The girl from Juilliard had thrown another fit and vanished, and as always, it fell on me to clean up the pieces. To coax her back into Holden’s orbit, I did what I had spent ten years perfecting. I stood in the biting wind outside a bakery on Prince Street for three hours to secure the brioche loaf she had casually mentioned on her Instagram story. I called in old favors to get front-row seats at Madison Square Garden for the sold-out tour she couldn’t stop talking about. I arranged a private charter off the tip of Manhattan, timing the return down to the minute so a custom fireworks show would erupt over the harbor just as they toasted with vintage Krug. Finally, I tracked Holden down to his private lounge in Tribeca. I set the manila folder on the low marble table, right beside his half-empty tumbler of Scotch. Inside was a signed, notarized divorce agreement. “What a woman wants isn’t just flowers and grand gestures, Holden,” I said, my voice steady, stripped of whatever warmth used to live there. “She wants to know she’s the only one. This agreement is the security you owe her.” Holden leaned back into the tufted leather, flipping through the pages with careless fingers. “The financial distribution—any issues?” I shook my head faintly. “I’m walking away with nothing.” A slow smile curved his mouth. He leaned forward, catching my chin, and pressed a brief, affectionate kiss to my temple. It smelled faintly of expensive tobacco and another woman’s gardenia perfume. “Just asking,” he murmured against my hairline. “Once I get her smoothed over, I’ll take you down to the clerk’s office and pull the paperwork. You’ve always been the only one who handles things right. Consider this your bonus.” He flicked an unlimited Centurion black card across the marble toward me. “Let me conquer this little ice queen,” he added, his tone lighter than air. “Then I’ll come home. We’ll settle down, just the two of us, like we’re supposed to.” I picked up the heavy piece of metal, feeling its cool, synthetic weight against my calloused fingers. I forced the corners of my mouth to lift. “No rush. Her birthday is in two days. Make sure you take care of her.” Over the last decade, Holden had handed me countless black cards to soothe his conscience whenever he strayed. But all that money had never been enough to buy me a cure. At least this card would be enough to secure a quiet plot on the bluffs overlooking the Atlantic in Montauk. … The moment the words left my lips, a burst of laughter erupted from behind the velvet screen separating the private booth from the main lounge. I didn’t have to look to know who it was. Holden’s inner circle—a handful of second-generation trust fund heirs draped over plush sofas, their arms looped around cocktail waitresses. “Told you! She’s helping him woo her again. Wire me fifty grand, man!” “God, it’s sickening. Is June made of stone, or did she have her pride surgically removed?” “Hey, show some respect. That’s what high-society wives do. You couldn’t pull off that level of class if your life depended on it.” Someone scoffed into their drink. “Class? Playing wingman for your own husband’s side piece? That’s not class. That’s pathetic.” Holden’s affairs had been fodder for the tabloids for years. New York’s social registers treated our marriage like a spectator sport. Yet I never made a scene, never threw a glass, never hired a hit squad of divorce lawyers. Instead, I buried the scandals, bought out the paparazzi’s hard drives, and smoothed the ruffled feathers of the girls he discarded when he grew bored. To Manhattan, I was Holden Langford’s docile, pathetic lapdog. They ran betting pools on when I would finally snap. Win or lose, none of them had an ounce of respect for me. Holden didn’t bother looking back at the screen. He merely watched me, his eyes half-lidded. “Always thoughtful,” he said smoothly. “Do me a favor. Help me pick her birthday present.” His linen shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, exposing a collarbone mapped in dark, violent bruises—bites and scratches from the night before. He saw me glance at them and chuckled softly, without a shred of shame. “We were at the club in Meatpacking last night. Genevieve threw a tantrum because I let another girl sit at our table.” I dropped my gaze to the floor, my tone even. “If that’s the case, show her something permanent.” I reached into my handbag, pulled out a midnight-blue velvet box, and placed it in his palm. “Give her this. She’ll appreciate it.” Holden clicked it open. When he saw the pair of platinum bands inside, his dark brows lifted slightly. “Stunning. Where’d you get them?” A bitter, quiet ache bloomed behind my ribs. Ten years ago, just before our wedding, Holden had stayed up until dawn sketching ring designs on hotel stationery. He had made me choose one, promising it would be our tenth-anniversary band. I had chosen a delicate design: two interlocking bands, one hammered like a constellation of stars, the other curved like a slender silver moon. “Holding the moon in your sky,” he had whispered back then. Next month was our tenth anniversary. I had commissioned the jeweler three months ago. He had forgotten the sketch. He had forgotten the promise. And yesterday, my oncologist had bluntly told me I wouldn’t make it to next month anyway. Giving them to Genevieve felt fitting. An heirloom of a promise that had died before it could be kept. “An old designer friend made them,” I said quietly. “One of a kind. A girl as proud as Genevieve won’t care for something off the rack on Fifth Avenue. Wear them together. She’ll understand what you mean by it.” The air in the booth suddenly went dead. Behind the screen, someone drew in a sharp breath. “Jesus… I thought the rumors were exaggerated. Mrs. Langford really has no shame at all.” Holden stared down at the rings, his jaw ticking. When he looked up at me, his eyes had gone cold and dark. “June,” he said slowly, “how much pride are you willing to swallow for my family’s money?” I blinked, meeting his hard gaze. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” A muscle in his cheek twitched. He let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “I despise this saintly routine of yours. You’re addicted to the lifestyle, but you act like you’re doing penance for the world.” He snapped the velvet box shut and turned his face away. “Get out.” I didn’t say a word. I gathered my coat and stepped out into the quiet hall. Only after the heavy oak doors clicked shut behind me did I lean against the wallpapered wall and lift a trembling hand to wipe the cold sweat from my forehead. My knees felt hollow. The physical exhaustion had settled deep into my marrow; my body was failing, unraveling faster than the doctors had warned. I took a cab straight to the hospital. “I need a stronger dose of the targeted therapy,” I told Dr. Evans, my voice barely carrying across his mahogany desk. “Just enough to get me through the month.” The doctor looked at my latest blood panel, his expression heavy with that specific, helpless pity physicians reserve for the condemned. “June, your bone marrow is completely suppressed. The targeted drugs aren’t working anymore; they’re just poisoning what little liver function you have left. All I can give you now is morphine.” I took the brown paper bag of painkillers and went home. The lights in the foyer were on. Holden was sitting on the low sofa in the living room, stubbing out a cigarette into a crystal dish. The air was thick with gray smoke. “Where were you?” he asked, not looking up. I tucked the pharmacy bag behind my back. “Running errands.” “Tell me the truth.” I swallowed against the dry rasp in my throat. “The clinic.” His head snapped up. He stood, crossing the Persian rug toward me in long, measured strides. “Are you sick?” “Just cramps,” I lied. “Got some stronger ibuprofen.” He held out his hand. I hesitated. He didn’t drop his arm; his fingers remained curled, waiting, an unspoken demand. Slowly, reluctantly, I handed him the bag. He inspected the amber bottle, saw the generic painkiller label, and his shoulders relaxed slightly. “Didn’t Mrs. Higgins find that holistic specialist for you? You never went?” I slipped the bottle back into my coat. “Why are you home? Shouldn’t you be with Genevieve?” Holden slid his other hand from his trousers. Resting on his palm was a small, velvet-lined jeweler’s case containing a blush-pink diamond pendant. He had given it to me two years ago for my birthday. “I remembered Genevieve mentioned she loves fancy colored diamonds,” he said, entirely unbothered. “You never wear necklaces anyway. I’m giving it to her.” My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag until the leather bit into my palm. “Okay.” He turned toward the kitchen, calling out instinctively toward the hallway: “Maria, make sure Mrs. Langford has her bone broth and bird’s nest tonight.” I had grown up severely malnourished, a lingering consequence of my mother’s endless medical bills. Over the decade we were married, no matter how cold he became, no matter how many women passed through his penthouse suites, the expensive tonics and supplements had never stopped arriving at our table. It was a strange, haunting kind of cruelty. He kept me fed so I wouldn’t die, while slowly choking the life out of me in every other way. Too bad I wouldn’t be around to drink it much longer. … Over the next forty-eight hours, Holden didn’t return. He didn’t need to; Page Six and every digital tabloid kept me meticulously informed. The Jumbotron at the Garden had caught them kissing between sets. The fireworks in the harbor had bloomed into the shape of a massive, illuminated ‘G’. He had been photographed outside Bergdorf Goodman, patiently carrying an armful of designer bags while she walked ahead of him in oversized sunglasses. The latest headline, posted three hours ago, featured an exclusive photo set from a closed-off botanical conservatory in the Bronx. Under the glowing glass dome, with white roses imported from Ecuador cascading from the arches, Holden had gone down on one knee. His head was bowed with an almost religious devotion. Between his fingers, the velvet box held that custom constellation ring, catching the overhead spotlights like ice. The headline was vicious in its precision: “HOLDEN LANGFORD SHUTS DOWN CONSERVATORY TO PROPOSE TO JUILLIARD MUSE; WIFE JUNE NOWHERE TO BE SEEN AMID SECRET DIVORCE RUMORS.” I closed my laptop, put on a pair of dark glasses, and left the house. I took a hired car out toward the coast, meeting an estate planner at a cemetery perched on the rolling bluffs overlooking the ocean. It was quiet here. Just the crash of the Atlantic against the rocks, salt air, and grey granite. I picked a small, sunny plot near an old cedar tree and pulled out the black card Holden had given me to pay the deposit. The advisor ran it through the terminal. The machine let out a sharp, abrasive beep. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Langford,” the woman said, her voice dropping into a polite, cautious register. “The transaction is being declined. It says the line of credit is restricted.” The unlimited Centurion card—the one he claimed was my reward—had lasted less than three days. I reached into my wallet and pulled out a different card. “Try this one.” “Declined as well.” Every secondary account linked to the Langford family name had been frozen. My phone buzzed in my coat pocket. A text from Holden: “Genevieve wanted a clear boundary. I locked down the family accounts for the weekend so she feels secure. I’ll restore your access next week.” “Don’t worry. I’ve made up my mind. On our tenth anniversary, I’m cutting everyone else off. It’ll just be you and me from then on.” The advisor slid the cards back across the mahogany desk, her professional warmth evaporating into a tight, judgmental smirk. “Ma’am, if your financing isn’t in order, perhaps we shouldn’t waste each other’s time.” I tucked the dead plastic back into my purse, my cheeks burning. “I apologize for the inconvenience.” When I stepped out of the administrative building, the sky had turned the color of bruised iron. Within minutes, a torrential autumn rain broke over the bluffs. It was the final stretch of my life, and I was entirely drenched. The car service app showed no drivers available on the coast during the storm. My fingers trembling from the cold, I dialed Holden’s private number. It rang twice. He picked up, his voice muffled by the sound of laughter and background chatter. “I’m busy,” he snapped, and hung up before I could breathe his name. I lowered the phone, staring at the gray curtain of rain sweeping across the tombstones. I had no choice but to walk toward the highway. My heels were ruined within minutes, the patent leather grinding against my raw ankles until the skin split. I kicked them off, carrying them by the straps, my bare feet sinking into the freezing gravel, then the slick asphalt of the shoulder. A trail of faint, watery red followed my footsteps, washed clean by the downpour almost as quickly as it appeared. Ten years of devotion, washed away just like that. By the time I reached the main avenue and flagged down an off-duty yellow cab, my lips were blue. When the cab pulled up to the brownstone, the iron gates were open. Moving vans and delivery trucks lined the street. Holden stood in the courtyard under an oversized umbrella, directing two men in coveralls. “Take down those iron lanterns,” he was saying, gesturing toward the antique fixtures we had spent three weeks hunting down in Provence. “Genevieve thinks the rustic look is depressing. Replace them with minimalist sconces.” So that was what he was busy with. Tearing down the home we had built with our bare hands. The sound of the cab door closing made him turn. When his eyes landed on me—shivering, soaked to the bone, hair plastered to my skull—his forehead creased in irritation. “Where is your umbrella? Why didn’t you call me?” I didn’t answer. I stepped past him into the marble foyer, leaving a trail of crimson footprints behind me on the white stone. Holden followed me inside, his gaze dropping to the floor. His voice tightened with a sudden, sharp edge. “What happened to your feet? Where the hell were you?” He hurried to the hall closet, pulling down the first-aid kit. But before he could open the latch, the distinct sound of shattering glass echoed from the second floor. Holden froze. He dropped the gauze onto the console table and took the stairs two at a time. “Genevieve? Are you alright?” My chest seized. We had an unspoken rule—the only rule we had kept for a decade. He could sleep with whoever he wanted, take them wherever he liked, but he never brought them here. This house was supposed to be mine. A dull, thrumming numbness took over. I found a bottle of antiseptic under the sink, poured it over my torn soles, and gritted my teeth against the stinging fire. Another loud crash came from above. This time, it sounded like a vanity being overturned. I limped up the stairs. The master hallway was a disaster zone. My belongings had been dragged out of the bedroom and dumped onto the hardwood floor like garbage. Crystal perfume bottles were shattered, the air sickly sweet with rose and bergamot. My cashmere sweaters and vintage trench coats were kicked into corners, covered in grey dust from the renovation. I clenched my fists at my sides. “What is this?” Genevieve stood in the doorway of our bedroom, wrapped in an ivory silk slip that looked expensive and effortless. Her face was pale, sculpted, completely devoid of remorse. “Isn’t it obvious?” she said, her voice smooth and cold. “You need to make room. It’s a little desperate, don’t you think? Lingering in your ex-fiancé’s house after the papers are signed?” I didn’t look at her. I turned my eyes on Holden, who was standing behind her, his hand lightly resting on her waist. “You agreed to this?” His gaze shifted away, looking down the corridor rather than at me. “Genevieve wants to redecorate. She’s sensitive to energy. You can stay at the carriage house upstate for a few weeks.” I looked at him, my vision blurring around the edges. Ten years ago, in this exact hallway, before the paint had even dried, he had dropped to one knee on the bare subfloor. He hadn’t showered in twenty-four hours; his knuckles had been bruised from fighting his father’s board of directors. “Marry me, June,” he had begged, his voice cracking with emotion. “I swear to God, I’m going to build a fortress around you. Nobody will ever hurt you again.” I had believed him. I had thought love like that was impenetrable. And now, here we were. I dropped to my knees amidst the rubble, sorting through the broken glass to find my leather folio containing my passport and personal documents. I shoved them into my soaked tote bag. Holden cleared his throat, leaning down to whisper to Genevieve: “We’re doing this civilly. Let me walk her to the door.” Genevieve crossed her arms, her lips parting in a thin, razor-sharp smile. “Don’t forget to change the alarm codes before you come back up.” I didn’t wait for him. I turned and headed down the stairs, one agonizing step at a time. Holden caught up with me in the foyer, his voice dropping low, frantic. “June, listen to me. I’m not casting you out. She’s not going to be Mrs. Langford. You know that.” I kept moving toward the front door. “She’s temperamental,” he insisted, catching up to my shoulder. “Artists are like that. I just need to stroke her ego until she feels secure enough to sign the recording deal I set up for her. Once she’s settled, we go down to the city clerk and tear up the divorce papers. Then I bring you back.” He pressed a silver key into my palm. “Take the Hamptons estate for now. The staff is there.” I let the key drop. It clattered loudly against the marble. My vision swam; my blood pressure was bottoming out. I stumbled, my balance tipping sideways, but before I could hit the floor, Holden’s arm shot out, catching me by the bicep. He steadied me, but as his fingers sank into my arm, his brow furrowed deeply. “Why are you so light?” he muttered, looking down at the hollows beneath my collarbone. “What happened to you? Where are those supplements going?” My heart leaped into my throat. Panic, sudden and suffocating, flared in my chest. I shoved him away with the last ounce of strength I had. “Don’t touch me.” His expression darkened, the concern instantly curdling into irritation. “What is your problem?” “Nothing,” I said, gasping for air. “Ten years of playing the patient saint,” he sneered, his lip curling in disgust, “and the second I freeze your accounts for seventy-two hours, the claws come out? You really couldn’t keep up the charade, could you, June? You really are just after the money.” Something inside my chest didn’t just break—it disintegrated. Marrying me had cost him blood. His family had tried to disown him. The Upper East Side social circles had called me an opportunistic nobody, a predator preying on an emotionally vulnerable heir. His grandfather had ordered him beaten with a riding crop in the stable house until his back was raw, trying to force him into a merger with an oil dynasty. Through the blood and bruises, Holden had looked at me and grinned. “I don’t care what they call you,” he had told me. “You’re my wife. You’re not a grifter, and I will make them choke on their own words.” His family finally conceded. But on the night of our wedding reception, the hospital called. My mother had gone into acute respiratory failure. I ran from the hotel in my wedding dress, not stopping to leave a note. The surgeon met me in the hallway: her marrow transplant had failed, sepsis was setting in, and they needed a hundred thousand dollars immediately to clear the specialized life-support equipment. I dialed Holden’s phone with trembling, blood-stained fingers. When he picked up, his voice was tight with frantic rage. “Where are you?” I didn’t explain. I was sobbing, terrified, out of my mind with grief. “Holden, please. I need a hundred thousand dollars. Right now. Please wire it to the clinic.” Silence fell over the line. Cold, heavy, suffocating silence. “I told my entire family you weren’t after my name,” he had said, his voice dropping into a register I had never heard before—flat, ruined, bitter. “And this is what you do? You disappear on our wedding night to shake me down for cash? God, June. You really fooled me.” “Holden, wait, listen to me—” He disconnected. I called back twenty times. Straight to voicemail. My mother died at four in the morning, waiting for the machines that never turned on. I fainted on the linoleum outside her room. When I woke up, the lab results from my own routine physical were sitting on the nightstand. The doctors had found the same genetic markers. The same ticking clock. The same disease that had just swallowed my mother whole. I went back to our new townhouse the next morning and asked for a divorce. I didn’t want him to watch me die. I didn’t want to drag him into an eight-year grave. But Holden had looked at me through bloodshot eyes and laughed. “Realized you can’t squeeze a lump sum out of me, so you want to take half my estate in court?” he had snarled. “We are never getting divorced, June. You want my money? Fine. You’ll have it. But you’re going to suffer for every single dollar.” From that week on, there was always another girl. And I never blamed him. I knew the cruelty was born from what he thought was a betrayal. I used his money to quietly pay for maintenance chemo, clinging to life just to be near him, playing the dutiful wife who cleaned up his scandals, hoping that if I took enough punishment, he might one day hate me a little less. How stupid I had been. A cold gust of wind blew through the open front doors, stinging my wet eyes. I finally stopped fighting the lie I had spent a decade running from. “Fine,” I whispered, my voice barely audible over the wind. “If you need me to be a gold digger, Holden… then that’s what I am.” He flinched. For a fraction of a second, an expression of genuine bewilderment flashed across his face. I didn’t stay to watch it. I walked out into the courtyard. At the end of the stone path, waiting behind the wrought-iron gates, was an entire flock of reporters. Lenses caught the grey light; boom mics were already swinging over the hedges. They swarmed the moment my bare feet hit the sidewalk. “Mrs. Langford! Can you confirm you’ve been stripped of your marital assets?” “June! Are the rumors true that you were evicted this morning?” “Did you sign the non-disclosure agreement?” The flashes were blinding. I raised a hand to shield my eyes, my breath coming in shallow, wheezing gasps. Instinctively, I turned my head back toward the doorway. Holden strolled down the walkway, hands buried casually in his trousers, his expression cool, aristocratic, untouched. “Why are you wasting your time interviewing someone who no longer has any connection to the Langford estate?” he said smoothly to the press. “Genevieve and I are announcing our wedding date soon. Shouldn’t you be asking about that instead?” The crowd went dead silent for two beats before the frenzy shifted. The microphones swung toward him like a firing squad. “Mr. Langford! For years you defended her against allegations of fortune-hunting—are you officially confirming them now?” “When is the ceremony? Will it be at the cathedral?” I stood on the periphery, watching him perform. I remembered how, before we were married, he had paid off every gossip editor in the tri-state area just to keep my name out of the mud. I remembered how he whispered in my ear between affairs: “None of them matter, June. You’re my wife. When I’m done being angry, I’m coming back to you.” I had survived on those breadcrumbs for ten years. And now, at the very end of my rope, I realized the breadcrumbs had been poison all along. My legs felt like lead weights. I turned my back on the circus and began walking away. I didn’t make it five steps before heavy, frantic footsteps echoed behind me. “Crack.” The blow took me completely off guard. A palm struck the side of my face with enough force to send me sprawling onto the wet concrete. My hands scraped against the grit. I looked up, clutching my stinging cheek. Genevieve stood over me, her white slip spattered with street mud, her face twisted with theatrical outrage. “Did you really think you could steal from the Langfords on your way out the door, June?” I stared at her, dazed. “What are you talking about?” “Don’t play dumb.” She leaned down and violently yanked at my collar, her manicured nails snapping the delicate chain around my neck. “Give it back!” I lunged forward, pure instinct overriding the pain in my body. “Give it back! That’s my mother’s!” The chain was cheap. The gold plating had tarnished into a dull, blackened brass years ago. It had zero pawn value. But it was the only thing my mother had left behind when she died in that cold ICU. It was the only thing I was supposed to take into the dark with me. Genevieve stepped back delicately, lifting the tarnished pendant between two fingers for the cameras to see. “I saw this in Holden’s personal antique collection last week,” she said calmly, pitching her voice for the microphones. “And here it is, tucked under your sweater. You’re a thief.” Holden had taken it six months ago, promising to send it to a master restorer in Zurich to have the clasp repaired. He had thrown it into a desk drawer and forgotten it the moment Genevieve entered his life. I looked past her at Holden, my voice trembling violently. “Holden… tell her. You know whose that is.” Holden’s eyes flickered. He opened his mouth, his throat working. Genevieve cast a cool, sidelong glance at him. “Unless, of course, you’re saying I’m a liar, darling. In front of the entire press corps.” The reporters leaned in, sensing blood. If Holden contradicted her now, the morning headline would read: “Langford’s New Muse Caught Slandering Ex-Wife.” Holden went still. He looked down at me, his gaze hardening into stone. “June,” he said, each word measured and lethal, “you agreed to leave with nothing. Not a single thread from this house belongs to you.” The press erupted. “She’s caught red-handed!” “June, does this confirm your entire marriage was a financial con?” Flashbulbs popped in rapid, blinding succession. I backed up until my shoulders hit the wet brick of the perimeter wall. There was nowhere left to run. Genevieve eyed my damp trench coat, then looked back at Holden. “If she stole the necklace, who knows what else she stuffed in her pockets? To clear her name… maybe she should be searched right here.” The photographers surged, practically salivating at the prospect of the shot. I bit down on the inside of my cheek until the metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth. I stared at Holden. “Holden. Look at me.” He looked away, his jaw tight. “Just cooperate, June. Let security check your coat so we can end this.” Genevieve smiled and gave a slight nod to the two private security guards flanking the gate. Two sets of large, gloved hands seized my shoulders. “Get off me!” I fought, thrashing with every ounce of adrenaline left in my failing body. In the scuffle, someone’s fingers caught the lapel of my soaked silk blouse and yanked. Fabric tore with a sickening rip. My collar fell open, exposing my chest and shoulders to the grey afternoon light—and the cameras. The flashes illuminated my skin. Because of the experimental chemotherapy ports and the weekly platelet transfusions, my arms and torso were covered in dark, blooming hematomas. Yellow and purple bruises overlapped like dead leaves, punctuated by dozens of raised, red needle tracks along the veins of my forearms. To anyone who didn’t know the inside of an oncology ward, it looked like the grotesque wreckage of severe, illicit addiction. The garden fell into a horrified silence. “Jesus Christ…” a photographer whispered. “Look at her arms.” “The society wife… she’s completely strung out.” “Look at those tracks…” The shutter clicks became deafening. Humiliation, thick and suffocating, choked my throat. I pulled the torn pieces of my blouse together with shaking fingers, trying to hide the marks of the disease that was killing me. I looked at Genevieve, my voice trembling with a terrifying, ragged fury. “You have your show. You see I have nothing. Give me my mother’s necklace.” She walked over slowly, holding the tarnished gold out over the sidewalk. “Since it’s all a misunderstanding,” she murmured, “I apologize.” I reached out to take it. Just before my fingers brushed the metal, she tilted her wrist. The pendant dropped into the mud. Before I could bend down, she brought the pointed heel of her designer shoe down squarely onto the delicate gold locket, grinding it into the wet grit. “Oops,” she whispered, her eyes dancing with venom. “Slipped.” A wave of pure, unadulterated rage broke over my vision. I didn’t care about the cameras, the Langfords, or my own ruined body. I lunged forward, my hand raised to strike that smug, beautiful face. My fingers never reached her. Holden charged forward, his face dark with fury. “Don’t you touch her!” He slammed both hands into my chest to push me back. To him, it was just a shove—a reflex to protect his fragile new bride from a physical altercation on camera. To my frail, ninety-pound body, it was a wrecking ball. The force threw me backward off the curb, directly into the path of an oncoming delivery van navigating the rain-slicked street. Tires screeched against wet asphalt, but there wasn’t enough room. The front bumper struck my hip with a hollow, sickening crunch. I was tossed into the air like a broken kite, the gray New York skyline spinning wildly above me. Through the blur of falling rain, the last thing I saw was Holden’s face. The arrogance was gone, replaced by a sudden, horrifying void of pure, white terror as he sprinted toward the street, his mouth tearing open in a scream I couldn’t hear. “June!”
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