Chapter 21
I never thought I’d live to see the day Adrian cried in front of me.
He was still kneeling, shaking his head as tears streamed down his face–like a man who had finally accepted defeat.
“Is there really no chance left for us?” he whispered.
There hasn’t been for a long time,” I replied calmly.
His head dropped. It was as if the words had punched the air out of him. I was just about to turn away when the door suddenly swung open.
Blake rushed in, crossed the room in seconds, and pulled me into his arms.
“Don’t say things like that,” he said, voice taut with emotion. “I’m not going to leave you alone. I’ll come back alive. Ill stay with you–always.”
I wasn’t surprised. I knew he had been standing outside, listening. That was just like him–always needing to be there the moment I might need him.
Hearing his words, warmth bloomed in my chest. I smiled, nodding. “Of course. You have to come back safe.”
Adrian stood off to the side, a bitter smile on his lips as he prepared to leave.
But in the very next second–a glint of cold steel sliced through the air.
It was a bullet.
“Watch out!” Adrian yelled, lunging toward me and shoving me out of the way.
I hadn’t even fully processed what was happening before he stepped between me and the shooter.
A series of muffled bang bang bang tore through the air. I watched–frozen–as the bullets ripped through Adrian’s body, blood exploding across my field of vision.
Time screeched to a halt.
Blake reacted instantly, shielding me with his body, pulling his gun and firing back toward the rooftop.
Security swarmed the scene, chasing after the hidden attackers, but they were quick and well–coordinated. Within moments, they vanished–leaving chaos and blood behind.
I dropped to the floor, trembling uncontrollably. Adrian lay in a growing pool of crimson, smiling faintly as blood trickled from the corners of his mouth.
“I… saved you again,” he rasped, barely breathing. “If there’s another life… I swear I won’t let you get hurt again.”
Blake knelt beside me, checking Adrian’s wounds. His expression darkened, grim.
“Vital organs,” he said quietly. “It’s fatal.”
He wasn’t wrong. The enemy’s shots were precise, ruthless–every bullet meant to kill. One would’ve been lethal. Adrian had taken seven or eight.
His organs were shattered. He wouldn’t survive even a few more minutes.
There was blood on my face, I could feel it drying against my skin, and I just… stared.
But Adrian was still smiling.
“When you gave me that capsule back then, I told you… one day I’d protect you.”
“I did it again, Evelyn. And if there’s a next life–I swear, I swear, I won’t let anything hurt you ever again.”
He reached up, hand trembling, as if to touch my face–but before he could, his arm fell limp.
Adrian was dead.
14.716
Mour He’s Begging
Chapter 21
Blake took my hand, clutching it tightly.
“Sweetheart, Tve already sent people to investigate. We’ll find out who did this,” he said.
I nodded numbly, unable to form words. My eyes were locked on the man who had just breathed his last
It felt unreal, like any second now I’d wake up back in that other life–old and gray, holding Adrian’s dying body in my arms again.
That time, there had been no Blake. No Amy. No one.
Just a world I never loved, in a story I never wanted.
