Chapter 9

I remained in a persistent vegetative state for a year and three months.

It was raining the day I woke up.

It took a long time for the blurred shapes around me to come into focus.

A man was slumped beside my bed.

He was painfully thin, with gray at his temples and deep hollows beneath his eyes. He looked like someone time had ground down to almost nothing.

It took me several seconds to recognize Nolan.

He was still clutching the two red hair ribbons.

I moved one finger.

His head snapped up.

The moment his eyes met mine, they filled with overwhelming emotion.

Then he began to cry.

The man who had never cried or apologized spent that entire day in tears, telling me he was sorry again and

again.

I felt nothing.

Later, I learned what Nolan had done during the year and three months I was unconscious.

He had resigned from every position he held, sold off most of his business empire, and brought in one of the best neurosurgical teams in the world.

He personally cared for me every day without exception, turning me over, bathing me, and massaging my

atrophied muscles.

None of it moved me anymore.

Rehabilitation was long and monotonous.

It took me three months to stand again and another two before I could walk normally.

My father came to see me on the first day I could stand steadily on my own.

His eyes were full of excitement, but none of it was for me.

“Audrey, you’re finally awake! You have to save Lila. Nolan has driven her into a corner. She’s your own

sister!”

I scoffed.

“Dad, did you ever have a DNA test done?”

He froze.

I pulled the report from beneath my pillow.

The result was unmistakable.

Lila Caldwell and Victor Caldwell-my father-were not biologically related.

My mother had ordered the test as soon as she discovered Lila existed, when Lila was six. She had initially planned to expose the result and humiliate my father.

Then she decided that would have been far too easy on him.

Revealing it now was the only way to make it truly hurt.

The precious daughter he had raised for twenty years wasn’t his.

How perfect was that?

My father took the report in disbelief.

He read it over and over, his mouth opening as though he wanted to speak, but no words came out.

His breathing faltered, and then he toppled backward.

The shock had triggered a stroke.

I watched him fall and called 911 without hesitation.

Keeping him alive was the best punishment I could give him.

The fact that I called quickly enough made it even better.

The doctors saved him, but he was left paralyzed on one side.

For the rest of his life, he would remain bedridden, silently reliving every happy memory of raising another

man’s daughter while unable to say a word.

What a perfect ending.

With Victor incapacitated, I took control of the Caldwell family business.

The transfer was completed within a week.

During the transition, Lila’s mother attempted to siphon off company assets amid the turmoil. The legal team

I had already put in place uncovered the evidence, and she was prosecuted for embezzlement.

She received a twelve-year sentence.

On the day Lila heard the news, she escaped from the care facility where she had been staying.

Somehow, she found out where I was.

She burst into my office holding a paring knife.

By the time she lunged, it was too late for me to move. Alarm flashed across my face.

Then someone stepped between us.

It was Nolan.

He took the knife meant for me.

His blood splashed across my face.

Security burst into the room a second later and restrained Lila.

She was convicted of attempted murder and joined her mother behind bars with a ten-year sentence.

Nolan’s wound wasn’t fatal, but I had him taken to the hospital.

Even while unconscious, he kept calling my name.

“Audrey. I need to see Audrey…”

I stood outside his hospital room but never went in.

The wounds he had left ran too deep. Even after they healed, they had left an ugly scar.