The pain started before dawn.
A low throb in my chest that turned sharp when I tried to sit up.
I clutched my ribs, eyes wide open in the dark. My breaths came in short, stuttered gasps, like something heavy had wrapped around my lungs and squeezed.
Not again.
I dragged myself out of bed, fingers fumbling for the small bottle on the nightstand.
Empty.
Panic bloomed.
I tried the drawer.
Nothing.
I staggered to the bathroom, gripping the sink.
My reflection was terrifying…skin pale, lips blue-tinged, dark circles spreading like bruises.
I collapsed.
The hospital lights were too bright.
Sterile.
Loud with silence.
I blinked against it, reaching out for something…someone…but only found air and the metal of the gurney.
"She's hypotensive," someone said.
"BP's crashing."
"Her oxygen's dropping."
I faded again.
When I came to, I was in a hospital bed. Monitors beeped around me. My chest burned like someone had set it on fire and left.
I looked to my side.
Empty.
No husband.
No family.
Just a clipboard on the counter, and a nurse scribbling something into it.
"You're awake," she said softly, coming over. "We stabilized you. Your blood oxygen was dangerously low. We were minutes away from intubating."
"How long…" My voice cracked.
She helped me sip water.
"You collapsed at your home. Your driver brought you in. But you were alone. No emergency contact answered."
I froze.
"No one came?"
She shook her head. "We called your husband twice. He said… and I quote… 'I'm in surgery. She's used to pain.'"
My breath left me.
Tears didn't fall.
They wouldn't give him that.
I turned my face away.
The nurse hesitated, then touched my hand gently. "Do you want me to call someone else?"
I thought of Leon.
Of silence.
Of the war I hadn't even begun to fight.
"No," I whispered. "I'll get better. Alone."
She nodded and left the room.
And I laid there, barely breathing, counting the seconds on the monitor.
Not to feel alive.
But to remember how it felt when he didn't come.
The next morning, I asked for a mirror.
The nurse looked hesitant. "Are you sure?"
I nodded.
She handed it to me wordlessly.
I stared.
What I saw wasn't a woman…it was a warning.
Hair tangled, eyes bruised with fatigue, lips chapped, and skin nearly translucent under the fluorescent lights. My collarbones jutted like knives, and my IV line pulsed like a thread barely keeping me tethered.
I looked like someone no one would wait for.
Exactly the way he left me.
I placed the mirror aside.
"Can I discharge myself?" I asked.
The nurse blinked. "That's… not advised."
"I'm not asking for advice."
She didn't argue.
I signed the papers an hour later.
Walked out with trembling legs and a hospital blanket over my shoulders.
The driver looked shocked when I reached the car on my own.
"Madam…he didn't give orders to pick you…"
"Then pretend you didn't see me."
The villa looked the same.
Unmoved.
Unchanged.
As if I hadn't died quietly in a hospital bed without anyone noticing.
I walked in through the back door to avoid the staff.
The marble was cold under my bare feet.
Upstairs, I paused outside Alessandro's office.
He was on a call. I could hear his voice…low, sharp, focused.
"I need the contract revised by Monday. I don't care what they said in Geneva, I said Monday."
A beat.
Then laughter.
Laughter.
My fingernails dug into my palm.
I pushed the door open.
He looked up.
Paused.
"Shouldn't you be in a hospital bed?"
"I was."
He leaned back in the chair, studying me like a minor inconvenience. "And yet here you are. Back already. Dramatic as ever."
"You didn't come."
"I was working."
"You didn't even check."
He stood. "What would it have changed? You've always known pain, Anastasia. You don't need me to hold your hand through it."
Something snapped.
I took the hospital report from my bag and tossed it on his desk.
"Read it. That's what you left behind."
He didn't touch it.
Just stared at it like it might burn him.
"I'm still alive," I whispered. "But every day, that means less when I know you wouldn't notice if I wasn't."
I turned.
Walked out.
And this time…
He didn't stop me.
Again.
I slept on the couch that night.
Not because I had to.
Because I wanted him to see me..just once…broken in plain sight.
But he didn't come downstairs.
Didn't ask where I was.
Didn't call.
The only sound from upstairs was the slow creak of his pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth.
At 3:00 a.m., I coughed blood again.
This time, just a little.
I wiped it off the white blanket and whispered through clenched teeth, "This is the last time."
The last time I let him pretend I wasn't real.
The last time I'd beg him silently to notice.
The next day, Leon came by unannounced.
I opened the door, still in silk and slippers, eyes shadowed, lips pale.
He took one look at me and cursed under his breath. "He didn't even show?"
"Of course not."
Leon stepped in, gently touched my shoulder.
"You should've called."
"I'm tired of calling people who never answer."
He stared at me.
"What do you need?" he asked, voice low.
"A miracle," I replied.
He nodded slowly. "Then let me give you something close."
He handed me a small black envelope.
I opened it.
Inside was a list. Doctors. A clinic. A new trial. Overseas.
"Leave with me," he said. "We'll get you to someone who doesn't care about your name or your marriage or what he thinks of you. Just you."
My throat closed.
I looked up.
But Alessandro was at the top of the stairs.
Watching.
He hadn't made a sound.
His shirt was half-buttoned, hair a mess, eyes bloodshot like he hadn't slept at all.
He didn't speak.
Didn't move.
Leon turned.
"Didn't think you'd bother showing up," he muttered.
Alessandro didn't respond.
I held the envelope tighter.
"Thank you, Leon," I said softly. "But I think I'll stay."
Leon stared at me. "Why?"
"Because I haven't finished what I came here to do."
That night, I walked into Alessandro's room without knocking.
He looked up from his desk.
Our eyes met.
No hate. No heat. Just cold.
I placed a bottle of pills on his desk.
"My body is killing me slowly," I said. "And so are you."
Then I walked out.
And this time, he followed.
But I slammed the door in his face.
Let him feel what it's like to beg from the other side.