Chapter 4

Yulia's POV

That night, I developed a high fever.

Adrian didn't come back.

I burned in a daze, the puncture pain in my lower back mixing with old fracture injuries, hurting so much I didn't even have the strength to call for emergency help.

I could only force myself to get up and swallow a few fever-reducing pills.

The medication didn't work that fast. I lay back on the bed, my whole body burning, feeling suffocated from discomfort.

I don't know how long passed before I finally drifted into an uneasy sleep.

When I woke up in the hospital room, I heard nurses gossiping.

"Miss Chloe is so lucky. Mr. Hayes stayed outside the operating room all night for her."

"Yeah, I've never seen him so anxious about anyone."

I weakly spoke up, correcting them.

"I'm his wife."

The nurses looked at each other awkwardly, lowered their heads, and hurried away.

I struggled to get out of bed for some water but fell from the hospital bed in pain.

Adrian, outside the door, saw this scene and seemed about to step forward, but then stopped abruptly and turned to leave quickly.

His assistant hesitantly spoke.

"Mr. Hayes, your wife..."

"She deserves it," Adrian interrupted him. "I let her go. Who'll let me go?"

I had no mind to pay attention to them. I rested alone in the hospital room for a few days until I received a text from an unknown number.

It was a photo.

In the photo, Chloe was smugly playing with an old pocket watch-the only keepsake my mother had left me.

The text included a line:

"Your bone marrow works great. Oh, and Adrian said this watch looks better on me anyway. Makes me more like the old you."

My emotions completely collapsed.

I yanked out my IV, ignoring the nurse's attempts to stop me, and rushed straight to Chloe's hospital room.

"Give it back!"

Seeing me, Chloe smiled even more triumphantly.

"Mrs. Hayes, Adrian gave this to me. Why should I return it to you?"

I abandoned all dignity, my voice trembling.

"Please, give it back to me... That's the last thing my mother left me..."

Seeing her unmoved, I gritted my teeth and offered my final condition.

"As long as you return the watch, I'll give you the position of Mrs. Hayes."

"Give it to me?" Chloe acted as if she'd heard the biggest joke.

As soon as she finished speaking, the hospital room door opened.

Adrian walked in with a dark expression, just in time to hear my last sentence.

"Yulia, in your eyes, is my wife's position so cheap? Not even worth an old trinket?"

"No..." I explained frantically. "That's my mother's last keepsake!"

"Mother?" He snatched the watch from Chloe's hand. "Everything related to your parents should disappear!"

With that, he strode to the window and raised his hand to throw the watch out.

"No!" I screamed and lunged forward, trying to grab the watch back.

In the struggle, I crashed into his body. The watch flew out the window, and I lost my balance and fell out too.

"Yulia!"

Adrian screamed, reaching out to catch me, but grasped only air.

He rushed downstairs like a madman and picked me up from the pool of blood with trembling hands, his voice filled with unprecedented panic.

"Yulia, wake up! Don't you dare die!"

In my fading consciousness, I seemed to see a flash of unprecedented fear and heartache in his eyes.

In my dead heart, a tiny spark of hope somehow ignited again.

But when I woke up in the hospital room again and heard the doctor report my multiple fractures, I saw Adrian standing just outside the door.

He walked in and looked down at me from above.

"Don't think I'll feel sorry for you. Keeping you alive is only to make you suffer more."

He paused, then declared word by word:

"Between us, it's fight to the death."

That last bit of hope was extinguished by his own hand.

My heart died completely. I slowly closed my eyes and said softly.

"Fine. Then I'll go die."