Chapter 1

Helen's POV

The air in the abandoned Brooklyn warehouse was thick with gunpowder and the sickening, metallic stench of my own blood.

"Helen, they're everywhere! The map is wrong!" my lieutenant screamed over the deafening roar of automatic gunfire.

He was right. We were supposed to flank the rival gang, but the extraction route Nicholas gave me was a blatant death trap leading straight into the enemy's main force.

"Keep firing! Break the line!" I ordered, my vision swimming as a familiar, agonizing burn clawed up my spine.

I coughed, spewing a mouthful of black blood onto the concrete. The ten-year-old dormant poison—the lethal dose I took a decade ago to shield Nicholas's life—was violently flaring up, triggered by my extensive injuries.

Every nerve in my body screamed in agony, but I didn't stop shooting. I dragged my blood-soaked, shattered body out of the kill zone, leaving my fallen brothers behind, and finally stumbled into our underground safe house.

It was eerily quiet. My backup never came.

I collapsed against the wall, gasping for air, when I heard it. Through the half-open door of the comms room, Calvin's radio crackled loudly.

"Boss, you have to send backup to Helen! Her unit is completely surrounded by the main force!" Calvin's voice was frantic, laced with panic.

Nicholas's reply through the static chilled my blood colder than the winter air.

"Helen is tough. She has nine lives. She won't die. Prioritize extracting Valerie first!".

My breath hitched. Valerie. The manipulative street orphan Nicholas had taken in. She was only dealing with a minor, irrelevant scuffle on the outer perimeter, yet Nicholas had deliberately given me the wrong map to ensure all family backup rushed to her side.

"But Boss, Helen is dying out there!" Calvin yelled.

"I said, secure Valerie!" Nicholas barked back. "Make sure the extraction looks chaotic. Use the chaos. Just like the twenty-one times we were supposed to get married."

Calvin sighed heavily into the mic. "You're really going to keep faking these near-death accidents to stop the weddings? She's devoted her life to you."

"I have to. I owe the Cole family my life because of her parents, but I love Valerie," Nicholas replied, his voice devoid of any warmth. "I've sabotaged all twenty-one of our wedding attempts, and I'll do it a hundred more times to protect Valerie's place by my side".

The revelation struck me harder than the shrapnel buried in my shoulder.

My twenty-one near-death experiences—the sudden car crashes, the targeted drive-by shootings, the mysterious fires—weren't bad luck. They were carefully orchestrated assassination attempts by the man I loved, all to avoid tying himself to me.

I didn't scream. I didn't cry.

My heart, after ten years of blind, desperate devotion, simply died in that very moment.

I pushed myself off the wall and kicked open the doors of the inner sanctum.

Kate Sterling, the formidable matriarch of the mafia family, snapped her head up from her desk.

Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of my shredded tactical gear and the dark blood pooling at my boots. "Helen? God, what happened to you?"

I didn't answer. I reached into my vest, pulled out my bloodied command insignia, and slammed it onto her pristine desk. I handed over my authority.

"I'm done, Kate," I rasped, my voice eerily calm as I leaned heavily against the desk. "I am officially requesting to cancel the engagement".

Kate froze, her hands trembling over the metal token. She knew better than anyone the depth of my obsession with her son. "Helen, you're bleeding out. Let me call the family doctor. Whatever Nicholas did this time—"

"He deliberately sent me into an ambush to save Valerie," I interrupted, staring into her eyes. "And I just heard him admit that he engineered every single fatal 'accident' over the past three years to avoid marrying me.".

Kate's face drained of all color. She looked at my mutilated body, the sheer guilt of my parents' ultimate sacrifice washing over her in real-time.

"Okay," Kate whispered, her voice breaking with deep shame. "I agree. The engagement is off".

I nodded once. No tears. Just a hollow, liberating emptiness.

I turned and limped out of the command center. Just as I reached the main foyer, the doors of the safe house flew open.

Nicholas strode in, his tailored suit completely spotless. In his arms, he carried Valerie, who didn't have a single scratch or speck of dust on her.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me. His gaze swept over my pale face and my blood-soaked state, but instead of guilt or concern, his eyes darkened with immediate irritation.

"Still playing the martyr, Helen?" Nicholas sneered, his arrogance suffocating the room. "Are you really using this pathetic flesh wound to force the wedding again? It's pathetic.".

Valerie buried her face in his chest, trembling like a fragile, frightened bird. "Nicholas, don't yell at her... She looks really hurt..."

"It's just a trick, Val," he snapped, glaring down at me with pure disgust. "She always pulls these stunts to guilt-trip me."

I briefly thought of my father's antique Browning, the unquestionable loyalty of the Cole family, and the ten years of my youth I had burned to ashes for this man.

I looked Nicholas dead in the eye, my voice barely above a whisper, but steady as stone.

"As you wish," I said softly.

A flicker of surprise flashed in Nicholas's eyes.

All along, I had been the one most anxious to get married. Whenever I recovered from an injury, the first thing I would do was urge him to marry me.