Page 248 of Ruin My Life

I still want hearts drawn in steam on the mirror. Notes on Post-its stuck to my laptop. I want coffee mugs that don’t match and bubble baths waiting after long days.

I want the bad with the good. The tears with the joy.

The quiet mornings. The chaotic nights. Themundane.

I want my chance to dance barefoot in the kitchen, surrounded by dish soap bubbles.

Damon once told me the only way this would end was in tragedy. And maybe he was right.

Because a life without him would be tragic.

But so isdeathwithout him.

The light disappears. The noise fades. The pain slips away.

Until all that remains…

Is darkness.

Chapter Forty-Five

Damon

THREE DAYS.

Three days since I last saw her open her eyes.

Three days since I last heard her voice—hoarse and breathless, like her soul was already halfway out of her body.

Three days since I felt her fingers twitch against mine.

The hospital on Block Island did what they could. They got her through the first surgery—just enough to keep her alive. But the second I saw them lift her shirt, saw the wound—saw their faces—I knew. It wouldn’t be enough. She needed Dahlia.

So I made the call.

The medevac met us before sunrise. They prepped her mid-flight, and Dahlia had a trauma team ready in New York the second we touched down.

Eight hours. That’s how long she spent in surgery while I paced every hallway they’d let me near. They reconstructed her abdomen, repaired torn muscle, tried to stop the internal bleeding.

And then, just when we thought it was over, they foundanotherbleed. And she went in again.

Now she lies motionless in a hospital bed that looks more like a machine than a place meant for rest. She’s hooked up to every monitor money can buy. Her leg’s in a cast, elevated and bruised. Tubes run across her cheeks and ears, pumping oxygen through her nose and mouth like it’s the only thing tethering her here.

I tell myself she’s going to make it. Shehasto.

She didn’t survive a home invasion, a bullet to the chest, the Songbirds, a kidnapping, and the war she declared in her family’s name—just to be taken out by a fucking kitchen knife.

But people have died from less.

Lee’s still recovering too, but he’s stable. Lucky. Dahlia said the bullet missed anything major. He’ll be in pain for a while, but knowing him, he’ll be back behind a screen before the week’s out like nothing ever happened.

Monroe’s been bouncing between Lee’s room and Brie’s. He doesn’t say much—he never really does—but he listens. I told him everything I know about Connor.

OrConrad Harrison. Isabella’s estranged brother.

The revelation still sits like a stone in my gut. I should’ve seen it sooner. I should’veknown.

But she never mentioned him—not once. And at the time, I never had a reason to doubt her.