Chapter 4

Aurora Hinton POV:

Annabell, in her infinite arrogance, had posted my research paper online the moment she got her hands on it. She' d tagged the university, her department, and several prominent figures in the medical research community, eager to claim her unearned victory.

She didn't count on my supervising professor, Dr. Albright, seeing it.

Dr. Albright had mentored me for years. He knew my writing style, my theories, my unique approach to cellular degeneration. He had read drafts of that very paper, offering notes and guidance. He knew, with absolute certainty, that the work was mine.

When a competing university, intrigued by the "groundbreaking" paper, hosted a live Q&A with Annabell, the charade fell apart. She couldn't answer the simplest questions about the methodology. She fumbled over basic terminology. Her ignorance was glaringly, painfully obvious.

The online community turned on her instantly. The comments section of the live stream exploded with accusations. "Fraud." "Plagiarist." "Thief."

And somehow, this was all my fault.

"Apologize to her," Abel commanded, his voice booming in the small apartment. He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my flesh. The world tilted, my vision swimming with black spots from the sudden movement. I was too weak to fight him.

I looked at him, truly looked at him, and a cold question bloomed in my heart. When had he and Annabell gotten so close? When had her tears become more important than my truth?

She was a masterful actress. Even now, she was orchestrating a symphony of suffering, her delicate frame wracked with performative sobs, punctuated by perfectly timed, near-fainting spells that sent my parents into a panic.

Abel didn't even seem to notice how pale I was, how my breath came in shallow gasps. His eyes were fixed on Annabell, his expression a mixture of pity and protective fury.

He dragged me across the room and pushed me in front of her. "Tell them it was a mistake," he ordered. "Tell them the paper was hers all along. That you were jealous."

Jealous. The accusation was so absurd, so far from the truth, that all I could do was stare at him in numb disbelief.

Dr. Albright had always believed in me. He saw a spark in me that he said could change the face of modern medicine. He'd spent countless hours with me in the lab, pushing me, challenging me, helping me refine the very research Annabell was now claiming as her own.

The online commentators weren't fools. They were researchers, students, and doctors. They could spot a fraud a mile away. They knew the person who wrote that paper and the person fumbling for answers on the screen could not be one and the same.

"Do it, Aurora!" Abel's voice was sharp, a whip crack in the tense silence.

He yanked me from my bed, where I had collapsed, the room spinning around me. My head was pounding, a dull, throbbing ache that echoed the one in my chest.

When had he started touching her so freely? A casual hand on her back, a gentle squeeze of her shoulder. When had his concern for her "frailty" morphed into this fierce, blind devotion?

Annabell was facing public humiliation, the kind that could end a career before it even began. And Abel, my protector, my love, was using her pain as a weapon against me.

My skin was clammy, my face as white as the hospital sheets I knew were in my near future. But he didn't see me. He only saw her.