I used to be a retired undercover agent for the narcotics division.
The blood on my hands, the drug dens I’d dismantled—it was more than enough to make desperate criminals want me dead.
Nathan knew that.
He knew I needed constant protection, that my address was top secret.
And yet, to give his precious Ariana “peace of mind,” he turned the shield meant to protect me into the knife that stabbed me in the back.
When over a dozen drug dealers armed with machetes stormed the villa, I was standing alone in the middle of the living room.
Unarmed.
But I had once been the best combat instructor in the force.
Using everything within reach—tables, chairs, vases, even the chandelier—I took down seven of them.
The eighth slashed open my left shoulder.
The ninth drove his blade deep into my abdomen.
Blood flowed fast; my strength drained just as quickly.
As I fell, the last thing I heard was the ringleader’s sneer: “You’ll die just like your mother did.”
I died from their brutal dismemberment.
My father, a cop his whole life, called in every favor he had left to gather what remained of me—piece by shattered piece—from a mass grave on the outskirts.
He hired the best mortician, who spent three full days just making me look vaguely whole again.
And in Nathan’s eyes, all of it was nothing but a “scheme”—a pathetic, staged crisis, cooked up to win his sympathy.
