Elena's POV
Beeping.
Something beeping. Soft. Steady. Annoying.
Elena's eyes flutter. Open. Close. Open again. The world is blurry, white, too bright. She blinks, trying to focus.
Pom. Pom. Pom.
The sound of an IV drip. She knows that sound. She's heard it in movies, in hospitals she passed on the way to work, in dreams she can't quite remember.
Where is she?
She tries to move. Lifts her head just slightly.
Pain explodes behind her eyes.
"Ahhh!"
The scream tears out of her before she can stop it. Her hand flies to her head. Everything hurts. Her body feels heavy, broken, wrong. Like someone took her apart and put her back together poorly.
Footsteps. Fast. Coming closer.
A man appears beside her. Not her father. Not Ethan. Someone she doesn't know. Kind face. Worried eyes. He's holding a file, but he drops it on the chair and rushes to her side.
"Miss Reyes. Easy. Easy. Don't move too fast."
She blinks up at him. Her mouth is dry. Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth like sandpaper.
"Where..." Her voice cracks. "Where am I?"
"You're at the hospital. You were hit by a car."
Hit by a car.
The words don't make sense. She tries to remember. Running. Rain. Headlights. A face, dark eyes, sharp jaw, someone holding her, someone saying hold on.
Nothing else. Just flashes. Just feelings.
She tries to sit up.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." The man presses gently on her shoulder. Not hard, but firm. "You need to rest. You've been unconscious for four days."
Four days.
The words hit her like another accident.
"Four days?" She tries to push past him. The room spins. Her head pounds. "I need to get up. I need to get to Manhattan. Today is the last day."
"Last day for what?"
"My scholarship." She's crying now. Doesn't realize it until she feels tears on her cheeks. "Pratt Manhattan. I won a scholarship. Full ride. Today is the last day to accept it. If I don't go today, I will lose it. I will lose everything."
She struggles against him. Weak. So weak. Her body won't cooperate. Her muscles scream. Her head throbs. But she doesn't care.
"Miss Reyes—"
"Please. You don't understand. I saved for months. Eight months of tips, of skipping meals, of saying no to everything. I hid the money from my father. I fought for it. I—"
She stops. Her eyes dart around the room.
"My bag. Where's my bag?"
The man hesitates. Then he reaches for something beside the bed. He holds up her bag the worn one, the cheap one, the one she held onto while her father beat her.
She grabs it. Her fingers fumble with the zipper. Inside, inside, please be inside.
The money.
Still there. All of it. Wrapped in the envelope she's touched a thousand times, counting and recounting, dreaming and hoping.
She breathes. Just for a moment, she breathes.
Then she looks up at him.
"How do you know my name?"
He hesitates again. "Your information was in your bag. Your ID. I'm Harrison. I work for Mr. Sinclair."
"Mr. Sinclair?"
"The man whose car hit you."
She stares at him. None of this makes sense. A man with a car. A hospital. Four days gone from her life.
"What time is it?"
"Ten in the morning."
"Ten." She counts in her head. "What day is it?"
"Monday."
Monday.
"Monday?" She says it like she's never heard the word before. "Monday. That means... Thursday night I was hit. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. Monday."
She counts on her fingers. Thursday. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. Monday.
"What's the date?"
"The eighteenth."
"No."
The word comes out small. Broken.
"No, no, no."
She tries to get up again. Harder this time. Fighting. Harrison tries to hold her back, but she's desperate, clawing at the sheets, crying so hard she can barely breathe.
"The deadline was Friday! Friday at four! I missed it! I missed it!"
"Miss Reyes, please—"
"Let me go! I have to go! Maybe they'll still take it. Maybe if I explain what happened. Maybe if I tell them about my father, about the beating, about the loan sharks, about the car, maybe they'll understand—"
"Miss Reyes, you can't—"
"I have to try! I have to! This is all I have! This is the only chance I'll ever get!"
Her head explodes with pain.
The world goes gray.
She falls back against the pillow.
"No," she whispers. "No, please. Not yet. I need to—"
Harrison presses the emergency button. A nurse runs in.
"She tried to get up," Harrison explains. "She was crying, fighting."
The nurse checks her vitals. Calm. Professional. Check her pulse. Look at the monitors.
"Her body isn't ready," the nurse says. "The concussion. The trauma. The stress. She pushes too hard, she'll keep passing out."
She administers something. An injection. Cool liquid entering Elena's vein.
Elena's eyes flutter. Close. Open. Close.
"My scholarship," she whispers. "I lost it. I lost everything."
"Rest now," the nurse says softly. "Your body needs to heal."
"I can't," Elena mumbles. "I can't rest. I have to—"
But the medicine is already working. Her eyes close. Her body relaxes. The fight leaves her all at once.
"She'll sleep now," the nurse says. "A few hours, probably. Maybe longer. When she wakes, keep her calm. No stress. No sudden movements."
Harrison nods. The nurse leaves.
He looks at Elena's sleeping face. Then he picks up his phone.
Adrian's POV
Adrian stands in a boardroom full of angry men.
The elders of the company. Major shareholders. Men who've known him since he was a child. They're discussing expansion plans, overseas investments, and the future of the empire.
Adrian hasn't heard a word in twenty minutes.
His mind is elsewhere. On a hospital bed. On a girl with Selena's face. On the way she looked at him before she lost consciousness, scared, broken, hopeful.
His phone buzzes.
He glances at it. Harrison's name.
He stands up.
"Mr. Sinclair." One of the elders, Whitmore, Isabella's uncle frowns at him. "We're in the middle of—"
"I have to go."
"You have to—" Whitmore sputters. "We've been planning this meeting for weeks. You can't just—"
Adrian is already walking out.
Behind him, voices rise. Angry. Confused. Demanding explanations he won't give.
He doesn't care.
Let them be angry. Let them plot. Let them try to take what's his. None of it matters compared to the girl in that hospital bed.
He reaches the hospital in twenty minutes. Should have taken thirty. He broke every speed limit.
He bursts into the room.
She's asleep. Peaceful. Still. Tubes and wires and machines keeping her alive.
Harrison stands beside her bed. The doctor is there too, clipboard in hand.
"What happened?"
Harrison explains. The waking. The panic. The scholarship. The collapse.
"She was desperate, sir. Crying. Fighting. Said she missed the deadline. Said she lost everything."
Adrian looks at her face. Even in sleep, there's pain there. A furrow between her brows. A tension in her jaw. Her fingers twitch slightly, like she's reaching for something even in dreams.
The doctor speaks. "She's stable. Her vitals are good. The concussion is healing. But she's carrying a lot of emotional weight. Grief. Loss. Probably trauma from whatever happened before the accident."
"When will she wake again?"
"Hard to say. A few hours. Maybe tonight. Her body is exhausted, but her mind is fighting. She wants to wake up. She has things she needs to do."
Adrian nods. The doctor leaves.
He stands beside her bed. Watch her chest rise and fall. Rise and fall. The rhythm of life.
"Tell a nurse to check her measurements," he says quietly. "Get her things. Clothes. Whatever she needs for when she wakes."
Harrison nods. "Sir."
He leaves.
Adrian is alone with her.
He pulls the chair closer. Sits. Watches.
Her face. So like Selena's. But different. Softer, maybe. Younger. More wounded. More real.
Selena never told him about her pain. Never let him see. She smiled through everything, right up to the end.
This girl Elena wears her pain like a second skin. He saw it in the way she fought Harrison. In the tears streaming down her face. In the way she said I lost everything like she'd been saying it her whole life.
He reaches out. Stops himself.
Don't touch her. She doesn't know you. She'll be scared.
He pulls his hand back.
But he doesn't leave.
Her eyes open.
Slowly this time. No panic. No fight. Just... open.
Tears roll out immediately. Silent. Steady. Like someone who's given up.
They slide down her temples, into her hair, onto the pillow. She doesn't wipe them away. Doesn't move. Just lies there, staring at the ceiling, crying without sound.
Adrian sees it.
Her pain. Her grief. Her sorrow.
He detects all of it. Read it in the way her chest hitches. The way her jaw clenches. The way her hands curl into fists at her sides.
She lost something. Something important. Something she fought for her whole life.
And now she's here. Broken. Alone. Surrounded by strangers.
He opens his mouth to speak—
Her hand moves.
Without looking at him, without seeming to realize what she's doing, her hand reaches out. Finds his. Grabs on.
Her grip is desperate. Tight. Like he's the only solid thing in a world that keeps shaking.
He freezes.
She turns her head. Look at him with those eyes, Selena's eyes, Elena's eyes, eyes that have seen too much and hoped too long.
Her lips part.
"Please save me."
The words hit him like they did that first night. Like a blade. Like a prayer. Like something he can't ignore.
Please save me.
He looks at her. Really looks. Sees the bruises fading on her face. The cuts healing on her arms. The fear behind her eyes. The hope she's too afraid to name.
He sees Selena. What he couldn't do for Selena.
He sees Elena. What he can do now.
Something shifts inside him. Something cold and frozen, something that hasn't moved in five years, starts to thaw.
He squeezes her hand.
"Doctor," he says quietly.
But he doesn't let go.
He pulls his chair closer. Leans toward her. His other hand reaches out, gently brushes a strand of hair from her face.
"I'm here," he says. "I'm not going anywhere."
Her tears keep falling. But something in her eyes shifts. Just slightly. Just barely.
Relief.
She's not alone anymore.
He stays there, holding her hand, watching her breathe, waiting for the doctor.
And in that moment, Adrian Sinclair makes a decision he doesn't fully understand.
He will save her.
Whatever it takes.
Whoever stands in his way.
He will save her.
The doctor comes. Check her vitals. Shines a light in her eyes. Ask questions, name, date,
where she is. Elena answers in monosyllables. Yes. No. Fine. Hurts.
When the doctor leaves, she's still holding his hand.
"The scholarship," she whispers. "I lost it."
He doesn't say you can get another one. Doesn't say it'll be okay. Those are lies, and she's been lied to enough.
Instead, he says: "Tell me about it."