Chapter 67 Chapter Sixty-six
ARA
I felt Ethan’s body jerk behind me with every impact.
I felt the heat of blood that wasn’t mine splatter across my shoulder, my neck.
I felt his grip go slack, then he fell. He hit the floor hard.
I stumbled forward, chain rattling, and Thayne was there.
He caught me before I fell. His arms came around me like steel bands, crushing me to his chest, gun still smoking in his hand.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t stop sobbing.
His hands were everywhere, frantic, checking for wounds, for blood, for anything that wasn’t supposed to be there.
“Ara,” he rasped against my hair. “Baby, look at me. Look at me.”
I couldn’t. I just buried my face in his neck and held on.
He was shaking. Thayne Slade, the man who never shook, was trembling so hard I felt it in my bones.
He dropped the gun, and it clattered to the floor.
Both of his arms were wrapped around me so tight I could barely breathe.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I’ve got you. I’m here. I’m here.”
I clung to him, fingers digging into his back, feeling the warmth of him, the realness of him.
He was here. He came for me. He found me.
He—
There was a sound behind us. It was low and wet sound.
A gurgle.
It was Ethan. He was still alive.
Thayne went stiff.
He pulled back just enough to look down at me, his eyes wild and terrified.
Then he turned. Ethan was on the floor, blood pooling under him, one hand pressed to his chest, the other one reaching desperately and clawing toward something on the floor.
The gun.
He was reaching for Thayne’s gun.
His fingers closed around it, and he smiled through the blood in his teeth.
“Checkmate,” he whispered, and raised the gun toward me.
Thayne moved faster than light.
He shoved me behind him, shielding me with his body.
The gunshot roared. I screamed. And everything went black again.
The gunshot was still echoing when everything slowed down.
I saw it happen in pieces. Ethan’s fingers closing around the gun on the floor, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth, his eyes wild with the last bit of hate he had left.
Thayne moving like lightning, shoving me behind him so hard my back slammed into the wall.
Then, the flash from the barrel, the roar that filled the room.
I screamed Thayne’s name, but no sound came out.
Thayne’s body jerked once. He staggered forward a step, then dropped to one knee, one hand pressed to his side.
Blood poured between his fingers, dark and fast, soaking through his shirt in seconds.
Ethan laughed, the gun still smoking in his shaking hand.
Thayne looked down at the blood like he couldn’t believe it was his.
Then he looked up at me.
His face was pale, but his eyes were steady.
Still green. Still mine.
He smiled.
A small, soft, broken thing.
“I found you,” he whispered. And then he fell.
The gun slipped from Ethan’s fingers and clattered to the floor.
He slumped back against the bed, his eyes wide, staring at the ceiling like he couldn’t believe it either.
I dropped to my knees beside Thayne. My hands were on him before I even realised I’d moved.
“Thayne. Thayne, look at me. Stay with me.”
His blood was warm, too warm, soaking through my fingers, through the emerald silk, through everything.
He lifted one shaking hand and cupped my cheek, leaving a red smear across my skin.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped. “I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
“Stop. Stop talking. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”
I pressed both hands over the wound, trying to stop the bleeding, but it kept coming, his blood rushing out hot and endless.
His eyes were starting to glaze.
“No. No no no no—” I looked around wildly.
Ethan was still breathing, shallow, wet gasps.
The chain around my ankle rattled when I tried to move closer to Thayne.
I was trapped. I couldn’t reach the phone on the nightstand.
I couldn’t reach anything.
“Help!” I screamed. “Somebody help us!”
All I got in return was nothing.
Just the wind outside and the crackle of the dying fire.
Thayne’s hand found mine, his fingers weak but still trying to hold on.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Always… mine.”
His eyes fluttered.
“No. Thayne. Stay with me. Please.”
I leaned down and pressed my forehead to his, tears dripping onto his face.
“You don’t get to leave me,” I sobbed.
“Not after everything. Not like this.”
His lips moved. I couldn’t hear him. I leaned closer but then his hand went slack.
I screamed.
I screamed until my throat tore.
Until the door burst open again and men in black poured in, shouting with their guns raised.
I screamed until someone ripped the chain from the floor and wrapped me in a blanket.
Until they carried Thayne out, limp and bleeding, and I fought them with everything I had because they wouldn’t let me go with him.
Until the last thing I saw was Ethan, still alive, smiling through the blood as they dragged him away.
And the last thing I heard was the sound of Thayne’s heartbeat stopping under my hands.
“Noooooo!” I screamed, even though there was nothing left of my voice.
Because I was carried in a different van, I reached the hospital late.
Nobody paid any attention to me or listened to me. It was like I wasn't even there.
I stood in the middle of the hallway, lost and drowning in my thoughts until I saw a doctor in a white coat walking fast.
I ran to him and grabbed his arm with both hands.
“Please,” I sobbed. “Please, how is Thayne? Talk to me. He’s my fiancé! How is he doing? Answer me!”
He looked down at me like I was a ghost.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Ara Irvington! His fiancée! Please!”
He studied my face for a second, then sighed. “Follow me.”
He walked quickly, I had to run to keep up, barefoot on cold tile, leaving bloody footprints.
He stopped outside a private room in the ICU. Through the glass, I saw him.
Thayne. Alive.
There were bandages wrapped thick around his head, and tubes in his arms, with monitors beeping slow and steady.
I shoved the door open and ran to him.
“Thayne—”
I reached for him with my arms open, ready to bury my face in his chest and cry until there was nothing left.
But then he flinched. Hard.
His whole body jerked away from me like I was fire. His eyes, those beautiful green eyes, were open. But they were blank. Empty.
He looked at me like he’d never seen me before in his life. The doctor stepped in behind me.
Thayne turned his head slowly, his voice rough from the tubes.
“Who’s she?”
The doctor frowned at me, then back at Thayne.
“Your fiancée. Ara Irvington.”
Thayne stared at me with a blank look on his face. Like he was trying to solve a puzzle that didn’t make sense.
I stepped closer, tears streaming down my face.
“It’s me, Thayne. Ara.”
He didn’t smile. He didn’t reach for me, he didn’t even blink. He just looked… confused.
And cold.
“I don’t remember any Ara,” he said flatly.
My world cracked in half.
He turned to the doctor, irritation creeping in.
“And you let a random stranger into my room? I don’t know her. She has me mistaken for someone else.”
The doctor’s mouth opened and closed.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.
This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.
I took one more step forward, my hands shaking.
“Thayne,” I whispered. “You have to remember. The penthouse. The red room. The ring. You came for me. You found me. You said—”
He cut me off with a look so cold it froze the air in my lungs.
“Get her out,” he said to the doctor. Ger me out? Just like that? Like I was trash? Like I was nothing?
The doctor reached for my arm.
I moved away from his grasp.
“No,” I choked. “No. Thayne, please. Look at me. It’s me. It’s your little lamb.”
His jaw tightened, then he turned his face away. Completely. Like I didn’t exist.
The doctor took my arm again, gentler this time.
“Miss Irvington… come with me.”
I let him pull me out.
Because there was nothing left to hold onto.
The door closed behind me. And I stood in the hallway, barefoot, covered in his blood, wearing the dress his brother had forced on me.
While the man I loved, the man who had crossed fire to save me, looked at me like I was a stranger.
And didn’t remember my name.