Chapter 7

Sophia's phone buzzed.

One message. No sender name—just a number she didn't recognize, and a single attached image.

Her grandfather. Hospital bed. Oxygen mask. Eyes closed.

Below the image, four words: He's still alive, Sophia.

She stared at the screen.

Her grandfather had died in front of her. She had held his hand. She had watched him go.

But she couldn't be sure. And Stella knew she couldn't be sure.

Lucian's number appeared next:

Stella's on a ledge. Top floor of the Meridian. Live right now. Your grandfather's condition depends on what happens next.

Sophia pulled up the livestream.

Sixty thousand viewers. Stella on a rooftop, mascara running, telling her followers she had loved the wrong person and had nothing left. The comments were flooding—don't do it, we love you, please come down.

Below the building: crash mats. Forty stories up, they were decorative at best.

Unless someone was willing to be the second layer.

Sophia was already moving.

She drove to the Meridian. Took the elevator. Pushed open the roof access door into cold air—and saw exactly what Stella needed her to see. Lucian on one side of the ledge, arms out, voice low. Stella on the other, swaying, crying, looking not at Lucian but at the crowd below.

Then Stella looked up. Found Sophia's eyes.

And smiled. Less than a second. Then the tears came back.

Stella tipped forward.

Sophia ran.

The impact came in two stages—Stella's weight hitting her from above, then both of them hitting the mats below. Something cracked in Sophia's chest. She heard it before she felt it.

She stayed conscious long enough to confirm Stella was breathing.

Then she stopped.

They were brought into the hospital at the same time.

Stella was wheeled left. Sophia was wheeled right.

Forty minutes later, the surgeon came out and found Lucian in the corridor.

"Mr. Drake." He kept his voice low. "We need to discuss Mrs. Drake's treatment plan. Given her existing injuries and the impact trauma, there are several decisions that need to be made quickly."

Lucian frowned at the surgical consent forms the doctor held out. Kidney removal. Right cornea extraction. He looked up at the surgeon, whose eyes didn't quite meet his, and was about to say something—

Stella's attending physician burst out of the other wing.

"Mr. Drake—Stella's hemorrhaging. She needs a transfusion immediately, but she's having an episode. She's torn out the IV line. She's been calling your name—"

Sophia's surgeon stepped forward at exactly that moment, consent forms extended, pen already uncapped.

Lucian's jaw tightened. He took the pen, signed through the stack of forms without reading further, and ran toward Stella's operating room.