Chapter 1
Travis Savage and I were a notorious public pair, bound together by nothing but hatred.
In the glittering, indulgent world of Chicago, he was an untouchable mafia king who ruled with absolute power, making and breaking rules on a whim. And I? I was the wife he loathed above all others in his criminal empire.
It all started when my parents lost their lives saving him, gunned down by his rivals. After their deaths, he kept me close as I grew up, and eventually, our marriage became what everyone expected. For a long time, he was my only anchor in this lonely world.
Once, he’d knelt before me and sworn to protect me for the rest of my life.
Now, he hated me.
He hated that I refused to sign the divorce papers, that I stood in the way of him running off with Renee Sutton — the orphan girl he claimed to have rescued off the streets.
He let her walk all over me and flaunt herself openly in front of me. To get back at them, I leaked their sordid secrets overnight across all of Chicago: their flirty messages, their hotel stays. Word spread through both the criminal underworld and high society alike, leaving the pair mocked and shunned by everyone.
Our marriage had rotted away years ago, worn thin by endless mutual resentment. It was stagnant, foul, and long dead.
Until three days ago.
A string of ambushes left Travis a hunted man. While swerving to avoid an oncoming truck, he was involved in a devastating car crash.
He lay unconscious in the ICU for three full days. When he woke, he claimed he’d forgotten every ounce of the nine years of hatred between us. In his mind, he was still nineteen — the age when he loved me with everything he had.
The way he looked at me was fervent, as if he’d just recovered something he’d lost forever.
I sat beside his hospital bed, staring at the gauze wrapped around his forehead. Tears streamed down my face as I told him everything: every betrayal, every humiliation Renee had forced me to endure, one bitter memory after another.
When I finished speaking, Travis’s eyes turned red.
He pulled me roughly into his arms, holding me so tight it hurt, as if he wanted to fuse me to his body. He sobbed against my neck, his hot tears soaking into my skin.
“Helen… divorce him.”
He cupped my face, his gaze soft yet desperate as he begged me. He wanted me to leave the cold, cruel man he’d become, saying he’d take us back to when we were nineteen. We could start over.
What a flawless performance. Not a single flaw to be found.
The next day, I did exactly what he wanted. I picked up the divorce papers drawn up by his lawyer, ready to file them.
But as I stood outside his office, the door left ajar, I overheard every word. Travis was talking to his mistress, Renee.
In that moment, the truth crashed over me.
This had all been a trap, crafted solely to force me into divorcing him.
“Travis, this whole dramatic act of yours is absolutely crazy,” Renee purred, her voice sickly sweet yet laced with smug triumph. “That fool Helen actually believes you’ve lost your memory and gone back to being the boy you were at nineteen.”
Then came Travis’s lazy, amused laugh.
“How else was I going to get that stubborn woman to sign, if I didn’t commit to the part?” he said casually, as if discussing the weather. “She’s always clung to the memories of us at nineteen. Fine — I’ll play along. As long as I can make you my wife openly, a few days of fake affection is nothing.”
We were separated only by a thin door.
I stood frozen in the hallway, my fingers squeezing the divorce papers until my knuckles turned white. Yet my breathing remained steady, unshaken.
Once upon a time, I would have kicked that door down in a rage, slammed the documents in his face, and torn off their false masks with my own hands.
But not this time.
It wasn’t that I’d grown forgiving, nor that I’d turned weak.
I was dying. I had late-stage cervical cancer.
The very day Travis crashed and was rushed to the hospital, I received my biopsy results.
The doctor glanced at my sparse medical file and sighed helplessly. “Ms. Fan, your uterus was fully removed after that accident years ago. The cancer has spread throughout your pelvic cavity. You have at most one month left. Stop treatment. There’s no need to drag yourself through more pain.”
One month.
When death looms near, hatred, jealousy and resentment lose their fire. They turn cold, clear, almost rational.
So I watched Travis put on his clumsy charade, and I chose to play along.
All I wanted was one last look at the nineteen-year-old Travis who loved me wholeheartedly.
I treated the little time I had left like a cold, calculated transaction.
I’d sign the divorce papers, in exchange for him continuing to play the devoted boy from our past.
Even if his act made my stomach turn.
I left his company and headed straight for the villa halfway up the hillside.
The second I pushed open the front door, I walked in on Travis and that woman Renee — inside my home.
The room erupted into chaos the moment they heard me.
Within thirty seconds, Travis came rushing down the stairs to cover up the mess. He forced himself into the reckless, anxious demeanor of his nineteen-year-old self, taking the steps three at a time. He grabbed my wrist tightly.
“Helen! Listen to me — I don’t know this woman at all! I have no idea why she’d show up out of nowhere in our house!”
He spoke in a rushed, urgent tone, but a flicker of arrogant satisfaction flashed in his eyes, proud of his quick thinking.
I glanced past his shoulder toward the upstairs landing.
Renee stood there wearing my favorite silk nightgown, her eyes red and her body trembling, putting on the act of a poor, wronged victim.
My gaze drifted back to Travis.
His shirt was buttoned incorrectly, one button askew from how hastily he’d dressed himself.
The sight was ridiculous, almost comical. A faint smile tugged at my lips regardless.
“Travis, I believe you.” I raised a hand to fix his lopsided buttons. “The nineteen-year-old you would never betray me.”
He exhaled quietly, his shoulders relaxing with relief.
“But,” my tone sharpened instantly, and I shot a cold glance toward the woman on the stairs, “her name is Renee. She’s the mistress belonging to the twenty-eight-year-old you.”
Travis froze, as if someone had grabbed him by the throat. His pupils narrowed sharply.
I watched the color drain from his face, speaking in a calm, unwavering voice.
“You say you only remember being nineteen, and that I’m the one you love most. Then go over there and slap that shameless woman.”
The air in the room turned thick and heavy.
Travis’s face contorted with tension, veins bulging on his forehead.
He stared at me, searching for any hint that I was joking, but my eyes stayed cold and unyielding, holding his gaze.
His eyes darted to Renee. She looked pale and unsteady, on the verge of collapsing. Before he could stop it, tender concern spilled across his features.
In the end, he pulled away stiffly, hiding behind a flimsy excuse.
“Helen, you know I never hit women. Don’t ask me to do this.”
I turned his words over in my mind, and the absurdity of it all hit me.
I wrenched my hand free from his grip and stepped back. My voice was cutting, stripping away every layer of his fragile pretense.
“When we were nineteen, a group of cruel girls cornered me in an alley. You charged in alone with a metal pipe and beat them until they were bloodied. You made them kneel and bang their heads against the ground, begging for my forgiveness.”
I watched his mask crack little by little, then let out a low, bitter sigh.
“Travis… the nineteen-year-old you never cared about being a gentleman.”
Our eyes locked.
“So why won’t you protect me now?”
