Author POV
A week has passed, and the hospital room has been replaced by the familiar but now haunting halls of the school. Keifer is back in his element, managing the company with a cold, surgical precision and attending Section E classes as if nothing ever happened. He no longer views Section E as his enemies, but to him, they are just classmates—tactical pieces on a board rather than the family they used to be.
Keifer's POV
I sat at my desk, the laptop open in front of me, finishing a set of quarterly reports before the lecture started. Section E was loud, as always, but I didn't mind. They weren't a threat. Ci.n and the others kept their distance, watching me with a mix of sadness and caution that I didn't care to decipher.
My head was clear, the bandages finally gone, leaving only a faint scar as a reminder of the "incident." Sienna was right,without the distractions, I was more efficient than ever. But every now and then, my hand would drift to my pocket, searching for something that wasn't there—a silk ribbon, or maybe a memory I couldn't quite grasp.
Then, the door opened.
Author's POV
Jay Jay appeared at the entrance of the classroom, looking like a fragile ghost of her former self. She was pale, her eyes red-rimmed from a week of relentless sobbing.
Angelo and Aries were right behind her, their presence a silent, protective wall. They didn't want her here, but she had been stubborn, insisting on seeing him in the one place where he felt most like himself.
Jay Jay's POV
I stopped at the doorway, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I felt sick.
I saw him.
He was sitting at his usual desk, looking so handsome and so distant that it felt like looking at a stranger through a thick sheet of glass.
I bit my lip, a jagged sob catching in my throat.
I wanted to run to him, to scream at him for forgetting the way he held me on the ship, but I remembered what the doctors—and my brothers—had warned.
"Don't try to make him remember," Aries had whispered to me this morning. "It triggers the pressure in his brain. It causes him pain, Jay. If you love him, stay silent."
So I stood there, clutching my bag, my knuckles white. I talk to Keiren and Keigan, who were watching him since his accident,and taking care of him . They didn't say a word s I say "i know you both want to talk to him about me but... please... don't, I don't want him to feel any kind of pain".
They were staying silent too, protecting their best brother from the agony of his own past.
Keifer's POV
I felt a shift in the room. I looked up and saw the girl from the hospital—Jay Jay. She was standing by the door, her shoulders shaking.
She looked like she was in a state of permanent collapse.
Our eyes met. For a split second, that same sharp, unexplainable pain flared in my temple, a dull throb that made me wince. I looked away quickly, focusing back on my laptop.
She's just a girl, I told myself. A beautiful, broken disaster that I'm supposed to ignore.
But as she walked past my desk to take her seat at the back, the scent of her—faint strawberry and salt—hit me like a physical blow. My fingers stilled on the keys.
Jay Jay's POV
I sat down, hiding my face behind my hair so he wouldn't see the fresh tears. Angelo squeezed my hand one last time before he and Aries stepped out of the room, leaving me alone in the den of the Beast who no longer knew my name.
I'm right here, Keifer, my heart screaming into the silence. I'm right here, and I'll wait for you to find your way back, even if it breaks me.
I love you until the universe goes dry.
At office
Jay Jay's POV
I sat at the largest table, my hands trembling as I spread out my notes. Keifer sat opposite me, his presence cold and clinical. He didn't look at me. He looked through me, as if I were a ghost he was trying to exorcise.
Sienna had been busy this past week, poisoning his brain. I knew it. Every time Keifer looked at me, there wasn't just confusion anymore—there was a hard, sharp edge of hate. She had poisoned his blank mind with lies, telling him I was the one who leaked his coordinates, that I was the reason he was bleeding on that pavement.
"Let's make this quick," Keifer said, his voice flat and professional, cutting through my thoughts. "I've reviewed the initial assets. Your family's data is inconsistent. I don't trust your numbers."
Keifer's POV
I looked at the girl—Jay Jay. Every time she looked at me with those watery eyes, my head throbbed. Sienna was right, she was using her vulnerability as a weapon. She was a liability to the company and a threat to my focus.
"The merger will only go through if I have total control over your sector's logistics," I said, leaning forward. I wanted to see her flinch. I wanted to see the "enemy" break character. "I know how your family operates. I know about the 'distractions' you use to compromise partners. It won't work on me."
Jay Jay's POV
"It's not a distraction, Keifer," I whispered, my voice breaking. I looked him in the eye, trying to find even a spark of the man who had groaned 'just feel, butterfly' into my ear. "The numbers are real. I'm real."
"Don't call me that," he snapped, his jaw clenching. "Don't use that tone with me. Sienna warned me about your little 'acts.' You're a manipulator, Jay Jay. You nearly destroyed my career once. I'm not letting you do it again."
I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. He hated me. The man who had worshipped every inch of my body now looked at me like I was a criminal. I wanted to scream, to show him the marks he'd left that were only just starting to fade, but I remained silent.
Keifer's POV
She looked like she was about to explode from shyness or sorrow, but I didn't care. I opened my laptop, pulling up the contract draft. "Sign the NDAs. From now on, we speak only of the merger. If you try to bring up... personal fabrications again, I'll have you removed from the project."
My heart did a strange, violent thump against my ribs as she reached for the pen. Her fingers brushed mine for a split second—a tiny, electric spark—and for a heartbeat, I saw a flash of a white silk sheet and the scent of salt spray.
I yanked my hand away as if I'd been burned. "Stay on your side of the table," I growled.
Jay Jay's POV
I pulled my hand back, a fresh tear falling onto the contract. He didn't remember the spark. He only felt the hate.
Fine, a spark of my old stubbornness flickering through the pain. Hate me, Keifer. But I'm not going anywhere. I'll make you remember, even if I have to be your rival to do it.
AUTHOR POV
The air in the private study room was icy. Keifer sat across from Jay Jay, his eyes devoid of any warmth, replaced by a cold, murderous intent. He looked like he wanted to reach across the table and wrap his hands around her throat rather than discuss business.
Keifer's POV
My phone buzzed on the table. It was a message from Sienna. I opened it, and my vision went red. It was a photo of the girl sitting in front of me—a close-up of her neck and shoulder. She was covered in dark, possessive hickeys. Deep purple marks that screamed of a long, heated night.
Sienna's text followed: Look at your "innocent" partner, Keifer. While you were in the hospital, she was with another man, probably the one who helped her set you up. She belongs to the enemy.
I looked up at Jay Jay. The hate I felt was so sharp it was physical. She was sitting there looking pale and fragile, pretending to be heartbroken over "us," while carrying the marks of someone else on her skin. I wanted to destroy her. I wanted to make her feel the same betrayal I felt every time my head throbbed with her name.
"You're disgusting," I spat, the words hitting her like a slap.
Jay Jay's POV
I flinched, my eyes wide with shock. "Keifer? What... what did I do?"
"Don't play dumb!" he roared, slamming his phone onto the table so I could see the screen. I saw the photo. It was me, taken from the back when I was changing in the locker room. The marks were clear—the deep, dark hickeys Keifer had left on my neck and cleavage during our night on the island and ship.
My heart stopped. Those were his marks. He was the one who had bitten me, the one who had sucked my skin until I sobbed his name. And now, he was looking at them with a look of pure, unadulterated disgust.
"Sienna says you were with another man while I was fighting for my life," Keifer hissed, leaning over the table, his face inches from mine. "She says you're a toy for the rival family. Because you've been busy while I was in hospital ,and pretend like you're broken..wow?"the bitterly laugh skip from my lungs.
Jay Jay's POV
The pain in my chest was so intense I couldn't breathe. I wanted to scream that it was him. I wanted to rip my shirt open and show him every mark he'd left on my waist and thighs, to tell him that no one else had ever touched me.
But I remembered the doctor's warning: If you force the memory, you might kill him.
"It's not... it's not what you think," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I haven't been with anyone else. I swear."
Keifer's POV
"Liar!" I reached out, my hand gripping her chin, forcing her to look at me. I could kill her right now. I could snap her neck for making me feel this strange, agonizing pull toward her while she carries another man's brand. "You're an operative and a mistake. I don't know what we were before, but from now on, you're nothing to me but a target. If I see you near me again after this project, I won't hesitate to pull the trigger."
I shoved her away, the touch of her skin feeling like a burn.
Jay Jay's POV
I sat there, my chin stinging from his grip, watching the man I loved walk out of the room with a heart full of hate for his own work.
Sienna had turned his love into poison.
I looked at the photo on the table—the marks of him .He hated the very thing that proved he belonged to me.
At night.
The night air was cool, but the liquid fire in the bottle was the only thing Jay Jay could feel. She sat on the edge of her balcony, her legs dangling over the side, staring at the moon. The silver light caught the stray tears that wouldn't stop falling. Beside her sat three empty bottles.
Honey's POV
I had been watching her from the doorway for twenty minutes. Jay Jay didn't drink—not like this. I walked over and firmly snatched the glass from her hand.
"That's enough, Jay," I said, my voice soft but unyielding. "You're going to fall off this balcony, and Angelo will kill me before the ground does."
Jay Jay's POV
I didn't even fight her for the glass. I just looked at her, my vision blurry and my heart feeling like a hollowed-out cave. "He hates me, Honey," I whispered, my voice sounding like broken glass. "He looked at me... and he called me a mistake."
Honey's POV
My blood turned to ice. I sat down next to her, pulling her small, shivering frame into my chest.
"He said what? Keifer doesn't even know his own name, Jay. He's listening to Sienna's lies."
"He saw them," Jay Jay sobbed, her head falling onto my shoulder. She reached up with a shaky hand, pulling the collar of her shirt down to reveal the fading, purple marks on her neck. "Sienna sent him a picture of these. She told him I got them from another man while he was in the hospital."
Jay Jay's POV
I looked back at the moon, a jagged, drunk laugh escaping me. "He looked at his own marks—the marks he gave me on the ship while he was groaning my name—and he told me I was disgusting. He said I was...
because I've been busy with rivals."
I gripped Honey's arm, my knuckles white.
"He doesn't know, Honey. No one knows what we did except you. To the world, I'm just a girl with a hickey from a stranger. But to me... it's all I have left of him. And he wants to kill me for it."
Honey's POV
I felt a tear of my own slip down. I was the only one who knew the truth—the only one who knew that those marks were the brand of the "keifer" claiming his Queen.
"He called me a insult, Honey," Jay Jay whispered, her voice trailing off as her eyes closed, the alcohol finally winning. "My Keifer... he thinks I'm a stranger's toy."
Author's POV
Honey held her tight, watching the moon and feeling a burning rage toward the man in the hospital wing. Keifer Watson was a genius CEO, but right now, he was the world's biggest fool. He was hunting the only person who carried his soul on her skin.
"Don't worry, Jay," Honey whispered into the dark. "He'll remember. And when he does, he's going to spend the rest of his life begging for your forgiveness."