Chapter3
I sold my parents' ruined cabin the very next morning.
I accepted a predatory medical loan with brutal interest rates.
I did not negotiate. I took the cash and paid the university surgeons upfront.
They sawed through my sternum to graft my actively tearing aorta.
When I woke up in the ICU, the pain was a blinding weight.
My chest was held together by rows of heavy metal staples.
Every shallow breath felt like swallowing broken glass.
A nurse left my phone on the tray. It was flooded with notifications.
Caius had taken Isolde to the Swiss Alps.
He had drained our Joint Betrothal Emergency Fund—the exact $150,000 I desperately needed to survive—just to cure his mistress’s "panic attacks."
Photos showed private ski slopes and glacier dinners.
In the main picture, Isolde wore a custom diamond necklace.
The campus forum priced it at exactly $150,000.
She wore the exact cost of my open-heart surgery casually around her neck.
His caption read: “The Alps cure all. True love makes you forget the rules.”
Isolde commented below: “He makes me feel safe.”
I stared at the sterile ICU ceiling and laughed.
The vibration tore at my surgical staples.
A spike of white-hot agony hit my brain.
I tasted copper. A tear dropped onto my pillow.
This was perfect. He had dug his own grave.
A month passed.
For thirty days, I recovered in absolute silence.
I drank liquid meals. I endured agonizing pain.
And I listened to the hidden audio recording on my phone until Caius’s cruel words burned permanently into my brain.
Caius crammed a lifetime of cinematic romance into those thirty days.
Yesterday, he posted a photo of Isolde in a designer wedding dress.
Today, his month of rebellion officially expired.
He assumed the cancellation paper I signed in blood a month ago was just a petty tantrum.
He assumed his mother, Mireille, had quietly shredded it to protect him.
He desperately needed to lock in our final biometric signatures at the IPO to secure his Fellowship funding.
He needed his golden reputation intact. He came back to collect his moral debt.
My phone rang.
"Bring your ID to the Wexford IPO Registry," Caius ordered.
His voice was clipped, carrying his usual arrogant certainty. "Let's finally get this betrothal paperwork over with."
He hung up immediately.
Three years. Twenty staged, bloodstained accidents.
Now, with his academic funding on the line, he was finally eager to initiate the process himself.
I looked at my empty right hand. He still wore my father's silver ring.
It was the only fragile item recovered from the ocean ten years ago. I was going to rip it back.
I put on a heavy wool coat to hide my ruined, stapled chest.
I took the bus to the Wexford IPO Registry.
No falling stage lights today. No speeding bikes.
Caius wanted this finalized, so my path was perfectly clear.
The winter wind bit through my clothes. I stood outside the glass doors for an hour.
A black luxury SUV pulled up to the curb. Caius stepped out.
He caught sight of me and stopped dead.
"What happened to you?" he asked. His voice tightened.
Thirty days of a liquid diet and heavy painkillers had stripped the flesh from my bones. I looked like a frail, walking ghost.
He scowled, his initial shock quickly turning into defensiveness.
"Is this your new tactic? Starving yourself to make me feel guilty about Switzerland?"
"I am not here to sign anything," I said calmly. "Give me my father's ring."
He scoffed. He rushed forward and grabbed my wrist. His grip bruised my fragile skin instantly.
He dragged me forcefully toward the glass doors.
The violent motion pulled viciously at my fused sternum. I bit my cheek until it bled to swallow a scream of pure agony.
"Quit playing games, Seren," he sneered. "I am doing my duty. Let's just sign it and get my funding cleared."
He hauled me to the registration desk. The IPO clerk smiled brightly.
"Here to formally log the Fellowship Betrothal?" she asked.
Caius reached into his jacket for his ID. His stiff white cuff slid up.
Fresh black ink sat on his inner forearm. I.K. Isolde Kaye.
The clerk beamed. "Tattooed your initials? How romantic."
Caius froze. He violently yanked his sleeve down. He slammed his ID onto the metal counter.
His face burned red. He turned his intense embarrassment .
"Where is your ID card?" he snapped at me.
My voice was completely dead.I said "You are functionally erased from my life. Hand me my father's ring."
He slammed his fist on the glass. "That was a pathetic stunt! I left the woman I actually love to give you this exact future! What more do you want from me?"
His phone rang sharply. He answered it, cursing silently.
Thayer’s frantic voice echoed loudly through the quiet lobby.
"Caius, get to Isolde's apartment right now!" Thayer yelled.
Caius dropped his wallet. All color vanished from his face. "What happened?"
"She swallowed a bottle of heavy sleeping pills!" Thayer panted, his voice cracking with pure panic.
"She left a public suicide note on the campus forum. She named Seren! She claimed Seren blackmailed the Foundation to cut her funding and sent her death threats. The whole campus is out for Seren's blood!"
Caius slowly lowered the phone.
His reluctant martyr act evaporated entirely.
He looked at me like I was a venomous monster.
"You stayed silent for a month just to plan this," he whispered.
I looked back at him. I felt absolutely nothing.
I had survived open-heart surgery on tap water and cheap bread.
I traded my parents' ruined cabin to a predatory lender just to keep breathing.
And he genuinely believed I spent my brutal recovery cyberbullying his mistress.
"I did nothing," I stated flatly.
"She is fighting for her life!" he roared.
He stepped inches from my face, his chest heaving. "You pushed an innocent girl to suicide just to punish me for leaving you? You are absolutely disgusting!"
He didn't wait for the truth. He turned and sprinted out the heavy glass doors to his SUV to save his true love.
He abandoned the Wexford registry. He abandoned his Fellowship window.
But he cruelly took my father's ring.
I stood alone in the quiet lobby. My chest burned with white-hot physical agony.
The horrified clerk stammered nervously. "Miss... the Fellowship window closes in five minutes. Should I try to process the Accord?"
"Void the application," I said steadily. "Permanently."
I pulled my coat tight against the bitter cold and walked outside.
I had survived twenty staged accidents. I had survived a tearing heart.
I would easily survive this pathetic setup.
Isolde wanted a public war.
She wanted to build her ultimate victory on my reputation.
She chose the absolute wrong target.
I pulled out my phone. I dialed Mireille Wren’s private number.
She answered on the first ring.
" Aunt," I said, calmly wiping a drop of fresh blood from my nose. "The Fellowship window just closed. He abandoned the IPO."
"Excellent," Mireille’s voice came through, bone-chillingly cold and stripped of any motherly weakness.
"I have the undeniable audio recording of his confession backed up on a secure USB drive," I said. "Did you secure the transaction log from the emergency account?"
"I have the definitive proof of his embezzlement right here," Mireille stated, her tone dripping with calculated precision.
"Come find me quickly., Seren. The trap has snapped shut. Let's finish him together."
