Chapter 2Here's to Your Forever… Without Me

"Elisa, are you sure you've thought this through?"

My father's brow furrowed as he looked over the share transfer agreement I'd pushed toward him.

"The Grants and our businesses are tied together too deeply. Pulling our investment out of Grant Group now will cost us at least thirty percent of the returns."

I picked up the black coffee in front of me and took a sip. The bitterness spread down my throat, but it cleared my head.

"Dad, keeping those shares will only cost us more in the long run."

My father sighed and signed his name. "As long as you've thought it through. I've always worried you'd get stuck on this and do something foolish over that scoundrel."

I smiled and tucked the documents into my bag. In my last life, I really had done every foolish thing imaginable, handing over the Rodneys' resources with both hands. All it had bought me was his endless torment and the ruin of my own family.

After leaving the office, I stopped by the apartment and packed up every one of Wade's belongings. Shirts, a razor, the few books he liked to flip through before bed. I packed them into a box, one by one.

When I pulled open the last drawer of the nightstand, my hand went still. Tucked at the back was a palm-sized wooden box, its clasp already loose. I lifted the lid.

Inside was a yellowed prescription, its edges worn soft from handling. The one he'd knelt outside an old herbalist's door for three days and three nights to obtain. On the back, Wade had written down the days, line after line.

[Dose one: Elisa's fingers can move again.]

[Dose thirty: Elisa held a spoon by herself today.]

[Dose seventy-three: Elisa drew a bird. It was ugly, but she smiled.]

The handwriting went from neat to increasingly hurried. Back then, he'd fed me the medicine himself every day, always keeping a piece of candy on hand in case I complained about the bitterness.

I smoothed the paper flat with my fingertips and closed the box again. The paintbrush pendant he'd had made for me had hung against my chest for five years. These things ought to go back to him too.

I set the box on top of the carton and had my assistant, Nick Mann, deliver it to Grant Group along with everything else.

Half an hour later, my phone rang. I answered it.

"Elisa, what tantrum are you throwing now?" Wade's voice came through, laced with impatience. "What's the meaning of packing up my things and dumping them on Nick?"

"Exactly what it sounds like," I answered while straightening my easel. "The marriage alliance is off. There's no reason for us to keep this unclear thing going between us. It isn't appropriate for your things to stay here."

The line went quiet for two seconds, followed by a cold laugh.

"Unclear? Elisa, do you think the more thoroughly you back off, the guiltier I'll feel?"

"Think whatever you like." I didn't argue.

"Don't think I don't know you've had people quietly digging into the kidnapping case from three years ago."

My breath caught. I really was digging into it. It wasn't until I was dying in my last life that I learned about the anonymous transfer from the Barrymores that had shown up in the kidnappers' account back then.

"That case was closed three years ago." His voice dropped low. "Why are you digging it back up now? Trying to pin it on someone?"

I didn't answer. The line went quiet again.

"Rose only came off her medication last month. I don't care who you're investigating. But if you touch her, I'll shut down every path your family has in Morrisey City."

Listening to him, I suddenly found it almost funny.

"Wade." I cut him off. "And if it turns out, in the end, the Barrymores were behind it?"

His breathing grew heavier through the phone. "Impossible."

"Then just wait and see."

I hung up without another word.

A cool breeze drifted in from the balcony. It turned out that not loving someone was so much easier than loving them.

But I'd underestimated just how ruthless Wade could be. He wouldn't let me leave quietly. What he wanted was to see me utterly destroyed.