Chapter 4

Memory flooded my veins like ice water.

Until this moment, I had always believed Jared's gloves were untouchable—his one absolute rule.

Years ago, at a family banquet, he'd had too much to drink and was “discussing” important matters with someone. His knuckles caught on glass. Blood seeped through.

I brought ointment and, without thinking, reached for his glove.

“Your hand—let me—”

My fingertip hadn't even reached the edge of that cold black leather.

He jerked back.

So fast it cut wind. His eyes sharpened into something like a blade dipped in ice, carrying a bottomless shadow I'd never seen on him before. Then he realized it was me. His expression softened—but his hand was already behind his back.

The air froze.

One of his longtime confidants jumped in, laughing too loudly, too stiff. “Madam doesn't know yet—Don's gloves never leave him. It's… a habit. Come on, have a drink as a penalty, haha.”

That humiliation ended with me lifting a glass and swallowing it down.

Later, I learned why.

When he was a teenager, he'd witnessed his mother being taken by a rival family. They didn't kill her.

They did something crueler.

Hands. An artist's hands—crushed inch by inch.

When he found her, she was already mad. Still clutching broken finger bones in her grip.

From that day on, Jared Moretti never removed his gloves in public again.

They were his armor. His taboo. His most private, most vulnerable soft spot—no one was allowed to touch it.

And now—

For her, he'd taken them off.

Not only taken them off. Bare-handed, he'd peeled her an apple. I could almost picture the blade sliding close to his fingers—but his face wouldn't be cold. He would do it like this, unprotected, almost reverent, handling that fruit as if it mattered.

He even—

While I stood there in silence, Sophia had already been helped onto the hallway bench. Jared supported her down, then dropped to one knee, set the apple aside, and—without any hesitation—wrapped his hand around her calf.

And began to massage it.

His fingers pressed into her pale skin, skilled and practiced. He lowered his head; his fringe fell forward. The line of his profile was focused in a way I had never once seen directed at me.

He was massaging her.

I stood there, watching.

My stomach rolled.

Anger. Grief. And then a purely physical nausea surged up from deep in my throat—sour and burning, tinged with a metallic taste.

It wasn't that he couldn't break his own rules.

He just had never been willing to break them for me.

I spun away and walked fast in the other direction. For a moment I couldn't hear anything but my own footsteps echoing in the empty hall. My stomach cramped in waves.

I fled into the restroom.

I don't know how long passed before my phone vibrated.

A message from Jared. Only one line:

*Why are you at the hospital? Are you not feeling well?*

Wasn't that a little late?

Yesterday he hadn't even thought to ask why I was there—why I'd appeared at that ridiculous “wedding.” His concern was always delayed. Always behind someone else.

I stared at that line for a long time. Inside me, something went frighteningly calm.

Then I tapped his profile and blocked him.

Then his number. His social accounts. Every channel I could think of.

One after another.

After the pain, there was a numb, uncanny lightness—like yanking out an IV line that had been feeding into my veins. With each cut, my breathing eased a little more.

When I was done, I shoved my phone into my pocket and pushed the restroom door open.

The hallway was empty.

The lily-of-the-valley was still on the floor. A few petals had been crushed underfoot. The bench was empty, as if that absurd scene had never happened at all.

“Phoenix!”

Adora came running from the far end of the corridor. My face must have been pale enough to scare her.

“You—what happened? What are you doing at the hospital?”

But I smiled.

“Cleaning.”

“Cleaning?”

I walked forward, stepped over the white petals, and didn't stop.

My footsteps rang out in the corridor—steady, clear. One after another.