Chapter 133 Chapter One hundred and thirty-two
ARA
“Stuart will take you to my mother’s location,” Thayne said calmly, like he hadn't just said the opposite of what I expected.
I blinked. “I thought you—”
“I’ll find your sisters.”
The words landed like a quiet detonation. I stared at him, searching his face for hesitation, for doubt, for the crack I knew had to be there, but there was none.
His jaw was set, his eyes dark with resolve, carrying a weight no one should have to bear alone.
“You don’t get to do this by yourself,” I whispered.
“I do,” he replied softly, stepping closer. “They’re yours. She’s mine.”
For a second, I hated him for how easily he made the choice. For how noble it sounded. For how much it cost him.
His hand brushed my arm. The touch was brief, grounding, reluctant.
“I will bring them back,” he said. It was not a promise, it was a vow.
And just like that, he turned away, already becoming the man who would walk straight into hell so I wouldn’t have to.
Twenty minutes later, we were airborne. The helicopter’s blades tore through the sky loudly, but none of it drowned out the silence beside me.
Thayne wasn’t there to hold my hand, wasn’t there to issue calm, infuriating orders or tell me to breathe. The empty seat beside me felt wrong, too wide, and too cold.
I folded my hands over my stomach, my fingers trembling despite my effort to stay composed.
“We’re landing in six, ma’am,” Stuart’s voice came through the headset.
I lifted my thumb in response, unable to trust my voice.
Liliana.
I was finally going to see her again. The thought sat heavily in my chest, tangled with guilt and fear. This time, there would be no Thayne to anchor me, no familiar presence to absorb the weight of her fragility.
Or maybe… maybe he’d chosen to search for my sisters because it was easier.
Because facing danger was simpler than facing his mother. Because some wounds bled more quietly, but hurt far worse.
Stuart helped me out of the helicopter, his grip firm but careful, like he was afraid I might shatter if he held me too tightly.
I masked my reaction as we made the short walk toward the building ahead of us. From the outside, it looked like a ranch house stripped of its horses.
It was low, wide, almost peaceful. The kind of place you’d expect laughter, or at least quiet retirement.
But the illusion didn’t survive the front door. The moment we crossed the threshold, the truth revealed itself. The air changed, turning sterile, sharp with antiseptic. Soft beeping sounds hummed somewhere down the hall.
White walls hid behind warm paint, and discreet cameras blinked from corners meant to feel invisible.
It wasn’t a home. It was a private hospital care facility, dressed up to look like mercy.
A tall nurse stepped forward to greet us. She had light freckles scattered across her face and wide-rimmed glasses that kept slipping down her nose, giving her a kind, almost bookish look.
“Hello, Mrs. Slade. We’ve been expecting you and your hus—” She stopped short, her eyes lifting to Stuart’s face.
Her brows knit together in confusion as she studied him, then she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Oh.” The word came out softly, embarrassed. She thought Stuart was Thayne.
“I came alone,” I said quietly. “Please take us to her.”
“Of course, Mrs. Slade. This way.” The nurse turned immediately, professionalism sliding back into place as she led us down a long, hushed corridor.
The air inside smelled sterile, too clean, like it was trying to erase pain instead of treating it.
“We currently have two doctors monitoring her,” she continued, lowering her voice as if the walls themselves might overhear. “They believe her unconscious state isn’t purely physical, even though she'd been poisoned. There are strong mental… psychological elements involved.”
My steps slowed. Psychological?
My chest tightened as the word settled in. Liliana hadn’t just been poisoned by food. Her mind had finally turned against her, folding in on itself the way Thayne had always feared it would.
I swallowed hard and followed the nurse, each step heavier than the last, wondering what I would find on the other side of that door, and whether I was strong enough to face it without Thayne beside me.
“Have they been able to detect what she was poisoned with? Why isn’t she on treatment? You should—”
The rest of the words died on my tongue the moment the nurse pushed the door open.
Liliana lay rigid on the hospital bed, her body unnaturally still, as though even breathing was something she had chosen to abandon.
Tubes ran from her arms, machines hummed softly beside her, their steady beeps the only proof that she was still here.
Her skin looked pale, too pale, drawn tight over fragile bones. She didn’t look asleep. She looked… paused. Like someone had pressed a button and forgotten to hit play again.
Thayne would lose his mind if he saw her like this.
The nurse stepped aside and gestured toward the two men standing near the foot of the bed.
“Mrs. Slade,” she said gently, “these are the attending physicians. She’s come to sign the consent papers for the surgery.”
The surgery? There was going to be a surgery?
The doctors turned at once.
They could have been twins, same height, same sharp features, same solemn expressions. Their identical eyes flicked from me to Stuart, then back again, as if silently trying to reconcile faces with names.
One of them cleared his throat. “You’re the legal representative?”
Legal what? For what? I replied with the first response my brain put in the suggestion box.
“Yes,” I answered, my voice steadier than I felt. “I am.”
Their gazes lingered on me for a second longer, something unreadable passing between them, before one of them reached for a clipboard.
“She’s been stable for the last few hours,” he said. “But her condition is… complicated.”
I looked back at Liliana, at the woman who had once been vibrant and loud and full of fire, now reduced to silence. She'd been sick in the head, but at least she still tried to live life wonderfully.
Who would have poisoned her?
“Then explain it to me,” I said quietly to the attending doctors. “All of it.”