AUTHOR POV
The sun had barely touched the Philippine soil before the peace was shattered. As the group disembarked, a swarm of goons emerged from the shadows of the terminal, weapons drawn and eyes cold. The brothers and Section E moved instantly into a defensive wall, but the chaos was overwhelming.
The sounds of grunts, clashing metal, and heavy thuds filled the humid air. Keifer was a blur of tactical precision, taking down three men at once to keep the path clear for Jay Jay.
But in the midst of the fray, a heavy iron pipe swung from his blind side. The crack of the impact echoed—a sickening, hollow sound that made time stand still.
(Keifer's POV)
Everything went white. For a split second, I didn't even feel the pain, just a strange, warm wetness trailing down my forehead and into my eye, blurring my vision with.... red.
I tried to stay upright, my hand reaching for my sidearm, but my knees felt like they'd turned into sand.
Jay..., her name the only thing left in my fading consciousness. I have to... protect...
The ground rushed up to meet me. I felt someone scream my name, a voice full of raw, jagged terror, but the world was already spinning away into darkness. The last thing I felt was the iron scent of my own blood before the lights finally went out completely.
(Jay Jay's POV)
"KEIFER!"
I didn't care about the fight anymore. I didn't care about the goons or the brothers shouting for me to stay back. I dove for him, my hands catching his head before it hit the pavement. Blood—so much blood—was pouring from the gash on his temple, staining my hands and my dress.
"Keifer, look at me! Open your eyes!" I sobbed, pulling his heavy, limp body onto my lap. He was so pale, his usual strength gone, replaced by a terrifying stillness. "You can't do this! KEIFER ? You don't faint! Wake up, Please!"
AUTHOR POV
Angelo and Aries fought like demons to reach them, clearing a circle of safety around the fallen soldier and their sister. Angelo dropped to his knees, his face tight with a fear he never showed.
"He's lost too much blood, Jay," Angelo rasped, checking Keifer's pulse with trembling fingers. "Aries! Get the car! We're losing him!"
Section E formed a human shield, their faces grim and murderous as they held back the remaining attackers. Jay Jay didn't move, her tears mixing with the blood on Keifer's face as she rocked him back and forth.
"You're not allowed to leave me," she whispered into his ear, her voice a broken, desperate command. " I loved you. You stay, Keifer Watson. That is my final answer."
The sterile hospital hallway felt like a vacuum, sucking the air right out of Jay Jay's lungs.
She wasn't the bratty, stubborn Marshmallow or butterfly anymore, she was a shattered girl clinging to the only solid thing left.
AUTHOR POV
Jay Jay collapsed into Angelo's chest, her small hands fist-filling his tactical vest, shaking him with a strength born of pure desperation. Her sobs were jagged, echoing off the cold tiles as she soaked his shirt with her tears.
"Kuya, please!" she wailed, her voice cracking into a million pieces. "I can't live without him! Please make him wake up! Tell him he has to come back to me!"
Angelo, the man who could face down an army without blinking, felt his own heart break. He wrapped his massive arms around her, his jaw tight as he stared helplessly at the red "Surgery" light. For the first time in his life, his strength meant nothing. He couldn't fight a brain injury. He couldn't command Keifer's soul to return.
"I love him, Kuya... I can't see him like that. I need my keifer back," Jay Jay choked out, her body racked with violent hiccups.
He was just holding her, she thought through the haze of her grief. He was just whispering dirty things in my ear... he was just taking care of me... he can't leave me in this silence. He can't leave me empty.
AUTHOR POV
The doors finally creaked open. The doctor stepped out, his face a mask of professional sorrow. He didn't even get a chance to speak before Jay Jay lunged forward, her eyes wide and bloodshot, searching for a spark of hope.
"He's awake, isn't he?" she gasped, a tiny, fragile smile touching her lips. "Is He asking for Something?"
The doctor looked at Angelo, then back at the girl. "The patient is stable, but the trauma was localized in the memory centers. He has no recollection of his life, his service, or... or you. He's lost his memory completely."
The words hit Jay Jay like a physical blow to the chest. The "butterfly" died in that very second.
Her eyes went blank, her hands sliding off the doctor's coat. The world tilted, the white lights of the hospital spinning into a vortex of grey.
She didn't even scream. Her knees simply gave out, and before Angelo could catch her, she fainted dead away, hitting the floor in a heap of silk and Keifer's dried blood.
(Angelo's POV)
"JAY JAY!" I roared, diving to scoop her up. She was cold, her face as pale as a ghost's. My sister was broken, and the man she loved was a stranger.
I looked at Aries, whose eyes were filled with a rare, burning fury. "Get her into a room," Aries commanded, his voice shaking. "And then... I'm going to go talk to Keifer. I don't care if he's lost his head, he's not allowed to forget her."
The hospital room was suffocatingly quiet.
Keifer sat upright in his bed, his head wrapped in gauze, staring at the wall with eyes that were sharp but empty. In the bed beside him lay Jay Jay, still out cold, her face like marble.
AUTHOR POV
The door clicked open, and in stepped Sienna, Keifer's tactical assistant from the main headquarters. She had always hated how Jay Jay turned the "Beast" into a "cutie," and now, she saw her golden opportunity. She walked straight to Keifer's side, ignoring the unconscious girl.
"Keifer," she whispered, her voice sounding like honeyed poison. "You're finally awake."
(Keifer's POV)
I looked at the woman. I didn't remember her face, but her uniform felt familiar. "Who are you? And who is she?" I pointed a steady finger at the girl in the next bed.
Sienna keifer's secretary.
Sienna leaned in, her eyes glinting with jealousy. "I'm Sienna, your most trusted partner. And that girl? She's the reason you're in this bed, Keifer. Her name is Jay Jay. She's the daughter of a rival family... an enemy who has been obsessed with destroying your career, family, brothers...,you."
(Keifer's POV)
My jaw tightened. I looked at the girl. She looked so small, so fragile... but the woman said she was an enemy. "An enemy? Why was she with me?"
"She lured you into a trap," Sienna lied effortlessly, her hand resting on Keifer's arm.
"She used her beauty to distract you, to weaken you. That attack at the terminal? Her people did that. She wanted you dead so she could take over your sector. She's a manipulative brat who's been ruining your life for months."
AUTHOR POV
Keifer looked at Jay Jay. He didn't see the "butterfly" who had sobbed his name on the ship. He didn't see the girl who had stayed an extra day just to be in his arms. Through the haze of his amnesia and Sienna's lies, he only saw a threat.
"She tried to destroy me?" Keifer rasped, his voice turning cold and predatory—the voice of a soldier who had forgotten how to love.
"Yes," Sienna whispered. "She's dangerous, Keifer. Don't let her tears fool you when she wakes up. She'll pretend to love you, but it's all a script to finish the job."
(Jay Jay's POV)
My eyelashes flickered. The darkness was fading, replaced by the stinging smell of bleach. My head throbbed, but the first thought in my mind was him.
"Keifer..." I croaked, my voice a broken rasp. I slowly turned my head, my eyes landing on him. He was awake. He was looking at me. "Keifer, thank God... you're okay..."
I tried to reach for him, my heart overflowing with relief, but I froze.
Keifer wasn't looking at me with love. His eyes were like ice—hard, suspicious, and full of pure, unadulterated hate.
"Don't touch me," he commanded, his voice a whip-crack that made me flinch. "I know who you are,....you... whatever ...Jay Jay. I know what you tried to do to me."
(Jay Jay's POV)
I stopped, my hand trembling in mid-air. The "beast" was back, but he was hunting me.
"What... what are you saying, Keifer?" I sobbed, the pain in my chest worse than the faintness. "It's me. I'm your... I'm your Jay Jay."
"You're an enemy," he spat, looking at me with total disgust. "And I don't give second chances to people who try to destroy me. Get out."
AUTHOR POV
The recovery room felt like a tomb. The air was thick with the smell of antiseptic and the suffocating weight of Keifer's coldness.
Angelo was a wall of muscle beside Jay Jay, his arm wrapped tightly around her trembling shoulders, literally holding her upright because her legs—the same legs that had been draped over Keifer's shoulders only hours ago—were now completely useless.
(Keifer's POV)
I watched them enter. My brain catalogued as "assets," but the men behind them— who?? Yeah Angelo and Aries—felt like rival commanders. My gaze shifted to the girl. She was pale, her eyes hollow, leaning into the big man as if she were about to shatter.
"Who gave you clearance?" I asked, my voice like a serrated blade. I didn't look at her directly. Every time I did, a sharp, stabbing pain flared in my temple. "And take that girl with you. Sienna told me how she used her 'position' to compromise my security."
AUTHOR POV
Denzel stepped forward, his usual chaotic energy replaced by a grim, stunned silence. "Keifer, man... it's us. And that's Jay Jay. She's not a threat. She's your girlfriend. You've been obsessed with her for months."
(Keifer's POV)
"Girlfriend?" I let out a short, mocking bark of a laugh. I looked at Sienna, who was standing loyally by my bed. "She's an operative. A distraction sent to weaken the 'Beast' before the hit. Sienna said she's been playing me this whole time."
(Jay Jay's POV)
I was numb. I couldn't even feel my fingers. I was still wearing the clothes from the ship—the fabric still carried the faint, lingering scent of his cologne and our sweat. To him, I was a 'compromise.' To him, our night was just a 'trap.'
I tried to speak, but my throat was a desert. No sound came out. I just looked at him, searching for even a spark of the man who had groaned my name into my mouth while the ship rocked. But there was nothing.
Just ice.
(Angelo's POV)
I felt Jay Jay go limp against me. I looked at Keifer—the man I'd seen obsessed with my sister—and I wanted to tear his throat out.
"She's the girl you swore to protect, you gago," I growled, my voice a low, vibrating roar of fury. "She's your girlfriend. She's the only person who can make you smile, and you're looking at her like she's a target?"
(Keifer's POV)
"I don't smile," I snapped, my jaw clenching. I looked at Jay Jay, my eyes narrow and suspicious. "If she was my 'girlfriend,' then she failed her mission. Because right now, all I feel when I look at her is a headache and a need to get back to work. Get her out of my sight."
(Jay Jay's POV)
I didn't cry. I didn't have any tears left. I just looked at Sienna, who was smirking behind his shoulder, and then back at Keifer. He had "loosened" me, just like he promised, but he had done it by breaking my heart into a million jagged pieces.
I leaned my head against Angelo's shoulder and closed my eyes, the silence of the room more painful than any scream.
AUTHOR POV
The room plunged into a fresh wave of panic as Jay Jay's head rolled back, her body going completely lifeless in Angelo's arms. The "beautiful disaster" had finally broken under the weight of his icy gaze.
(Keifer's POV)
She fell.
She really fall. One second she was looking at me with those big, haunted eyes, and the next, she just... vanished into the big man's arms.
My brain is telling me to stay alert. Sienna is whispering in my ear that it's just another part of the act—a calculated move to make me feel guilty, to lure me back into the trap. But why does my heart feel like this? It's a sharp, jagged pressure in my chest, like someone is squeezing my lungs with barbed wire.
It's just her plan, I tell myself, my jaw clenching so hard it aches. She's an operative. She's trained for this.
But it doesn't look like a plan. As Angelo scoops her up, his face twisted in a mask of pure, brotherly agony, she looks so... small.
So pale.
There's no color left in her face, no "glow" JUST PALE.
Fuck my heart. Why is it beating so fast? Why do I want to jump out of this bed and push that man away from her? I don't even know her name—Jay Jay—but the sound of it feels like a song I forgot the lyrics to.
"Get her out!" I barked, my voice cracking more than I wanted it to. I needed her gone. I needed the pressure in my chest to stop.
"She's a distraction! Sienna, tell them to take her away!"
(Angelo's POV)
"If he breathes near her again, I'll kill him," I hissed to Aries as I carried her limp body toward the door. I didn't even look back at Keifer. He wasn't the man who loved my sister anymore. He was just a shell with a gun.
AUTHOR POV
As the door slammed shut, Keifer was left in the sudden, ringing silence of the room.
Sienna reached out to touch his shoulder, but he flinched away, his eyes fixed on the empty spot where Jay Jay had just been standing.
He was the Beast again, cold and lethal, but for the first time in his life, the Beast felt like it was grieving for something it couldn't remember.
The room was a tomb of clinical silence, broken only by the rhythmic clicking of my laptop. I kept my eyes glued to the screen, my jaw tight. Sienna had warned me: She's an operative. She's using your confusion against you. Don't look at her.
So I didn't. Even when Angelo finally stomped out to handle the goon leader, leaving a heavy, warning silence in his wake, I stayed focused on the mission logs.
But the static was getting louder. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the thin hospital sheet slide. It pooled onto the cold floor like a discarded skin. She was completely exposed now—not curled into a ball for warmth, but lying there vulnerable and stiff, her bare legs stretching out in that oversized black T-shirt.
My T-shirt??.
I checked the thermostat. 15°C. It was freezing. She'd been lying there like that for over an hour while I sat three feet away, ignoring her.
I heard a sound—a jagged, wet hitch of breath. I finally looked.
My heart felt like it was being squeezed by a cold fist. Her lips weren't pink anymore; they were a terrifying, ghostly blue. Even in her unconsciousness, she was shivering so violently that the metal bed frame was humming, a rhythmic clink-clink-clink of metal against metal. She didn't call my name. She didn't say a word. She just lay there, trapped in a silent, icy trauma. Tears were streaming from her closed eyelids, soaking into the pillow as she let out these tiny, broken sobs that sounded like a wounded animal.
It's an act, I told myself, my fingers digging into the keys. It's a physiological ruse.
But she didn't look like she was playing a game. She looked like she was fading away.
The shivering was so intense it looked painful, her small frame vibrating against the mattress.
The sight hit me like a physical blow to the chest. I stood up, my laptop nearly sliding off my lap. I walked to the edge of her bed, looking down at her. She was a beautiful, broken disaster. Her skin was marbled with the cold, her frame so small and fragile that the idea of her being a dangerous "enemy" felt like a lie I was telling myself.
I reached down and grabbed the sheet from the floor, but as I moved to cover her, I stopped. I touched her arm. She was like ice.
"Jay Jay?" I muttered. I shook her shoulder gently. "Hey. Wake up. You're freezing."
She didn't move. Her head just rolled to the side, a fresh sob escaping her blue lips. She wasn't waking up. She didn't reach for me or call for help,she just continued to shake in that hollow, terrifying silence.
Fuck my heart. Why am I trembling? If I don't remember her, why does seeing her like this make me feel like I'm the one who's dying? I don't know who she is, but I know I can't leave her like this.
I threw the sheet over her and then grabbed the heavy duvet from my own bed, piling it on top of her. I stayed there, my hand hovering over her blue lips, waiting—praying—for them to turn pink again. But the shivering didn't stop. The blankets weren't enough.