Chapter 3

Carter drove like a maniac, clutching the steering wheel as the cooler box sat secured in the passenger seat.

I checked my watch. We could still make it!

At sixty miles an hour, we were only thirty minutes away from the hospital.

The freezing wind whipped through the cracked window. I shoved my hands into my pockets and felt the cold weight of the golden die.

Ethan had carried it for twenty years. Its edges were worn smooth.

He always spoke of fairness, and I had almost convinced myself that his obsession was just a harmless quirk of his dangerous lifestyle.

But just now, when I shook it in the quiet car, I felt a tiny, faint click from inside.

"Carter," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "You've been with Ethan for ten years, right?"

"Yes, Mrs. Cross."

"Do you know how to rig a die?"

Carter answered honestly, suspecting nothing. "It's simple, ma'am. You just drill a tiny hole and insert a sliding lead pin inside."

"Whichever number you want to roll, you just tap the pin to the opposite side. Gravity does the rest."

I froze.

My fingers trembled as I lightly tapped the die against my palm. I felt the subtle shift of weight.

I rolled it onto the dashboard. It stopped perfectly on the number 3—the exact number I wanted.

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

There was never any fairness. The outcome had always been in Ethan's hands.

What he rolled simply depended on what he valued.

He didn't value my career. He didn't care about my safety during childbirth. He didn't care if my mother lived or died.

To him, I never had any privilege.

"Mrs. Cross, the road ahead is blocked."

The sudden screech of brakes pulled me back to reality.

I leaned out the window. There was a barricade ahead.

Along with the traffic cops, I immediately recognized Ethan’s men.

One of them was handing a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills to a driver, who smiled and turned his car around.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Ma'am," the guard said, recognizing me. "Mr. Cross had the police department shut down this street. No vehicles are allowed through."

Ethan had connections with the local precinct. Shutting down a minor street in this district was easy for him.

But this was the fastest route to the hospital.

"Move!" My voice shook violently. "My son’s heart is in this car! If anything goes wrong, your life won't be enough to pay for it!"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Cross. Mr. Cross's orders are absolute. The road stays closed until Buster is found."

Buster.

That damn dog again.

With shaking hands, I dialed Ethan's number. He picked up, his tone utterly dismissive.

"Just take a detour, Vivian," he sighed impatiently. "I need to find Buster before it gets dark."

"A detour will add an hour and a half! The donor heart will decay!"

But on the other end, he was already distracted, murmuring sweet words to soothe a crying Scarlett.

"You have a heart condition too! You know how painful a heart attack is!" I screamed into the receiver. "Ethan, do you not care if Leo dies?"

"If he can't even handle a little pain, he doesn't deserve to be a Cross!"

The man's harsh roar left me stunned.

Right. I had forgotten.

He had always been like this—a ruthless, arrogant tyrant.

Yet, his very life was something I had dragged back from the gates of hell.

I was the one who found him collapsed and suffocating in a casino bathroom years ago.

I was the one who risked my medical license, performing an emergency bypass in a locked-down clinic at three in the morning.

I was the one who bore the insults of my own family, running through dangerous neighborhoods to source his black-market cardiac meds, even offending local syndicates for him.

On the night he proposed, he had pulled out his golden die for the first time.

He gave me a playful wink.

"If you roll a higher number, I'll give you a week to think about it. If you lose, you put on this ring and become Mrs. Cross right now."

Until today, I actually believed that night was a beautiful twist of fate.

It turned out that for five years, I was just a clown being played in the palm of his hand.

"Let's roll a virtual die on Snapchat," I said, closing my eyes. "If I win, you open the road. If you win, I'll turn around."

"No way," he said coldly. "I only trust real dice."

Suddenly, a sharp scream came through the receiver.

"Scarlett!" Ethan’s voice panicked—a tone I rarely heard. "Why did you climb up that dirt slope? Did you hurt your ankle?"

I hadn't heard him speak with such tenderness in years.

The call went dead.

The dial tone beeped in my ear, cold and mocking.

"Take the detour, Carter," I whispered.

***

I didn't get home until midnight.

I walked into the quiet house, turned on the lights, changed my shoes, and began picking up Leo's scattered toys from the living room floor.

The front door clicked open.

The moment Ethan saw me, the exhaustion on his face morphed into pure rage.

"Why the hell weren't you answering my calls or texts?"

I blinked, pulling out my phone. I had over a hundred missed calls from him.

"You found Buster, I assume. That’s good," I said, my voice completely hoarse. "Make sure to buy him some expensive treats. I'm going to take a shower."

My legs were shaking so badly I had to lean against the wall to stand.

"Vivian, I'm talking to you!" Ethan marched over and grabbed my shoulder. "How is Leo? Was the surgery a success?"

My throat tightened, a metallic taste of blood rising in my mouth.

It physically hurt to breathe as I forced the words out.

"He's dead."

Ethan's pupils contracted. His grip on my shoulder tightened. "What... what did you say?"

"Our Leo is dead," I said slowly, looking him dead in the eyes. "The donor heart decayed because it took too long. He went into cardiac arrest, and he didn't make it."

Ethan’s mouth opened, but no sound came out except a strained, choked gasp.

I summoned every ounce of my remaining strength and pushed his hand off me.

"I want a divorce."