Chapter Four: The Blood Between Us
1655 Words
“Cassian! No!”
Amelia's scream tore through the darkness as Cassian collapsed against her, blood spreading across his white shirt.
For one terrifying second, she couldn't breathe. Then she pressed both hands against his chest, desperately trying to stop the bleeding.
“Stay with me,” she begged. “Cassian, please. You can't leave me like this.”
His eyes struggled to focus on hers.
“Amelia…” His voice was barely audible. “The gunman… wasn't aiming at me.”
She froze.
“What?”
“He was aiming at you.”
Before she could ask another question, Cassian's eyes closed.
Amelia slapped his cheek gently. “Open your eyes! Cassian!”
A second shot shattered the window. She ducked, dragging him behind a stack of wooden crates as splinters rained around them. Her fingers trembled while she reached for her phone, but there was no signal.
Then she heard footsteps approaching.
Someone was coming.
Amelia grabbed a broken piece of wood and held it tightly, positioning herself between Cassian and the entrance. She was terrified, but she refused to let the man who had just risked his life for her die without a fight.
A shadow appeared beneath the door.
“Step away from him,” a man's voice commanded.
Amelia raised the wood.
“Come closer and I'll scream.”
The door opened.
Detective Marcus Reed stepped inside with his weapon drawn.
“Amelia, put that down!”
She nearly collapsed with relief. “Help him! He's been shot!”
Marcus knelt beside Cassian, checked his pulse, and immediately called for an ambulance.
As the sirens approached, he looked at Amelia.
“Who fired the shot?”
“I don't know. Someone wanted me dead.”
Marcus's expression changed.
“Then you need to hear this before the paramedics arrive.”
He pulled a small plastic evidence bag from his coat. Inside was a gold cufflink stained with dried blood.
Amelia recognized the engraved initials.
C.H.
“Where did you get that?” she whispered.
“It was recovered beside Isabelle Laurent's body five years ago.”
Her stomach tightened.
Marcus looked toward the unconscious billionaire.
“Cassian Hale told investigators he had never met Isabelle. But this proves he was there when she died.”
Amelia stared at the cufflink, then at the man bleeding beside her.
She had just risked everything to save him.
Now she wondered whether she had been protecting a murderer.
---
The hospital corridor seemed impossibly bright.
Amelia paced outside the operating room, her hands still stained with Cassian's blood. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him falling into her arms.
She couldn't understand why the thought of losing him hurt so much.
They had known each other for such a short time—or at least, that was what she had believed. Yet his touch felt familiar, his voice stirred something deep inside her, and the fear of never seeing him again was almost unbearable.
She pressed her palms against her eyes.
“Please be all right,” she whispered.
Detective Reed approached with two cups of coffee. She accepted one without drinking.
“Have you arrested the shooter?” she asked.
“Not yet. We found a vehicle abandoned near the lake, but the driver escaped.”
“And my mother?”
“We're still searching.”
Amelia's throat tightened. “She's all I have.”
Marcus studied her. “Are you certain about that?”
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
He hesitated before opening his folder.
“Your birth records contain irregularities. The hospital listed in your mother's original statement has no record of your delivery. And five years ago, someone paid to have several documents concerning the Hale family sealed.”
Amelia felt the walls closing in.
“Are you saying my mother lied about my birth?”
“I'm saying someone went to considerable trouble to hide the truth.”
Before she could respond, the operating-room doors opened.
A surgeon approached them, removing his mask.
“Mr. Hale is stable. The bullet missed his heart, but he lost a significant amount of blood. He needs rest.”
Amelia exhaled shakily.
“Can I see him?”
“Briefly.”
She hurried inside.
Cassian lay pale against the pillows, an intravenous line running into his arm. When he opened his eyes and saw her, his expression softened.
“You stayed,” he murmured.
“Of course I stayed.”
“You should have run.”
“I'm beginning to think running from you is impossible.”
A faint smile touched his lips. Even exhausted, he managed to make her heart stumble.
She sat beside him and carefully took his hand.
“Why did you protect me?”
His smile disappeared.
“Because the thought of you dying is unbearable.”
“Even if I discover you're responsible for my sister's death?”
Cassian looked away.
“I don't remember pulling a trigger, Amelia. But I remember Isabelle asking me to protect someone.”
“Who?”
He closed his eyes, struggling against the fragments of memory.
“You.”
Amelia's fingers tightened around his.
“Why would Isabelle ask you to protect me if she was my sister?”
“I don't know.”
“Then we find out together.”
He turned toward her. For a moment, the distance between them seemed to disappear. His fingers brushed her cheek, and she leaned into his touch before she could stop herself.
“There's something I need to tell you,” he whispered.
“What?”
“If I remember everything, I may become someone you hate.”
Amelia's eyes filled with tears.
“Then give me the chance to decide who you are for myself.”
He drew her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
It was a small gesture, tender and unguarded, but it frightened her more than any threat. She was beginning to fall for a man whose past might destroy everything she thought she knew about herself.
And she wasn't sure her heart would survive the truth.
---
An hour later, Cassian finally fell asleep.
Amelia stepped into the corridor to call her mother again. The call went straight to voicemail.
She was about to try another number when an unfamiliar woman approached.
She was elegant, with dark hair pinned neatly behind her head and a hospital identification badge clipped to her coat.
“Amelia Bennett?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Dr. Evelyn Shaw. I treated you after your childhood accident.”
Amelia stared at her.
“I don't remember meeting you.”
“You wouldn't. You were unconscious for several days.”
Amelia's pulse quickened. “What accident?”
Dr. Shaw glanced down the corridor before answering.
“Your mother brought you to a private clinic after you were found near the Hale estate. You had a head injury, and your records were transferred under another name.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because someone was looking for you.”
Amelia gripped the edge of a nearby chair.
“Who?”
“I never learned his identity. But your mother was terrified. She begged us to keep you hidden.”
The doctor reached into her bag and removed a folded document.
“This is a copy of the original admission record. I kept it because I suspected the truth might matter one day.”
Amelia unfolded it with shaking hands.
The patient name had been crossed out and replaced with Amelia Bennett.
Beneath it, in faded ink, was another name.
Amelia Hale.
Her knees weakened.
“Why didn't anyone tell me?”
“Because your mother believed the person searching for you would kill you if he found you.”
Amelia stared at the document, trying to reconcile the life she remembered with the one hidden inside these records.
Then she noticed the date.
The accident had occurred five years ago.
The same year Isabelle disappeared.
“Doctor,” she whispered, “was another girl brought to the clinic that night?”
Evelyn's expression changed.
“Yes.”
“Who was she?”
The doctor swallowed.
“Isabelle Laurent.”
Amelia felt her heart slam against her ribs.
“Was she alive?”
“For a short time. She had suffered a serious injury, but she was conscious when they brought her in.”
“Did she say anything?”
Evelyn looked toward the operating-room doors, then lowered her voice.
“She kept asking for Cassian. Before she died, she gave me a message to pass on to you.”
Amelia's eyes widened.
“To me? But she didn't know me.”
“She knew exactly who you were.”
The doctor slipped a small envelope into Amelia's hand.
“Your mother came back the next morning and begged me to destroy it. I couldn't.”
Amelia stared at the sealed envelope. Her name was written across the front in unfamiliar handwriting.
“What does it say?”
“I never opened it.”
A cold sensation crawled down Amelia's spine.
She tore the envelope open.
Inside was a single photograph of two newborn girls lying beside each other in hospital bassinets. On the back, Isabelle had written one sentence:
Amelia, if you're reading this, Cassian has already remembered who killed me.
Amelia's breath caught.
Behind her, a familiar voice spoke.
“Don't believe anything written on that photograph.”
She turned.
Cassian stood in the doorway, pale and unsteady, one hand pressed against his bandaged chest.
His eyes were fixed on the picture.
Then he looked at Amelia and whispered, “Because Isabelle wasn't murdered by me.”
He took a shaky breath. “She was murdered by your mother.”
Before Amelia could speak, every light in the corridor went out.
A gunshot rang through the darkness.
And someone screamed Cassian's name.
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