Oliver and Damien entered the hospital ward where sunlight filtered gently through the curtains, casting warm golden patterns over the white bedsheets. Jake sat upright on the bed, dressed in a light hospital gown, his eyes brighter than ever—finally healed, finally whole.
"My baby, are you okay?" Oliver asked softly, sitting by his side, her voice filled with maternal worry.
Jake grinned and wiped the tears off her cheeks. "Mom, I'm fine. Why are you crying? I'm the one who had the surgery, and I didn't even cry. Tsk, you're so dramatic."
Oliver chuckled tearfully. "Silly boy. Mom was just worried."
"What's there to worry about? I have you... and Daddy Damien," Jake replied innocently, a teasing smile on his lips.
Oliver blinked. "Daddy Damien?"
Jake nodded and leaned closer. "Don't tell me you don't want to marry him, Mom. That's bad. You've lived in his house for so long—you've tainted him! He belongs to you now. Be responsible, Mom." He tapped her forehead playfully.
Oliver's mouth opened, speechless. Was this her son... or Damien's accomplice? Yet, her cheeks turned pink at the thought. She covered her face.
Damien appeared behind her, voice warm and teasing. "What are you thinking about, that you're blushing like that?"
He leaned in, his lips close to her ear. His breath fanned across her skin, making her shiver.
"Damien..." she whispered.
He wrapped his arms gently around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder. The warmth in his touch calmed her, anchored her. Jake giggled at the scene, obviously proud of his matchmaking.
Just as the air was light, filled with joy and budding hope, the door opened with a soft click.
Marvin walked in.
He wore a tailored charcoal suit, each step calculated. A bouquet of blood-red roses sat ominously in his hand. He placed them on the table and calmly adjusted his cufflinks. The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
Damien stood immediately, his presence shifting. Calm. Cold. Ready. "What are you doing here?"
Oliver's cheerful expression evaporated. Her body tensed, her arms subconsciously shielding Jake.
Marvin smiled—an expression that was empty and sharp all at once. "I'm here to collect what's mine. My wife. My child. Thanks for babysitting. But it's time they come home."
"I'm not your wife, Marvin. We're divorced. Get lost. Jake just had surgery. This isn't the time," Oliver spat, her voice trembling with rage.
Marvin tilted his head slightly, eyes void of empathy. "Divorced? dont say such a word bad very bad he said smiling
"And you're causing the scene, not me. If you're still angry about Maria and her son, I'll find them. I'll make sure her child goes blind for your sake. I'll break her legs and arms if that's what it takes to make you smile again. So behave. And come home."
The room went still.
"You think that will make Oliver forget you don't forget u are the one who planned to give Oliver heart to Maria ," Damien muttered, stepping forward. His voice remained calm, but there was a heat behind it. "You arranged the accident. You told the doctor to take Jake's eyes and give them to Mike. And you dare claim to be their husband and father get out when I'm being nice ."
"I don't want you anymore," Jake said sharply, glaring at Marvin. "The only dad I want is Damien."
Oliver stood tall beside her son. "You heard that? He doesn't want you. We're over, Marvin. We've been over. We owe you nothing."
Marvin's face twisted, a slow curl of a smile on his lips. "I hate when you say that word—divorced. You didn't see me sign any papers, did you?" His fingers twitched. Then, he waved his hand.
Bodyguards flooded into the room. Red light beamed from a sniper's laser aimed through the window—straight at Damien.
"Come with me and he lives. Refuse, and he dies. Either way, you're leaving with me."
"Are you crazy?! This is a law-abiding country!" Oliver shrieked.
Marvin shrugged. "And I am the law."
A silenced shot rang out.
Damien flinched as blood blossomed from his shoulder.
"No! Damien!" Oliver screamed, trying to rush to him.
Marvin seized her wrist, pulling her hard into his chest. His lips crashed against her neck, possessive and invasive. She slapped him again and again, but he only smiled, grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanking her head back to expose her throat.
"Be obedient, baby," he whispered against her skin, the tone almost loving. "Jake just had surgery. You wouldn't want him harmed again, would you? I'll be a good husband if you behave. Don't make me mad."
"Oliver, don't go!" Damien yelled, blood dripping from his hand.
A guard kicked Damien to the ground. Oliver screamed, thrashing.
"Choose," Marvin said coolly. "Him dying. Or you coming with me.
Oliver Dont go Damien s said and got up he hold the leg of the body guard that want to kick and push him away "
Chaos started.
With Oliver still struggling in his hand Damien chuckled and look at them
"Five seconds you have five second choose tick tock tick tock."
Jake screamed as a guard lifted him off the bed.
"No! No! No! I'll go with you! Please, just don't hurt them!" Oliver cried, her voice cracking.
Her heart shattered as Marvin's arms locked tighter around her. The thorns of the past were blooming again, and this time, they were laced with blood.
---
As the elevator doors closed with a soft chime, Marvin stood tall with a twisted smile, Oliver crushed to his chest, his chin resting possessively in the crook of her neck. She stared blankly ahead, frozen, not from fear—but from the horror blooming within. Outside the elevator, the hallway echoed with Jake's muffled cries, the boy now sedated and locked in another car.
........
The moment the elevator doors slid shut, sealing Oliver and Jake into Marvin's cold embrace, the air in the ward changed.
Heavy. Silent. Violent.
Damien stood alone, his hand bleeding, his eyes like frozen ash.
Twenty black-clad bodyguards slowly turned toward him, lining the walls of the room like statues made of war.
Then—a breath.
The nearest man raised his gun.
"Kill him."
The room exploded.
Bullets shattered the silence with a scream, ripping through walls, windows, and machines. The heart monitor burst in a shower of sparks. Damien dropped low, flipping the hospital bed for partial cover. Rounds tore through the mattress and frame, kicking up feathers and fire.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Two men closed in, suppressing fire from the left. Damien lunged, snatching the IV pole—whipping it with brutal force across the first man's throat. The man staggered—choking—before a bullet from Damien's backup pistol tore through his skull.
Another fired from behind.
Damien twisted. Dove. Rolled.
The bullet kissed his jacket, burned his skin. He came up under the second guard's gun, slamming his elbow into the man's chin, then pivoted—using the guard's own body as a shield as a rain of bullets punched into his chest.
Three down. Seventeen left.
From outside the shattered window, red dots flickered in through the smoky room.
Sniper lasers.
Damien's eyes flicked up.
"Fuck—"
CRACK!
A sniper round tore through the IV rack inches from his head. The wall behind him exploded into dust. Another shot slammed into the surgical light above, sending glass raining like glitter.
He ran.
Bullets chased him through the corridor, blowing holes into walls, shattering medical trays, sending sparks dancing through the air.
Every second was death screaming past his ear.
The snipers didn't care who got caught in the crossfire. Marvin hadn't sent men—he'd sent war.
Damien reached the hallway junction, flipped the nearest tray cart toward the window, and leapt behind it as a third sniper round punched through it, piercing clean and grazing his ribs.
Blood bloomed. He didn't flinch.
Behind him, the elevator blinked red—locked down. The bodyguards were spreading, splitting into two strike teams—one circling from the east wing, another bottlenecking the corridor.
Trapped.
But Damien smiled.
He whispered into his comm: "Light it up."
Boom.
Three floors below, his reinforcements breached. Men in tactical black stormed the stairwell with flashbangs and auto rifles.
Upstairs, on a nearby rooftop—Damien's sniper unit got into position.
"Targets acquired. Four rooftop hostiles. Two confirmed snipers."
Crack—pop!
One of Marvin's snipers dropped with a bullet straight through the skull. The body flipped off the edge, vanishing into the wind. The others ducked, returning fire—but Damien's rooftop team was relentless.
Up above, war. Down below, chaos.
Back on the VIP floor, Damien's eyes glinted like frost.
He ducked into a treatment room. The walls shook with gunfire.
Two guards kicked in the door.
Damien met them mid-charge.
He grabbed a scalpel from the counter, slashed across one guard's throat, and yanked the other's arm to redirect the muzzle of his gun—pulling the trigger for him.
The shot echoed. The bullet went clean through the second man's head.
Still bleeding, Damien emerged into the hall just as his men arrived—two squads storming the floor, their boots hammering the tiles, yelling commands, flashbangs thundering into the smoke.
"Room secured!" "Push corridor!" "Snipers are pinned—go, go, go!"
The entire floor shook from the gunfight.
One of Marvin's elite stepped forward—taller, heavier body armor.
He raised a semi-automatic.
Damien's eyes narrowed.
The man fired.
Damien ran into the shot. The bullet skimmed past his arm—he didn't care.
He was already inside the man's range—grabbing his vest, slamming his head into the wall, and driving a surgical shear through his ribs.
"You came to take my family," he whispered. "You leave in pieces."
Bodies littered the floor. Gunpowder hung like perfume. Flames flickered from broken wires. Blood slicked the tiles like war paint.
Outside, Marvin's convoy vanished into the fog.
Inside, Damien stood covered in blood—not all of it his own—glaring through the broken window, the fire in his chest barely caged.
The hunt had begun.
--
Mia munched on popcorn, eyes sparkling like a child watching fireworks.
"This isn't how it went in the past life…" Maria's ghost muttered, brows furrowed as she stared at the live projection — a dramatic play of gunfire, blood, and Marvin's madness unfolding like an action blockbuster.
"I told you, this is better than cinema," Dumpling said smugly, floating beside them like a smug bean with too much free time.
Mia sighed as the bullets flew across the screen. "Marvin won't face any backlash. He's got the government by the throat. Blame the author. They made him too powerful—basically the villain equivalent of the male lead. Equally matched. Equally insane."
Maria's ghost turned to her. "But this wasn't in the script. This wasn't supposed to happen, right?"
"Nope." Mia licked salt from her fingertips. "Which means someone tampered with this plotline. Someone is manipulating events outside the boundaries of this world."
"Are you overreacting?" Maria frowned.
Mia didn't even glance her way. Dumpling floated past her with a snort. "She's still as dumb as her past self."
"Excuse me?" Maria snapped.
Ignoring the bickering, Mia countinue to eat her popcorn
"For the past month, I've been feeling a pulse — a signal. Subtle, but it's there. Whoever it is, they aren't from our organization."dumpling said
"There are others?" Maria asked, surprised.
Dumpling nodded as he twirled mid-air. "Three main organizations operate across the multiverse. Each one controls different roles and rules."
He counted them off with his stubby fingers.
"One: Our Organization. We handle worlds with awareness — you know, novels, stories, simulation-like realms. We assign roles: heroine, villain, mentor. Our agents either play their roles or protect key plot anchors. Rarely, we tamper — when necessary — to maintain balance."
"Two: The Central Time Enforcement. Cold, brutal. Their job? Wipe out corrupted worlds. Punish world-creators who mess up their scripts. They favor destruction, revenge like they posses characters and help them get revenge, or resets the world."
"Three: The Order of Anomaly. Creepy bunch. They monitor anomalies — rebirths, unauthorized system usage, characters jumping into other novels, rogue agents trying to build their own worlds, and small or mid-tier organizations trying to cheat their way into power and also killing those and arresting those from the central time organization and our organization for being too noisy and disturbing their mission."
Mia leaned back, rubbing her chin. "If someone's tampering with this world, they're either rogue… or an agent of The Order."
"In other words," Dumpling grinned, "we've got ourselves a poisonous rat. And it's not even from our own kitchen."
---