Chapter Six: The Lie He Let Her Hate
Roman should have been unconscious.
That was Mara’s first thought.
Her second was that he was heavier than memory.
Two guards rushed forward, but Mara lifted one hand.
“Do not touch him.”
Roman sagged against her.
Sweat dampened his hair. His breath was shallow, each inhale dragging through pain he clearly refused to name.
Mara pressed her fingers to his pulse.
Fast.
Too fast.
“You tore stitches.”
“I walked.”
“That is not a defense.”
“It was necessary.”
“You always think bleeding is strategy.”
His eyes opened.
Close, they were darker than she remembered.
Not black.
Brown.
Human.
That was inconvenient.
“They took your mother from the estate.”
Mara’s face hardened.
“Who?”
“Julian’s men.”
“My father?”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“He opened the gate.”
For one moment, Mara felt nothing.
No rage.
No grief.
Only a clean empty space where daughterhood used to be.
Then she stepped away from Roman.
He almost fell.
She caught his wrist.
Not gently.
“You are going back to bed.”
“No.”
“You are septic, post-op, and stupid.”
“Mara.”
“Do not.”
He went quiet.
The hallway held its breath around them.
Mara lowered her voice.
“You do not get to return after seven years and say my name like it still belongs somewhere safe.”
Roman’s face changed.
A small flinch.
Barely there.
But she saw it.
He steadied himself against the wall.
“It never did.”
The answer was too soft.
Mara hated him for that.
For making restraint look like pain.
She dragged him into the nearest empty room and shut the door. A nurse started to follow. Mara raised one finger through the glass.
The nurse stopped.
Roman sat on the bed because his body forced him to.
Mara cut open the edge of his bandage.
Blood seeped through fresh sutures.
“You could have died in the elevator.”
“I have been closer.”
“Congratulations.”
“Mara.”
She pressed gauze against his wound.
Hard.
He hissed.
Good.
“Where is my mother?”
“A Cross warehouse.”
“Address.”
“I will take you.”
“You will lie down.”
“You cannot go alone.”
She leaned over him.
“I have been alone since you left.”
There.
The words fell between them.
Raw.
Ugly.
Alive.
Roman looked at her hands, not her face.
“I know.”
“No, you do not.”
His fingers curled in the sheet.
“I watched.”
Mara froze.
He kept staring at the sheet.
“I watched you leave the hospital.”
Her breathing changed.
“I watched you enter medical school again.”
“Stop.”
“I watched you become chief surgeon.”
“Stop.”
“I watched your father hurt you.”
Her palm struck the tray beside the bed.
Metal clattered.
“Then why did you stay gone?”
Roman lifted his eyes.
Because Julian had placed a price on every person you loved.
Because Victor signed the agreement.
Because if I touched you again, they would bury you.
Because I was twenty-eight and thought cruelty could save you cleaner than love.
He said none of that.
Not yet.
Instead, he answered with the lie he had chosen seven years ago.
“Because I am what your father said.”
Mara laughed once.
No humor.
“No.”
She stepped back.
“You are worse.”
Roman accepted it.
That acceptance cut deeper than denial.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time, a video.
She opened it.
Evelyn sat in a chair under a hanging light. Her hands were tied. Her hair had fallen loose around her face.
Julian stood beside her.
Smiling.
“Mara,” he said on the recording. “Come to the engagement party tonight. Wear white. Refuse, and your mother pays the debt.”
Evelyn looked into the camera.
Her mouth trembled.
“Don’t come.”
The video ended.
Mara’s face became very still.
Roman tried to rise.
She pushed him back with one hand.
“No.”
“Mara.”
“No.”
She picked up his black suit jacket from the chair where one of his men had left it.
Roman watched her.
“What are you doing?”
Mara slipped the jacket over her bloody scrubs.
It swallowed her shoulders and smelled like smoke, cedar, and him.
She looked at the door.
“I am going to my engagement party.”
Roman’s eyes sharpened.
“And I am bringing a scalpel.”
