Chapter 3

When the manor finally fell silent, and the last unsuspecting guest had been turned away by the butler’s polite excuses, my world became an island of opulence standing in total isolation. No toasts, no vows—only the lilies left in the grand hall, releasing a cloying, decaying scent that felt almost mortuary.

I walked back to my private suite on the second floor. Pushing open the doors, the reflection in the mirror showed a ridiculous figure—a man in a custom tuxedo with his bowtie askew, pale as a medical sample left in a morgue for three days.

I ripped the damn bowtie off and threw it onto the carpet. The skin on my chest was inflamed and red from the continuous monitoring patches. I tore them off, along with the portable monitor that had been buzzing incessantly, and tossed the whole mess into the corner trash can.

The trash can emitted a dull thud. The world was finally, utterly quiet.

I walked into the bathroom and flicked on the faucet, splashing bone-chilling cold water onto my face. As the mist cleared, I looked at myself in the mirror, my gaze slowly dropping. Below my collarbone was a faint, thin, old scar—a mark I had "planned" for myself on the operating table six months ago. Beneath it lay the most advanced titanium stent, keeping me from collapsing from a myocardial infarction at any given moment.

This scar was the sturdiest armor I possessed, yet it was also my most fragile weakness.

The pain returned like a tide, crashing against my chest cavity, pulse by pulse. If I were on the operating table, I would have diagnosed myself with "pericardial tamponade" or "acute ischemia," but I didn't call an ambulance, nor did I wake my busy private physician. I simply collapsed onto the bed, listening to the sound of the blizzard battering the glass.

Pain blurred my consciousness, dragging me back to that long, freezing winter night.

That was seven years ago at Saint Jude’s Hospital. I was a freshly minted cardiothoracic surgeon. Emma’s father had appeared in my ward in the most heart-wrenching way possible—a massive myocardial infarction.

I remember that night. The corridor lights flickered. Emma stood under the dim light outside the ICU. She was only twenty-some years old, wearing an inexpensive cashmere coat, her makeup long ago washed away by tears. Yet, inside that glass room, while death was locked in a tug-of-war with her father, she had stood aside, calmly listing the tangled web of her father's debts to a lawyer on the other end of the line.

At that moment, I was captivated by that extreme sense of rupture. She was weeping for the fear of losing a loved one, but her tone was cold, a ruthless calculation of reality. She was a collection of contradictions—like a daisy shuddering in a storm while trying to calculate the soil erosion.

I walked over and handed her a cup of strong coffee. She looked up at me, and that gaze is something I’ll never forget—there was no shyness or neediness of a typical woman, only a predator’s inspection of its prey.

"Can he live?" she asked.

"I’ll do my best," I said.

"Not your best. I want a result," she replied calmly. In that instant, I realized a beast called "the desire for control" lurked within her soul.

That was the beginning of our story.

Everything that followed was like a meticulously designed slide. Her family’s wealth collapsed, and loan sharks circled her like vermin in a gutter. I remember that late night when they surrounded her in an old residential district. I rushed to save her. In the chaos, one of them swung a heavy metal rod.

I could have dodged it, but when I saw the sheer terror in her eyes, my body moved before my brain could. The dull thud of that impact is still etched into my bones. It was a severe closed chest injury, an impact that directly triggered the latent coronary artery spasms I was already suffering from and paved the way for the stent I’d eventually need.

I never told her the truth about that injury. I just laughed and told her it was a minor accident, just a scratch. She wept and held me then, calling me the only person she could rely on in the world.

Looking back now, I was a goddamn fool.

I curled up in the soft duvet. The bedside lamp burned, making my eyes sting. The pain intensified—my heart was punishing my lucidity. I should have known all along that this level of over-expenditure is irreversible. I should have known that when a person gives half of their life to the operating table and the other half to an endless black hole, the bankruptcy of the soul is inevitable.

I reached up to touch my forehead; it was slick with cold sweat.

"Noah," I whispered to the empty room. "You actually knew all along."

I knew she would leave. I knew she felt no gratitude for the blind, self-sacrificing way I gave myself to her, because it only made her feel pressured. I knew my already shattered heart couldn't carry the weight of her infinite ambition.

But I gambled like a addict, putting my last chip on the table.

The snow outside fell harder. The silence pressing against my chest felt more real than the pain. I turned off the lamp and closed my eyes in the dark. My heartbeat was slow and heavy, as if counting down the final seconds of my life.

It's fine, I told myself. After all, I never intended to walk out of this night anyway.