Chapter 4

At the hospital, the sterile air hummed with frantic energy. Ethan, pale and sweating, thrashed in his bed.

"No! No amputation!" he yelled, his voice hoarse. "Veronica's cure... it was working! This is a setback! She can fix it!"

Eleanor wrung her hands, her powerful facade crumbling. "Ethan, please, listen to the doctors."

"They're in on it with her!" he accused, pointing a trembling finger at me as I stood near the doorway with Liam and Bridget. "Amelia wants me crippled!"

I sighed. "Mrs. Vanderbilt, perhaps Miss Croft should be the one to explain the situation to him. Since he trusts her 'cure' so implicitly."

Eleanor nodded curtly, a new hardness in her eyes. Veronica, disheveled and terrified, was brought into the room, flanked by Vanderbilt security.

"Veronica," Eleanor said, her voice dangerously low. "Tell my son the truth. Can you help him now?"

Veronica looked at Ethan's pain-filled eyes, then at Eleanor's wrathful face. She stammered, "I... I don't know... The orchid... it was supposed to..."

"Can you stop this?" Ethan pleaded, clinging to a shred of hope.

Veronica burst into tears. "No! I can't! I don't know what went wrong!"

Ethan stared at her, his expression shifting from desperation to dawning horror, then to a deep, chilling betrayal.

"You... you lied to me?"

Veronica became hysterical. "It wasn't my fault! It was her!" She pointed wildly at me. "Amelia Hayes! She must have tampered with my preparation! She switched it! She poisoned Ethan to win the bet!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Miss Croft, your 'preparation' was under your sole care. And if I recall, you publicly showcased your 'orchid' before applying it. Unless you're suggesting I have powers of remote contamination, your accusation is baseless."

The doctors exchanged weary glances.

"Mr. Vanderbilt," the chief surgeon said gently but firmly. "We need your consent for the amputation. There is no other way to save your life."

Defeated, broken, Ethan finally whispered, "Do it."

As they began to wheel a sobbing Ethan towards the operating room, Liam stepped forward, his face grim.

He reached for Ethan's neck. Ethan, dazed, barely reacted.

Liam unclasped a St. Christopher medal from around Ethan's neck.

"This was never yours, Ethan," Liam said, his voice tight with old anger.

My breath hitched. The medal. Silver, slightly worn. I knew it.

A small, insignificant token I had given to a boy, a kind stranger who had pulled me away from a van, from men with cruel eyes, when I was just a child, lost and terrified after wandering away from a family outing. He'd been older, a teenager perhaps. He'd calmed my tears, stayed with me until my frantic parents found me. I'd given him my St. Christopher medal, the only thing of value I had, a thank you.

My savior.

I had looked for him for years, but New York was a vast city.

When I met Ethan in my first life, he'd been wearing an identical medal. He'd claimed it was a family heirloom, a good luck charm. I'd believed him. I'd thought fate had brought my childhood hero back to me. That belief, that mistaken identity, had softened me towards him, made me more susceptible to the Vanderbilts' initial manipulations. It was a cornerstone of my tragic decision to marry him.

Now, seeing it in Liam's hand, a horrifying realization crashed down on me.

Liam O'Connell. Not Ethan Vanderbilt.

Liam was my true childhood savior.

Ethan had stolen more than just a medal. He had stolen a piece of my past, twisted my gratitude, and laid the foundation for my first life's ruin.

The world tilted. The air rushed from my lungs.

My mistake had cost me everything.