body already beginning to falter, vision doubling.
Thomas.
One of his house workers.
Through blurry eyes, Kingsley saw Thomas’s face. Calm. Expressionless. And in his gloved hand, the empty syringe.
“What the hell…” Kingsley whispered, staggering back a step.
His knees gave out.
The room twisted. Beth was moving closer now, wine glass still in hand, calm as a queen overseeing an execution.
His body hit the carpet with a sickening thud, breath shallow, fingers twitching.
His last sight before the darkness swallowed him whole was Beth crouching down beside him, her manicured fingers brushing lightly against his damp cheek as she whispered with venom-laced sweetness,
“You should have listened, darling.”
Blackness.