His smile widens, warm and openly pleased. “Great.”
We walk toward the exit together, shoulders almost brushing. He nudges the door open for me, playful. “After you.”
“Such a gentleman,” I tease.
He grins. “I try.”
The automatic doors slide open, cool evening air rushing in as we step outside side by side. The hospital glows behind us, bright and familiar, while the street ahead stretches dark and open.
As we head toward the coffee shop, laughter slipping easily between us, that subtle awareness tightens once more, like someone, somewhere, has just noticed a shift.
I ignore it.
I keep walking.
Just coffee, I remind myself.
Just proof, to myself most of all, that I am still my own.
Chapter Nine
Khai
I’d been parked outside the hospital for too long, the engine ticking beneath the hood like it was counting down my sanity. I needed to see her today, needed it in the way a wound needs air, even if it burns. I sat in my truck, smoke curling from my lips, turning excuse after excuse over in my mind for why I should walk into the ICU and demand her presence in my line of sight.
I’d come close, too close to stabbing a pen into my thigh just to earn a reason. Pain was easy. Lying to myself was harder.
Then I didn’t need an excuse at all.
She appeared through the doors like a hallucination I’d summoned, walking beside another man. Security, by the look of him. My hands locked around the steering wheel, grip tightening until my knuckles blanched white, until the leather groaned beneath my fingers. I tracked her every step, every sway of her body, as if looking away might make her vanish.
And then she laughed.
She laughed.
The sound I wished was aimed for me. Who the hell was he? And why was she giving him something that belonged to me? Had she forgotten? Or did she think time and distance could erase what was already carved into her bones?
She became mine the moment her hands pressed against my bleeding chest in that nightclub, the moment my blood stained her skin. Fate was sealed right there, inked in red, written in pain. She didn’t just save me that night.
She claimed me.
And whether she remembered it or not, she was already claimed too.
I slip my phone from my pocket, the movement slow and deliberate. Before they pass my truck, I lift it just enough to capture his face, caught mid-step, unaware he’s already made a mistake. I send the photo straight to Jaxon.
Khai:
Get our tech guy on this. I want everything, name, history, secrets he doesn’t even know he’s hiding.
Jaxon:
On it, boss man.
I can practically feel the anger coming off you through the screen.
I don’t bother replying.
My attention is fixed on Emmy.MyEmmy. I watch as she follows him into a nearby café, the door swallowing her whole. The glass is dark, unforgiving. I can’t see inside. Can’t see her. The denial gnaws at me, sharp and relentless.
