Gabriel’s first useful act was walking out of my hospital room and pretending nothing had happened.
His second was coming back twenty minutes later with Nurse Evelyn Hart.
Evelyn was in her fifties, with silver beginning to appear in her dark hair and the expression of someone who had spent thirty years watching families lie beside hospital beds.
Gabriel closed the door.
Evelyn checked the hallway.
Then she looked at me.
“Mr. Mercer says you believe someone may try to interfere with your care.”
“I know someone already has.”
I told her enough.
Not everything.
The attack.
Christian’s conversation.
Dr. Lawson.
The pregnancies.
Evelyn’s face remained professional, but her eyes changed when I mentioned Lawson.
“Has Dr. Lawson visited you here?”
“No.”
“Has anyone from his office contacted the hospital?”
“I don’t know.”
She checked my chart.
Then she became very still.
“What?”
Evelyn turned the tablet toward Gabriel.
“An outside physician requested access to her medication list forty-three minutes ago.”
My blood went cold.
“Who?”
“Dr. Charles Lawson.”
Gabriel whispered something I will not repeat.
Evelyn immediately restricted my chart.
“No outside physician gets information without your written authorization.”
She removed Christian from the list of people authorized to approve treatment if I became incapacitated.
That was when we discovered another problem.
Christian already had medical power of attorney.
I had signed it two years earlier.
After my second miscarriage.
At the time, it had felt romantic.
If anything happened to me, I wanted the man I loved making decisions.
Now the paper looked like a loaded weapon.
“I need a lawyer,” I said.
Gabriel nodded. “I know someone.”
“No one connected to Christian.”
He hesitated.
Then said, “There’s an attorney named Claire Bennett. She represented a songwriter who sued Christian’s old label. Christian hates her.”
“Perfect.”
Claire arrived at two seventeen in the morning.
She wore jeans, a navy coat, and absolutely no makeup. She carried a laptop and a legal pad and asked Gabriel to leave before I told her anything.
When he objected, she pointed toward the door.
“He can either leave voluntarily or I can have security remove him.”
Gabriel left.
I liked her immediately.
For almost forty minutes, Claire asked questions.
Had Christian ever threatened me?
Controlled my finances?
Signed documents for me?
Had I signed a prenuptial agreement?
Were any accounts jointly owned?
Who paid Dr. Lawson?
Did I still possess the bottles from my fertility treatments?
That last question changed everything.
“My apartment.”
“Where?”
“In Indianapolis. Bathroom cabinet. Bottom drawer.”
“Does Christian have access?”
“Yes.”
Claire began typing.
“We need them secured before anyone knows you’re awake.”
She arranged for an independent investigator named Marcus Reed to enter my apartment with my written authorization.
Gabriel provided the building access code.
Evelyn helped me sign the necessary paperwork.
By four in the morning, Marcus had collected medication bottles, pharmacy receipts, old treatment instructions, my laptop, two external drives, and a box containing every medical document from my pregnancies.
Then he found something none of us expected.
A prepaid phone.
It was taped beneath the bottom drawer of Christian’s desk.
The phone belonged to Christian.
And it was not locked.
There were hundreds of messages.
Sabrina.
Lawson.
A contact identified only as “R.”
And Gabriel.
The messages with Gabriel mostly concerned ordinary business.
Tour dates.
Contracts.
Sabrina occasionally.
Nothing connecting Gabriel to the attack.
That mattered.
The messages with Lawson were different.
They went back three years.
Christian never directly wrote, Make Genevieve miscarry.
Men like him were rarely that stupid.
Instead, there were phrases.
“Keep the levels where we discussed.”
“She’s asking questions.”
“Do whatever prevents another surprise.”
“Double-check she’s still following the supplements.”
Then, after my third miscarriage:
“Good. We’re done trying.”
I stared at the screenshots until the words blurred.
Claire placed a hand over the phone.
“That’s enough.”
“No.”
“Genevieve.”
“I want to see all of it.”
So we kept reading.
The messages with Sabrina were worse emotionally.
Photos of Leo taking his first steps.
Videos of birthdays.
A picture of Christian holding his son in a hospital room four years earlier.
I recognized the shirt he wore.
That same evening, he had called me from “Chicago” and said he was stuck in a recording session.
He had actually been twenty minutes from our home, holding his newborn son.
Sabrina’s messages showed frustration.
You promised you’d tell her.
Leo is asking why Daddy never sleeps here.
I’m tired of watching you pretend Genevieve is your whole world.
Christian always answered the same way.
Be patient.
The timing has to be right.
Think about what happens to all of us if the public turns on me.
Then, three weeks before our wedding, Sabrina sent:
I want something real. Even if nobody else knows.
Christian answered:
You’ll have your ceremony.
The prepaid phone also contained messages with “R.”
Those began twelve days earlier.
A photograph of me leaving my gym.
Another of my car.
Another taken outside the bridal boutique.
Christian: Nothing permanent enough to kill her.
R: You said face.
Christian: Enough that the wedding can’t happen.
My stomach turned.
Then came the payment.
Twenty-five thousand dollars.
Another twenty-five promised after “completion.”
Claire immediately called a federal contact because the attacker might be leaving the country.
By sunrise, law enforcement had located the man at a motel outside Detroit.
His name was Raymond Voss.
He had not yet boarded a plane.
Christian believed his problem was disappearing.
Instead, Raymond was arrested before breakfast.
The police did not announce it.
That was Claire’s recommendation.
Let Christian believe Raymond had escaped.
Let him remain confident.
Confident people talk.
Terrified people destroy evidence.
At seven thirty, Christian returned to my hospital room carrying flowers.
White peonies.
For one insane moment, I almost laughed.
He had remembered.
Christian entered quietly.
Gabriel was sitting beside the window.
I had closed my eyes twenty seconds earlier.
“She still hasn’t woken?” Christian asked.
Gabriel shook his head.
“Doctors say it could be today.”
Christian moved beside me.
His fingers brushed my hair.
Every muscle in my body wanted to recoil.
Instead, I remained limp.
He kissed my forehead above the bandages.
Then his phone rang.
He stepped toward the window.
“Yes?”
A pause.
“What do you mean you can’t reach him?”
My pulse accelerated.
Raymond.
Christian turned away from the bed.
“Keep trying.”
Another pause.
“No. Nobody contacts him from a company phone.”
He hung up.
Gabriel watched him carefully.
“Problem?”
“Nothing important.”
Christian sat beside me.
Then he did something so cruel it almost impressed me.
He started crying.
Real tears.
Or tears that looked real.
He took my hand.
“Gen,” he whispered.
That was what he called me when cameras were around.
“I’m here.”
A photographer was waiting outside the hospital.
Of course.
Within forty minutes, entertainment sites published photographs of Christian leaving my room with red eyes.
AMERICA’S HEARTBROKEN GROOM.
CHRISTIAN PRESCOTT REFUSES TO LEAVE FIANCÉE’S SIDE.
Singer reportedly “devastated” after brutal attack.
Millions of strangers praised him.
Comments flooded social media.
Every woman deserves a man like Christian.
True love.
He looks destroyed.
I watched them on Claire’s phone.
Then I turned it face down.
“Do you want the story corrected?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
Claire studied me.
“You understand he’s using public sympathy.”
“I know.”
“And you want to let him?”
“For now.”
Because while Christian stood in front of cameras performing grief, Raymond Voss was sitting in an interrogation room.
By evening, he started talking.
Christian had contacted him through an intermediary.
The instructions had been precise.
Do not kill me.
Do not permanently blind me.
Damage my appearance.
Create enough chaos to cancel the wedding.
Raymond had received money through an entertainment consulting company controlled by one of Christian’s business managers.
Claire obtained emergency preservation orders for the company records.
Then the hospital surgeon came to speak with me.
Dr. Priya Shah was careful.
There would be scars.
Recovery would take time.
Multiple procedures might be necessary.
But the damage was not as catastrophic as we first feared.
My vision was intact.
Most of the deepest injuries were concentrated along my cheek and jaw.
I stared at her.
“Will I look like myself?”
She paused.
It was the kindness of the pause that broke me.
“We’re going to help you heal,” she said.
Not yes.
Not no.
Heal.
After she left, I asked everyone else to leave too.
For the first time since waking, I was alone.
I asked Evelyn for a mirror.
She hesitated.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
She brought a small one.
My hands shook as I lifted it.
Bandages covered much of my face.
Swelling distorted the rest.
Purple bruising surrounded my eye.
The visible skin along my cheek was angry and unfamiliar.
I stared.
And stared.
Then I began to cry.
Not because Christian might no longer find me beautiful.
That man’s opinion had become worthless.
I cried because the woman in the mirror had done nothing to deserve this.
She had loved.
Trusted.
Tried to build a family.
And someone had decided her face was an acceptable business expense.
I pressed the mirror against my chest and sobbed until my ribs hurt.
When the tears finally stopped, I noticed something.
My eyes.
They were still mine.
Christian had not taken them.
And the woman staring back through them was no longer the woman who had walked into that bridal boutique.
That woman believed love made people safe.
This woman knew better.
That evening, Christian returned.
I opened my eyes for him.
Not completely.
Just enough.
He froze.
“Genevieve?”
I let confusion fill my face.
“Christian?”
He rushed to the bed.
“Oh, God.”
He kissed my hand.
“I thought I lost you.”
Behind him, Gabriel stood silently.
Christian began explaining what happened.
A random attacker.
A deranged fan, possibly.
Police investigating.
Nothing for me to worry about.
He promised to protect me.
“I’m not leaving,” he said.
I stared at him.
“You still want me?”
His expression became beautifully wounded.
“How can you ask me that?”
I almost admired the performance.
“I don’t know what I look like.”
“You look like the woman I love.”
I squeezed his hand.
He smiled.
Relief entered his eyes.
He believed me.
That was the moment I understood how we would win.
Christian did not need me unconscious.
He needed me broken.
So broken was exactly what I would pretend to be.
I lowered my eyes.
“Don’t let anyone see me.”
“I won’t.”
“Not reporters.”
“Never.”
“Not even my friends.”
“If that’s what you want.”
I made my voice small.
“Just you.”
Christian leaned forward and kissed my forehead.
“You only need me.”
Behind him, Gabriel looked away.
Because he understood.
Christian thought he had successfully turned fear into a cage.
What he did not realize was that he had just locked himself inside it with me.
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