Chapter 15: The Contract and the Promise
Three weeks later.
I’m still moving like an old man (stitches pulled, ribs cracked, spine bruised), but the doctors finally cleared me to leave the hospital. The penthouse has been rebuilt into a fortress: bulletproof glass, panic rooms, a private medical suite on the floor below us. Marcus sleeps in the guest wing now. Lydia practically lives here.
Bella hasn’t left my side once.
She’s lost weight, eyes haunted, but there’s steel in her now that wasn’t there before. The girl who used to apologize for taking up space has learned how to give orders to armed guards without blinking.
Tonight the city is quiet outside the windows. We’re on the couch, her legs across my lap, my good arm around her shoulders. Some mindless movie plays on the screen,
