Chapter 5

Caroline POV

They put me in the VIP wing, but the sterility of the room felt like a morgue.

My leg was encased in a cast. Fractured tibia. My shoulder was a roadmap of sutures-fourteen stitches where the brass had flayed the skin. I was bruised, battered, and floating in a haze of painkillers.

But my mind was razor sharp.

It had been six hours.

The door opened.

Blake walked in. He looked shattered. The gray dust of collapsed plaster still clung to his hair.

"Caroline," he said, exhaling a breath he seemed to have been holding since the explosion. He walked to the bed and reached for my hand.

I pulled it away.

He paused, his hand hovering in the empty air like a rejected offering. "I spoke to the doctors. You're going to be fine. It's a clean break. You're lucky."

"Lucky," I repeated. The word tasted like ash on my tongue. "Is that what we're calling it?"

"I had to get her out," he said, his voice turning defensive before I had even accused him. "She has a history of respiratory issues. You know that. You were conscious. You were stable."

"I was buried under a ceiling, Blake."

"The guards had you. I made sure of it." He ran a hand through his hair, dislodging a speck of dust. "Look, I'm sorry. It was a chaotic situation. I reacted."

"Yes," I said softly. "You reacted. Instinct is a powerful thing. It tells you what matters most."

"Don't start this," he warned, his eyes narrowing. "I saved a life. I didn't choose her *over* you. I chose triage."

"Triage," I scoffed. "Is that why you're six hours late visiting your wife? Were you triaging her panic attack?"

He looked away, unable to hold my gaze. "I was securing a safe house. Her apartment isn't safe after the gallery fire. She's terrified, Caroline. She has PTSD."

"And I have a broken leg."

"You're strong," he said. It was meant to be a compliment, but it sounded like a curse. "You've always been the strong one. Ariana... she breaks."

"Maybe I'm tired of being strong so you can be her hero."

His phone buzzed.

He checked it immediately. His thumbs flew across the screen with an urgency that stung.

"I have to go," he said.

"You just got here."

"She's at the psych wing. She's refusing sedation until she sees me. She thinks the rival gang is coming for her."

He turned to the door.

"If you walk out that door," I said, my voice trembling despite my resolve, "don't bother coming back to the penthouse tonight."

He stopped. He looked at me, and for a second, the mask slipped. I saw conflict. I saw guilt.

But then the phone buzzed again.

"I'm doing this for the Family," he lied. "We can't have a civilian casualty on the news."

He walked out.

I waited ten seconds. Then I threw off the sheets.

The pain in my leg was blinding, a white-hot spike, but the painkillers dulled the edge just enough. I grabbed the crutches leaning against the wall.

I hobbled to the door. I had to see. I had to know for sure.

I followed him down the corridor, moving slowly, sticking to the shadows cast by the fluorescent emergency lights.

He went to the psychiatric observation room. The blinds were partially open.

I stood there, leaning against the cold wall, and watched.

Ariana was sitting on a cot, wrapped in a blanket. She wasn't frantic. She wasn't screaming. She was crying softly.

Blake sat next to her. He didn't look like the cold Underboss. He didn't look like the arrogant surgeon.

He pulled her into his arms. He rested his chin on the top of her head. He was rocking her, gently, back and forth.

And then I saw it.

He kissed her forehead. It wasn't sexual. It was worse. It was reverent. It was the kiss of a man who would burn the world down just to keep her warm.

He looked at her with a raw tenderness he had never, not once in three years, shown to me.

He wasn't incapable of love. He wasn't broken.

He just didn't love *me*.

I was the structure; she was the inhabitant. I was the house; she was the home.

I turned around and hobbled back to my room, the rhythmic *thump-thump* of the crutches echoing like a dying heartbeat.

I got back into bed. I didn't cry. The tears were gone.

I reached for my phone.

*Minus five points. He left my bedside to hold her.*

*Total Score: 5.*

We were at the edge of the cliff. One more push, and I would fall.

Or maybe... maybe I would fly.

My thumb hovered over the contact for Emerson Maxwell, the architect in San Francisco who had offered me a partnership months ago.

*Not yet,* I told myself. *Wait for the zero.*

Because when I left, I needed to leave with no regrets. I needed to be sure that there was nothing left to salvage.

I closed the ledger.

*Five points left, Blake. Make them count.*