The hospital didn't smell like dust and fire; it smelled of bleach and expensive silence.
I sat in the hallway of the private wing, wrapped in a hospital blanket that felt like sandpaper. My palms were bandaged, and my hair was a matted mess of dried salt, but the diamond collar still sat heavy on my neck—a permanent mark of my status.
The elevator doors opened, and the air in the hallway suddenly felt twenty degrees colder.
An older couple stepped out. The man was a silver-haired version of Kyle, but with eyes that looked like they were made of flint. The woman at his side was draped in pearls and a suit that cost more than a mid-sized sedan. They didn't look worried; they looked inconvenienced.
They stopped in front of me. I didn't stand up. I just stared at them, my jaw set.
"So," the woman said, her voice like a thin blade of ice. "This is the 'distraction' that nearly cost us the Naples port. I expected something... more. She looks like a common street urchin."
"I can hear you, you know," I snapped, my voice raspy from the smoke. "And for your information, the 'urchin' is the only reason your son isn't a charcoal briquette right now."
Kyle's father, Arthur Vanguard, looked at me as if I were a smudge on his shoe. "Your name is Valentina. A thief. A ghost. You've been a thorn in my son's side for five years, even if he was too obsessed to admit it."
"He wasn't obsessed," I lied, my heart thumping. "He was hunting a debt."
"He was hunting a fantasy," the mother spat. "And look where it got him. A gunshot wound and an international incident. You are a cancer to this family's reputation. Once Kyle is stable, you will be dealt with."
"Try it," I challenged, leaning forward. "I've survived worse than a couple of angry socialites in pearls."
Before she could respond, the door to the intensive suite opened. A doctor nodded, and the parents swept past me without another word, as if I had ceased to exist the moment the door opened.
I waited. For hours.
Finally, the nurse told me I could go in. I expected to see a man humbled by death. I expected a "thank you."
Kyle was sitting up in bed, his chest wrapped in thick white gauze. He was already on his laptop, a phone pressed to his ear. He looked up when I walked in, and the warmth I'd felt on the pier—that brief, flickering connection—was gone. It had been replaced by a wall of pure, unadulterated arrogance.
He finished his call and tossed the phone onto the nightstand.
"You're still here," he said. His voice was flat. No gratitude. No softness.
"I stayed to make sure you didn't die before I could tell you what a prick you are," I bit out, stepping closer to the bed. "Your parents are charming, by the way. I can see where you get your sunny personality."
Kyle leaned back, his eyes tracking me with a cold, clinical indifference. "My parents are right about one thing, Val. You're a liability. Your little 'rescue' at the docks was impulsive and messy. It's made things complicated."
I froze. "Complicated? I saved your life!"
"You stayed when I told you to run," he countered, his voice rising in an arrogant snap. "You disobeyed a direct order. Now Moretti knows you're my weakness, and my board is questioning my judgment. You didn't save me, Valentina. You just made the price of keeping you a lot more expensive."
I felt the sting of his words like a physical slap. The memory of him holding me in the dark, the memory of the photo in his pocket—it all felt like a joke. A con he had played on me.
"You really are a monster," I whispered.
"I'm a Vanguard," he said, turning his attention back to his laptop screen. "And you? You're discharged. The car is waiting downstairs to take you back to the penthouse. Don't think for a second that because I took a bullet, the rules have changed. You're still an asset. You're still mine. And until Moretti is in the ground, you don't leave my sight."
He didn't even look up as I turned to leave.
"Kyle?" I said, pausing at the door.
"What?"
"I should have let you burn."
Kyle let out a low, dry chuckle, but he didn't look away from his work. "Maybe. But we both know you couldn't. You're addicted to the chaos, Val. And I'm the only one who knows how to provide it."
As I walked out, the diamond collar felt heavier than it ever had before. He was back. The arrogant, cold-hearted king of Milan was back, and the short-lived truce at the docks was officially dead.