Chapter Thirty-One: The Wrong Kind of Fire
The afternoon had been a gilded blur. The weightless thrill of new clothes in glossy bags, Lucia's infectious laughter as she critiqued the city's fashion crimes, the simple, profound joy of holding my mother's hand and seeing the worry in her eyes finally ease into a smile—it had all worked. The cultural duty was performed. The sisterly bond was strengthened. I felt anchored, real, a part of something that wasn't just gilded chaos.
We were leaving the mall, arms linked, laden with bags, still giggling over something Lucia had said. The cool autumn air was a relief after the store's warmth. My heart was a happy, fluttering thing, counting down the minutes until I could walk back into the estate, into Adrian's waiting arms, and tell him all about it. See? I would say. A perfectly normal day.
The illusion shattered between one breath and the next.
They materialized from the shadowed alcove by the service entrance, not with drama, but with a cold, professional efficiency that was far more terrifying. Three men in nondescript dark jackets. No masks, which was the most frightening part. Their faces were bland, forgettable. The one in front simply put a finger to his lips—a universal, chilling sign for silence—and gestured with the other hand, which held a pistol held low against his thigh.
My blood turned to ice. Lucia's grip on my arm tightened like a vise.
"Don't scream. Don't run. Come quietly," the lead man said, his voice flat, bored. "It'll be easier."
My mind went blank with pure, animal terror. But Lucia's, I saw in a flash beside me, did not. Her eyes, wide with the same fear, darted to the crowded street just steps away, to the oblivious people hailing cabs, laughing, living.
Run.
It wasn't a thought. It was an instinct we shared in that split second. Our eyes met, and we moved as one.
Wrenching our arms free, we spun and bolted, not towards the busy street, but into the darker, narrower alley beside the mall—a desperate, wrong choice born of pure panic. Our shopping bags went flying, scattering expensive, useless fabric across the dirty pavement.
"HELP!" Lucia screamed, the sound raw and piercing in the confined space.
"Stop them!" the bored voice snapped behind us.
Footsteps pounded after us. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trying to escape. I grabbed Lucia's hand, our fingers lacing in a desperate, sweaty knot. Faster, faster, faster. The alley seemed to stretch endlessly, a grey corridor to nowhere.
Then came the sound—a short, sharp crack that was nothing like the movies. It was small, violent, and final.
A searing, white-hot poker slammed into my upper back, just below my right shoulder. The impact wasn't just pain; it was a kinetic shock that stole my breath and my balance. My legs buckled. A choked gasp was all that escaped me as the world tilted. Our linked hands were ripped apart as I stumbled forward, the rough asphalt rushing up to meet me.
I hit the ground hard, the breath knocked from my lungs. For a second, there was only the shock, the cold ground against my cheek, and the spreading, incredible fire in my back.
"ARISHA!" Lucia's scream was a knife of pure horror. She skidded to a stop, turning back, her face a mask of tear-streaked terror. She dropped to her knees beside me. "Oh God, you're bleeding! Get up, please, get up!"
I tried. I pushed against the ground with my left arm, but my right side was a useless, screaming column of agony. Warm, sticky wetness was already soaking through the back of my dove-grey gown, the soft cashmere cardigan. I looked up at Lucia, her beautiful, frantic face swimming in my vision. "Go…" I rasped. "Run, Lucia…"
But it was too late. The men were on us. Two of them grabbed Lucia, hauling her to her feet. She fought like a wildcat, kicking, scratching, screaming my name.
The third man loomed over me. His expression was still chillingly blank as he reached down to grab my uninjured arm. This was it. This was how it ended. In a dirty alley, bleeding out, watching my sister-in-law being taken.
Then, a new sound—running footsteps, heavy and fast, from the direction of the mall's main entrance.
"LET THEM GO!"
Damien.
He came into view at the mouth of the alley, his usual calm shattered, his face a storm of fury and fear. He was unarmed, but he was a Madden, and he charged without a second's hesitation.
The man holding me froze. The two holding Lucia exchanged a swift look with their leader. The calculus changed. A public fight with a Madden, even a lesser-known one, was not in the script.
"Move!" the leader barked.
In a blur of motion, they dragged a still-struggling Lucia towards a black van idling at the far end of the alley, its door sliding open. The man who had been about to take me gave me one last, dismissive look, then turned and sprinted after them.
"NO! LUCIA!" I screamed, the effort tearing a fresh wave of pain from my wound. I tried to crawl, my left hand scrabbling at the asphalt, leaving smears of red.
Damien reached me, his eyes sweeping from my bleeding back to the vanishing van. "Arisha! Jesus—"
"Follow them!" I begged, my voice breaking. "Don't let them take her! Please, Damien, go!"
He hesitated, torn between the bleeding woman before him and the cousin being kidnapped. It was a second of agonizing indecision. A second too long. The van's tires screeched as it peeled out of the alley and vanished into the city's traffic.
They were gone. And they had Lucia.
A sob of utter despair wrenched from my chest, mixing with the physical agony. The adrenaline that had been holding the worst of the pain at bay began to recede, and the full, horrifying reality of the wound crashed over me. The world started to spin, the grey walls of the alley bleeding into a darker grey at the edges of my vision.
Damien was on his phone, his voice urgent, calling for an ambulance, for police, for security. He knelt beside me, pressing his jacket against my back. "Stay with me, Arisha. Look at me. Help is coming."
But I couldn't look at him. All I could see was Lucia's terrified face as they dragged her away. All I could hear was her screams. All I could feel was the searing, wrong fire in my back, and the infinitely colder, more terrifying fire of knowing she was gone.
The last of my strength bled out onto the cold ground. Damien's voice, the distant wail of approaching sirens, it all began to fade, muffled by a thick, cottony silence.
Adrian… I thought, as the darkness rushed in. I'm sorry. I lost her. I couldn't keep her safe.
My final conscious sensation was not the pain in my shoulder, but the ghost of his kiss from this morning, and the crushing, unbearable weight of my failure. Then, there was nothing.
♡Hallucinations of love
The cold asphalt bit into my cheek, a stark contrast to the burning tear in my shoulder. Damien's voice, the distant sirens… it all began to warp, to stretch and thin like taffy. The world wasn't fading to black, but to memory. My mind, desperate for an anchor, for a haven away from the pain and the terror, dragged me back. Not to the beginning, but to the heart of it. To him.
To the room that became ours.
I was back in the vast bed, sunlight streaming across the sheets we'd tangled just hours before. His head was on my bare stomach, my fingers idly tracing the shell of his ear. The air smelled of us, of sleep and satisfied warmth.
"Trees," I murmured, gazing at the sunlight dappling the ceiling. "Not a cathedral. Somewhere with old, strong trees. And the light coming through the leaves… golden, like honey."
He turned his head, kissing my skin. "I'll find a forest and buy it," he mumbled, his voice thick with contentment.
"A cello," I continued, painting the dream with words. "Just one. Something that feels like a heartbeat."
"Your heartbeat," he said, shifting to look up at me, his eyes soft. "The only rhythm I ever want to follow."
"And wildflowers. Not roses. Lupines. Daisies. Things that look like they grew there just to be part of our day."
He smiled, that slow, devastating smile. "A secret garden," he whispered. "For my secret wife." He reached up, his thumb brushing my lower lip. "And after? What happens after the last guest leaves?"
My heart swelled. "After, we build a library. With a ladder that rolls, and a window seat, and a ridiculously large chair we can both fit in."
"I'd never sit still long enough to read," he teased.
"You would if I was in your lap," I countered. "I'd read you every sonnet. Even the bad ones."
He laughed, the sound a warm vibration against me. The conversation drifted, lazy and sweet, into a future woven from shared whimsy. Travel to lonely coasts. Christmases loud with chaos we'd create ourselves.
"And… children?" I asked, the word a fragile, hopeful bubble.
He grew still, his gaze traveling over my face as if seeing a new, wondrous dimension. "Someday," he said, his voice suddenly thick. "A little girl with your serious eyes, who takes the world apart to see how it works. A boy with more of your heart than my sense, who'll need us to teach him how to guard it."
"Or the other way around," I breathed, tears pricking my eyes at the beauty of the thought.
"Or both," he agreed, his own eyes suspiciously bright. "A whole houseful of little chaos-makers who know they are loved down to their bones. Who are brave because their mother is the bravest person I know."
The certificate. The memory shifted. We were in his study, the legal wedding certificate—simple, elegant, binding—laid out on the desk between us. Our names, written together. Mr. Adrian Elias Madden. Mrs. Arisha Jiyana Madden. He'd framed it. It sat on his desk, a quiet revolution in polished wood and official ink.
"My father promises a spectacle," Adrian had said, his hand covering mine on the desk. "A grant wedding for the public. But this…" He tapped the glass over the certificate. "This was ours. This is the one that matters. The legal, undeniable fact of us."
The first night. Shyness and boldness, fumbling and wonder. The whispered questions in the dark. Is this alright? The gasped assurances. Yes, please. The clumsy, breathtaking discovery that felt less like a collision and more like a homecoming. Wrapped in a tangle of sheets and each other afterwards, damp skin cooling, his lips in my hair whispering, "My wife," with an awe that made me whole.
The morning after. Waking up woven together, a limb-numbing, glorious entanglement. The awkward, red-cheeked embarrassment of meeting each other's eyes in the clear light of day, followed by his low chuckle and a kiss that tasted of morning and promise. "Good morning, Mrs. Madden." The sound of that title on his sleep-rough lips.
Family. The breakfast table bathed in sunlight. William's grudging approval, Maria's gentle warmth, Lucia's infectious laughter as she stole a strawberry from my plate. The feeling of belonging, of being pulled into the circle. A spontaneous family photo by the terrace, Maria's arm around my shoulders, Lucia making a silly face behind William's back, Adrian's hand a steady, possessive weight on my waist. Bonding. Laughter over spilled flour in the kitchen. Maria teaching me her recipes, her hands guiding mine. Lucia confessing her dreams in a late-night whisper, sisterly secrets passed between us.
Legally his. Poetically his. Wholly his.
The memories were a reel of golden light, of whispered futures and solid, growing love. They were my sanctuary.
But the cold of the alley seeped through the warmth of the memory. The golden light flickered, overlaid with the grey of concrete and the copper scent of my own blood.
The poetic promises… the shared dreams of libraries and wildflower weddings and children with his eyes…
The two fires—the one in my shoulder and the one consuming my world—merged into a single, annihilating blaze.
As the final shred of consciousness tore away, the last thing I carried into the dark wasn't the memory of his touch or the sound of his laughter.