“They said he’s still breathing, but they don’t know what will happen next. They don’t know if he’ll ever walk again, or talk, or—god, what if he doesn’t wake up at all?”
Sebastian’s voice cuts through like a blade. Low. Steady. Fierce. “He’s Nate, Isabel. You think a piece of metal and bad luck can stop him?”
His voice is steel now. Royal command, born of fire and diplomacy. But there's warmth under it, too. The kind that holds people together. “I’m getting on the jet,” he says. “Give me the name of the hospital. I’ll be there before sunrise.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“I do,” he cuts in. “He’s my best friend. And you—” A pause. Softer. “You’re not just someone to him anymore. You’re family.”
The word breaks me.
Family.
I nod, though he can’t see it. “Okay. Okay.”
“Text me the address,” Sebastian says. “You’re not doing this alone, Isabel. Not for one more second.”
I press the phone to my chest after the call ends, letting the heat of his promise sink in.
My throat tightens.
I rush to the bathroom, barely making it in time before I vomit everything I’ve been holding in. Fear. Grief. Exhaustion. It all spills out in ugly, broken gasps.
I rinse my mouth and stare into the mirror. A pale stranger looks back at me. Her eyes are wild. Her cheeks are stained with tears. Her heart? Shattered.
“It’s going to be okay, Izzy,” I whisper to the woman in the mirror. “Regardless of what happens in that operating room… he’s alive. And that’s what counts.”
I nod at my reflection like if I do it hard enough, the universe will believe me.
I splash water on my face, trying to wash away the ache in my chest. But it lingers. A hollow, twisting thing that refuses to leave.
When I return to the waiting room, I’m met with the same sterile quiet.
I can’t sit still.
I pace.
One step. Breathe.
Another. Breathe again.
He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive.
I chant it silently, over and over, like a prayer to the gods I stopped believing in long ago.
Please. Let him come back to me.
I don’t care if he walks or not. I just need him alive. I need him to fight—for us. For the life we were finally building after so many years apart.
I pause, staring at the OR doors.
Nate, be strong. Be stronger than you’ve ever been. And come back to me.
Chapter 25
Isabel
The surgery lasted six hours—the longest, cruelest, most unbearable hours of my life.
