Suzanne's POV
The silence in my hospital room felt too clean, too sharp—like it had been scrubbed raw with bleach and grief.
I leaned back against the pillow, the white bedsheet tugging slightly at my arm where the IV poked through. My fingers instinctively curled over my stomach. Empty. Hollow. A space that had been unknowingly filled and now cruelly taken.
Five weeks. That's what the doctor had said.
Five weeks of life growing inside me.
And just a day of knowing.
A day too late.
The pain wasn't physical anymore. It was in the silence, in the look on the nurse's face when she avoided meeting my eyes. In the way no one said baby, or loss, or congratulations—as if not naming it would make it less real.
But it was real.And so was the accident. Only… I couldn't remember it.
Just flashes. Rain. A sharp turn. Screeching tires.And a voice—low, calm, calling my name like it had all the power to hold me in this world.
"Suzanne."
Not Suzzy. Never Suzzy—unless it was him. Tristan.
He had barely left my side since I woke up. Never lingering too long. Always careful. Always kind. He looked at me like he was carrying the weight of a thousand secrets he couldn't yet tell.
I blinked at the clock across the room. He'd been here a minute ago. Sitting quietly in the corner, reading something on his phone while I dozed off.
Then… he got a call.
A deep frown creased his brow as he answered it. No words, just a curt nod. And then he walked out.
Something about it felt off. Like the way his eyes flicked to me just before he left—like he didn't want me to overhear.Why would he?What did Tristan Mariano know that I didn't?
---
Tristan's POV
The hospital corridor was quiet, but the line wasn't.
"She's stable," I said into the phone, voice low, tight. "But that wasn't just an accident."
The voice on the other end—Vikram, my most trusted man—didn't hesitate. "We pulled traffic cam footage from that stretch of road. A black Range Rover was tailing her car before the crash. Same vehicle ditched near the eastern bypass. We're tracking plates now."
I clenched my jaw, turning away from the nurse pushing a cart down the hallway.
Suzanne.
She didn't remember much. That was both a blessing and a curse. She didn't remember the accident... or what she might've seen right before it.But I remembered enough for the both of us.
The moment I saw her broken body being wheeled into the ER, I knew. That crash wasn't random.Someone wanted her dead.
And if my gut was right—and it usually was—this wasn't a mugging gone wrong or some joyride mistake.
This was personal.
Deliberate.
Planned.
"She had no enemies," I said, though the lie burned. "Except…"
Josh.
My stepbrother.
Suzanne's husband.
Her perfect, lying, cheating bastard of a husband.
I didn't have proof. Yet. But something about the timing—it reeked. And I wasn't going to wait for another attempt.
"Find out who was driving," I said, steel in my voice. "And dig into Knight's bank records. I want to know where every damn penny's been going the past three months."
"Understood, boss."
I hung up and exhaled slowly. My hand slid into my coat pocket, brushing against the silver pendant Suzanne used to wear—a simple little locket I had picked up from the wreckage myself before the cops arrived.
The glass inside was cracked, but her photo was still intact. A smile full of hope.I stared at it now.For her sake, and for everything she'd lost, I would burn the world down.
---
Suzanne's POV
When Tristan returned, his face was unreadable. Calm, poised. Like nothing had happened in the ten minutes he'd been gone.
"Everything okay?" I asked softly.
He nodded, sliding back into the chair near my bed."Yeah," he said. "Just a work call."
Liar.But I didn't push.
Because in that moment, he wasn't Tristan Mariano, my husband's stepbrother.
He wasn't the man who called me Suzzy when no one was around.
He was something else.
Someone hiding a war behind those midnight eyes.
And I had a feeling…
That war had already started.
[End of Chapter 3]
To be continued...