The hospital corridors were eerily quiet except for the rhythmic beeping of the monitors.
Caliste lay motionless on the bed, her face pale, her lips drained of color. The room was filled with the sterile scent of antiseptic, but beneath it lingered something colder ...despair.
Caelum stood beside her, his hand wrapped around hers, afraid to let go. Her fingers were cold against his skin. He'd been there since the night he found her ...unmoving, sleepless, waiting for her to open her eyes.
When the doctor entered, Caelum straightened immediately.
"How is she?" he asked, voice rough from exhaustion.
The doctor sighed and adjusted his glasses. "She's stable now. But she hasn't regained consciousness. Her body suffered extreme shock ... emotionally and physically. It seems her mind shut down to protect itself."
Caelum's throat tightened. "When will she wake up?"
"We can't say for sure," the doctor replied. "We'll observe her for at least three days. Sometimes… the patient needs time to find the will to return."
Those words struck him like a blade.
The will to return.
He looked back at Caliste, her peaceful yet lifeless expression, and something inside him broke. He clenched his jaw, fighting the sting in his eyes. "She will come back," he whispered fiercely. "I'll make sure she does."
But inside, a storm raged.
He couldn't ignore the rage building in his chest ...the need for answers, for someone to blame.
So he left.
---
The fluorescent lights of the police station buzzed overhead, cold and unforgiving. Caelum's footsteps echoed sharply on the tiled floor as he stormed inside, his expression dark and unreadable. The officers glanced at him everyone knew who he was ... the Vellaria heir, calm and composed on normal days, but not tonight.
"Where are they?" he demanded. "The men who abducted Caliste Winslow."
An officer hesitated but pointed toward the interrogation room. "We've already detained them, Mr. Vellaria. But..."
Caelum didn't wait for permission.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Two men sat at the table, wrists cuffed, eyes avoiding his.
When they saw Caelum, they froze. His aura was cold, dangerous ...not the refined nobleman the world knew.
He approached slowly, his voice a low growl.
"What did you do to her?"
One of the men tried to speak, stammering, "We...we didn't touch her, sir. We swear! We just followed orders!"
Caelum slammed his hands on the table, making them flinch. "Whose orders?" he barked.
They shook, afraid to answer. One finally stuttered, "Desmund Winslow… he ordered the abduction. Said we'd get rich if Lucian Velmore paid the ransom."
Caelum's jaw tightened. "And then?"
The other man swallowed hard. "Velmore came… but he didn't pay. He just...he just looked at her. He said she had nothing to do with him anymore. Then he left."
Silence fell.
Caelum's chest heaved, his breath uneven.
His mind refused to process the words.
"What… did you say?" he asked again, quieter this time, but the fury beneath it was volcanic.
The man nodded shakily. "He didn't pay. After that...after he left...she cried for hours. We didn't know what to do. Then she just… stopped. She wouldn't move, wouldn't respond. Then she fainted. We panicked and left her there, tied up. We didn't mean to..."
Caelum's hand curled into a fist and slammed the wall beside the man's head.
The entire room shook.
The kidnappers recoiled in fear, but Caelum didn't speak again. His chest rose and fell rapidly, his eyes burning with a mixture of fury and grief.
Lucian… left her there. He left her to break.
He turned away, breathing heavily. His reflection in the glass wall looked like a stranger ... face hard, eyes cold.
"Get them locked up," he told the officer at the door, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. "I'll press charges myself."
Then he walked out before the fury inside him consumed everything.
---
The rain had begun again, falling softly over the empty street. Caelum stood under the flickering streetlight, staring blankly ahead.
"She cried for hours…"
The words echoed in his head, over and over, each repetition slicing deeper.
He had seen Caliste's pain before ... but never imagined it would come to this. She had given everything, loved deeply, suffered silently. And the man she loved most had turned his back on her when she needed him the most.
He looked up at the gray sky, his fists tightening.
"Lucian..." he whispered, voice filled with unrestrained hatred, "if she never wakes up, I will never forgive you."
----
Thunder cracked across the night sky as Caelum's car screeched to a halt in front of the Velmore estate. The iron gates swung open at his command, and before the guards could even react, he was already storming up the steps, rage burning through every muscle.
His fists were trembling ...not from fear, but from the kind of fury that had no words left.
"Lucian!" his voice thundered through the marble halls. "Come out!"
The startled staff froze where they stood. Moments later, Lucian appeared from the corridor, calm as ever, his expression unreadable...until Caelum closed the distance between them.
Without hesitation, Caelum swung his fist.
The impact was sharp, loud ...the kind of sound that silenced the entire mansion.
Lucian stumbled backward, losing his balance and hitting the floor, blood trickling from the corner of his lip.
"Caelum!" Victoria's panicked voice echoed as she rushed down the grand staircase. "Stop this at once!"
Lucian wiped his lip, eyes narrowing in shock and fury. "What the hell, Caelum?" he snapped, standing up and holding his bruised jaw. "What's your problem?!"
Victoria reached them, grabbing Caelum by the arm, trying to hold him back, but he barely noticed her. His chest heaved as he glared at his cousin no, the man who had just destroyed the life of someone he loved.
"My problem?" Caelum spat, his voice shaking with emotion. "My problem is you! Tell me, Lucian ....is fifty million too much for you to pay for her life?!"
Lucian froze.
Caelum's voice broke as he continued, "You could've called me! You could've told me ... I would've paid any amount to bring Caliste home safe! But you..." his voice cracked, "you left her there. You left her crying in the dark!"
The words hung like daggers in the air. Victoria gasped softly, clutching at Caelum's sleeve, eyes wide in disbelief.
Lucian's expression hardened. He looked away, his jaw tight. "The kidnappers should have contacted you, not me," he said flatly, though his voice faltered at the edges. "I didn't owe them anything."
Caelum stared at him in shock, his fury briefly overtaken by disbelief. "Not you?" he repeated, almost laughing bitterly. "She loved you, Lucian! She waited for you ...even after everything! And you abandoned her."
Lucian's composure finally cracked. His eyes blazed with sudden rage as he snapped, "She moved on already! She's pregnant with your child, Caelum!"
The entire room fell silent.
Even the rain outside seemed to stop.
Caelum's lips twitched into a humorless chuckle. He stepped closer, his voice low but cutting. "The child…" he said slowly, meeting Lucian's eyes, "…is yours."
Lucian's world stopped.
Victoria gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as her gaze darted between the two of them. "What… what did you just say?"
Neither man answered. The air was heavy with everything unspoken ... guilt, pain, and truths that had come too late.
Caelum's eyes glistened, though his anger refused to break. "You left her to die thinking you never loved her," he said quietly. "You don't deserve to speak her name."
He turned and walked away before his fury turned into something worse.
Victoria called out after him, "Caelum, wait!" but he didn't stop. The door slammed shut behind him, leaving a trembling silence in his wake.
Lucian stood there, frozen, his thoughts spinning. His hands shook at his sides as the realization sank in — Caliste, unconscious, carrying his child.
Victoria looked at him with tears welling in her eyes. "Lucian…" she whispered, "What have you done?"
Lucian didn't answer.
He couldn't.
For the first time in years, the unbreakable Lucian Velmore felt his knees weaken. He sank into the nearest chair, his face buried in his hands, as the storm outside raged harder .... mirroring the chaos within him.