Chapter 3

The water cup slipped from my hand and shattered on the floor.

"What did you just say?"

Ethan's voice was thin. "Six years ago. The one who went into that fire and pulled him out. It was me."

I couldn't move.

After that fire, everyone said Nora Harper saved Grant's life. Nora died. Grant took the Harper family as his lifelong debt.

And Ethan came home with a fever that wouldn't break. Coughing blood. His heart damaged.

He told me it was just smoke inhalation.

He told me not to tell Grant.

I grabbed his hand. "Why didn't you say anything?"

He smiled, faint and tired. "Sis, you'd just married him."

"If I said something, it would've looked like blackmail."

"Nora was dead. You can't argue with a dead person."

My throat burned. "So you kept it secret for six years?"

"Wasn't planning on forever." He stared at the ceiling. "Just feels like it's too late now."

I pressed my hand over his mouth. "Shut up."

He smiled with his eyes. "Sis. I want some juice."

I went to the nurses' station to get him something.

Right as I turned the corner, a voice called out behind me.

"Vivian."

Lena Harper stood by the elevator. A tiny piece of gauze on her ankle. A VIP rehab center bag in her hand.

I stared at that little square of gauze, and something bitter rose in my throat.

Ethan was lying in a regular ward waiting for surgery funds. She had a paper cut on her ankle and was taking up a VIP rehab spot.

I stopped. Looked at her.

"Six years ago. The warehouse fire. Did Nora actually go in?"

Lena's face shifted for a split second. Then she bit her lip.

"Vivian, my sister Nora is dead. Don't talk about her like that."

Her voice wasn't loud. But it was just loud enough for the people nearby to hear.

Grant's call came right on cue.

Lena picked up. Her voice trembled, soft and wounded.

"Mr. Elliston, I'm fine. Vivian just asked me something about Nora."

A few seconds later, she held the phone out to me.

Grant's voice cut through like a blade.

"Vivian, you went after Lena?"

"I asked about the fire. What really happened that day."

"I warned you. Don't touch Nora's name. She's dead. Do you really have to drag a dead woman into your scheming?"

Scheming. Always scheming.

I suddenly didn't feel like explaining anymore.

"Grant. If one day you find out you've been kneeling at the wrong grave this whole time. Repaying the wrong debt. Protecting the wrong person. What would you do?"

He scoffed. "That day won't come. I know what I know. Nora saved me."

He hung up.

Lena took her phone back. Tears still on her face, but her eyes were steady now. No fear in them at all.

"Vivian, some things just aren't yours to take. You should accept that."

I looked at her. "Things that are taken always burn eventually."

That night, I went back to the penthouse to get my documents.

Lena was on the couch, her foot propped up on a cushion. Grant crouched in front of her, carefully peeling off the gauze.

The moment she saw me, Lena pulled her foot back.

"Vivian, don't get the wrong idea. Mr. Elliston just said the hospital ointment wasn't good enough."

Grant didn't correct her.

I walked past them into the bedroom. Took out my marriage certificate, the prenup file, and the copy of the contract from when I mortgaged my parents' house to bail out Elliston Corp years ago.

Grant followed me in. Shut the door behind him.

"You're really taking this to court?"

"Yes."

He grabbed my wrist. "Ethan is still in the hospital. You blow things up with me now, who's going to back you up?"

I looked up at him. "I don't need your safety net. I just need you to stop stepping on me."

From the living room, Lena's voice floated in. Soft. Helpless.

"Mr. Elliston, I think my ankle hurts again."

Grant let go of my wrist. Almost like reflex.

And in that moment, the last sound inside me went quiet.

I went back to the hospital that night.

There was a note on Ethan's pillow. His handwriting shaky and uneven.

[Sis, if I don't make it, don't beg him again.]

[I just want you to be okay.]

I crumpled the paper in my fist and sat there until morning.