Chapter 4: Mrs. Crawford's Hands
"He pulled the plug himself…"
The words hit Sophia like a hammer blow to the skull. A sharp, piercing ringing swallowed every other sound.
She had always believed her father was simply cold-blooded—a man who had turned his back on her and her mother to marry into the Windsor family. Indifferent. Absent.
But she had never once imagined that the man who had given her life could have murdered her mother with his own hands, just to move money out of reach.
The nightmares that had blurred at the edges for years snapped into terrible focus.
The ICU. Her mother's bloodless face. The flat, screaming wail of the machines going silent. And her father—walking out of that hospital room in such a hurry.
"Sophia, you pathetic little wretch—you didn't even know how your own mother died! Ha! Hahaha—"
Evelyn watched the color drain from Sophia's face and laughed harder, her voice spiraling into something wild and ugly.
"I'll kill you."
The last thread holding Sophia together snapped.
Three years of endurance. Three years of playing small, swallowing her anger, and hiding every sharp edge she had. All of it dissolved in an instant into something hot and solid and absolute.
It wasn't an illness. It was murder. Premeditated. And Evelyn had been about to destroy the only proof that could lead her to the truth.
Sophia closed her fingers around the box cutter and lunged.
Evelyn had no time to move. One second she was laughing, savoring the pleasure of watching Sophia crushed beneath her—and the next, the raw, undisguised killing intent in Sophia's eyes turned her legs to water.
Sophia didn't hesitate. Her arm swung down.
At the last possible moment, a hand reached from behind her—large, certain, and precise—and closed bare-fingered around the blade.
The soft, distinct sound of skin parting filled the studio.
Sebastian, who had broken free of Sophia's grip only seconds before, didn't so much as flinch. He held the box cutter bare-handed, as though the wound had nothing to do with him.
Bright red blood welled between his knuckles and fell, drop by drop, onto the floor.
The sight of it pulled Sophia back to herself.
Why? He had bodyguards. He could have shoved her aside. Instead he had used his own flesh to stop the blade—the most brutal possible way to intervene.
Just to keep her hands clean?
She looked up at him, lost.
Sebastian's eyes held no reproach. He drew the box cutter from her slackened grip, then—with his uninjured hand—pulled her back against his chest, his arm settling firmly around her.
"Mrs. Crawford's hands are for painting."
"Leave the garbage to me."
Sophia leaned into him. Beneath her ear, his heartbeat was steady and unhurried. The rigid tension in her body began, slowly, to give.
Across the room, Evelyn stared at the bloodied box cutter lying on the carpet. Her eyes rolled back. A dark, spreading stain crept down the skirt of her couture gown and soaked into the floor.
She couldn't make sense of it. How had Sophia—Sophia, who had always been everyone's punching bag, everyone's afterthought—ended up beside a man like this?
Evan stood nearby, visibly shaking.
"Mr.—Mr. Crawford… Parker Group has worked with your subsidiaries. There's clearly been a misunderstanding here." His voice cracked. "Sophia has a temper—she acted rashly just now. We can talk this through. There's no reason to hurt yourself over her."
He was still reeling from learning who Sebastian was. And now this man—this notoriously ruthless patriarch of an empire—had caught a blade with his bare hand. For Sophia.
Sebastian didn't spare Evan a glance. He lifted one hand.
The bodyguards outside the door moved immediately. They took hold of Evelyn—who was now emitting a distinctly unpleasant smell—and dragged her out without ceremony. Evan scrambled after them, stumbling over himself, desperate not to be the one left behind.
The studio emptied.
"You—"
Sophia stepped back, the adrenaline receding, her eyes dropping to the bloodstained cuff of Sebastian's sleeve. Something tight and aching pressed up behind her sternum.
She didn't understand him. There was nothing between them but a contract. He could have stood back. He could have let the bodyguards handle it. But he had put himself in the way—with his own body—to stop that blade.
All so she wouldn't have to get her hands dirty.
Sebastian paid no attention to his wounded palm. He leaned down and pressed the back of his uninjured hand flat against her forehead.
The warmth of his skin against hers sent a small tremor through her.
Satisfied that her fever hadn't climbed again, he withdrew his hand.
His assistant stepped briskly back into the studio.
"Sir—the doctor Evelyn mentioned, the one who falsified the medical records at the time. We've got a preliminary location."
Sebastian nodded. He kept his arm around Sophia as he turned and walked her downstairs.
Back in the Maybach, Sophia reached under the seat for the first aid kit. She found gauze and antiseptic, sat close, and bent her head to re-dress the wound on his palm.
Her fingertips brushed unavoidably against the warm skin of his hand. When she pressed the alcohol swab against the torn flesh, Sebastian's breathing deepened by a fraction. That was all—not a twitch, not a flinch.
Sophia worked carefully, almost gently, as though afraid of hurting him.
Sebastian leaned back against the headrest, his eyes resting without blinking on the top of her head.
As she worked, his sleeve shifted. The cuff slid back several inches, and the inner surface of his forearm came into view.
A scar. Savage and old, the kind left by fire—as though flame had once closed over that arm and held on. It ran pale and jagged across the cold white skin.
The sight of it unlocked something.
Ten years ago. A fire that had nearly killed her. Smoke so thick she couldn't breathe. A beam crashing down. She had been certain she was going to die—and then an arm had shoved her out of the burning room. An arm that had already been burning.
Sophia's hand went still. The gauze almost slipped from her fingers.
She raised her head.
And looked straight into a pair of eyes that had, apparently, been watching her for quite some time.
Sebastian didn't pull his arm away. Instead he turned his hand over beneath hers—deliberate, unhurried—and his bloodstained palm came to rest on the back of her hand.
His voice dropped into the quiet of the car, low and rough.
"Mrs. Crawford." A pause. He leaned in, and the weight of his presence seemed to compress the air between them. "You've been staring at it long enough."
The rough pad of his thumb grazed across her lips—parted slightly in shock.
"Have you finally remembered?" he murmured. The words carried something between a dare and a warning. "Or were you planning to pretend you don't know me?"
