Chapter 3

A persistent, beeping sound pulled Alex from the darkness. Her head throbbed with a dull, heavy ache, and a sharp, stabbing pain radiated from her shoulder. She blinked her eyes open, the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room making her wince.

A nurse bustled in, checking her IV drip. "Oh, good, you're awake. You took quite a hit. The doctor had to put seven stitches in your scalp and another five in your shoulder. You're very lucky the glass missed any major arteries."

The words floated around Alex, distant and unreal. The only question that mattered formed on her lips, her voice a dry rasp.

"Who brought me here?"

She held her breath, a tiny, stupid flicker of hope igniting in her chest. Maybe, just maybe, when he saw her fall, something in him had stirred.

The nurse checked her chart. "A Miss Chloe Vance. She was quite frantic. Your husband wasn't with you."

The flicker of hope died, instantly extinguished. Of course. Why would he be here with his inconvenient, bleeding wife when his precious, fragile sister was a "victim" too?

Alex's hand trembled as she reached for her phone on the bedside table. Her fingers fumbled with the screen, the bright light hurting her eyes. She ignored the dozens of missed calls and texts from Chloe and Hughes and went straight to Instagram.

It took her less than ten seconds to find it.

Chastity had posted a story. It was a video, taken from a low angle. She was sitting on a plush sofa, her face pale and tear-streaked. Her arm, the one Brooks had grabbed, was wrapped in a pristine white bandage. The camera panned slightly to show Brooks kneeling in front of her, dabbing at a tiny, almost invisible scratch on her cheek with a cotton swab.

His touch was so gentle, so full of a reverence Alex had never, ever received.

"I'm sorry," Chastity's voice whispered in the video, a pathetic, broken little sound. "I was just so scared, Brooks. That woman... she was so aggressive."

Brooks's voice was a low murmur, full of comfort and reassurance. "It's not your fault, Chastity. I'm here. I won't let anyone hurt you."

The camera zoomed in on Chastity's hand, where a single, perfect teardrop fell onto the bandage. The caption read: "Thank you for always protecting me. "

A wave of nausea washed over Alex, so intense it felt like a physical blow. The pain in her head, the fire in her shoulder-it was nothing compared to the agony that ripped through her heart. He was comforting her attacker. He was tending to a scratch while his wife lay in a hospital bed with twelve stitches.

She was the victim, but in his world, Chastity was the only one who mattered.

A cold, hard fury replaced the pain. It was a clean, sharp anger that burned away the last vestiges of her love.

She pressed the call button for the nurse.

"I need to speak to the police," she said, her voice shaking with rage. "I want to press charges. For assault."

Less than an hour later, the door to her hospital room swung open. It wasn't the police.

It was Brooks.

He stood there, looking immaculate as always, not a single hair out of place. His gray eyes were cold, filled not with concern, but with icy disapproval.

"I just got a call from the police department," he said, his voice clipped and hard. "They said you're trying to press charges against Chastity."

"Trying?" Alex laughed, a raw, humorless sound. "Oh, I'm not trying, Brooks. I'm doing it. Your sister smashed a bottle over my head. That's called assault with a deadly weapon. She's going to jail."

He walked further into the room, his presence sucking the air out of it. "Don't be ridiculous. She's a child. She was frightened."

"She's twenty-two years old!" Alex shot back, her voice rising. "And the only person she was frightening was me, right before she tried to stab me with a broken bottle!"

"I've already punished her," Brooks said calmly, as if that settled everything.

"Punished her?" Alex stared at him, incredulous. "What did you do? Take away her allowance? Ground her for a week?"

"I confined her to her room for the next month," he stated, as if this were a severe and just sentence. "She won't be allowed to leave the house."

Alex felt a wave of hysterical laughter building in her chest. "You call that a punishment? That's a vacation! A month-long stay at the Kane mansion, with you waiting on her hand and foot? You're not punishing her, Brooks, you're protecting her! You're hiding her from the consequences of her actions!"

"That's not true," he said, though his eyes wouldn't meet hers.

"Isn't it? You canceled my police report, didn't you?" The realization hit her with sickening certainty. "You used your name, your power, to make it all go away."

He didn't deny it. "It was an unseemly family matter. Best handled privately."

The injustice of it all stole her breath. He had the power to make her pain invisible, to erase her assault from the official record. She was completely helpless.

"Six years," she whispered, the fight draining out of her. "I gave you six years of my life. Was any of it real to you? Did you ever, for one second, feel anything for me?"

She looked at him, pleading for a crumb of something, anything.

"Why, Brooks? Why did you marry me if you despise me so much?"

For the first time, a flicker of something unreadable crossed his face. "I don't despise you, Alexandra."

The words, which once would have made her heart leap, now sounded like an insult.

"I will take care of you," he continued, his tone shifting to that of a CEO handling a messy HR issue. "I will ensure you get the best medical care. I will compensate you for your trouble. All I ask is that you drop this. Stop making a scene."

A scene. He thought her wanting justice was just her making a scene.

The absurdity of it all was overwhelming. She had chased this man, this cold, empty vessel of a man, for nearly a decade. She had bent herself into a pretzel trying to please him, trying to earn a single scrap of his affection. She had given him everything.

And he had never given her anything in return. Not a single unsolicited gift. Not one spontaneous touch. Not one word of genuine warmth. Every interaction was a duty, a chore he had to perform.

And now, after his sister nearly killed her, he was offering "compensation."

Alex started to laugh. It was a wild, unhinged sound that echoed in the sterile hospital room. She laughed until tears streamed down her face, mingling with the pain and the fury.

"My trouble?" she finally gasped, looking at him with eyes that felt a hundred years old. "You think a generous check will cover 'my trouble'?"

She shook her head, the motion sending a fresh wave of pain through her skull. "You can keep your money, Brooks. You can keep your 'care.' I don't want it."

He stared at her, a frown creasing his brow, as if she were a complex equation he couldn't solve. He didn't understand. He never would.

"You really are a saint, aren't you?" she said, her voice dripping with venom. "So generous. So forgiving. A true paragon of virtue."

She leaned back against the pillows, her body trembling with a rage so profound it left her hollow.

"Get out," she whispered. "Get out of my room."