Chapter 10
Hurried footsteps echoed down the hospital corridor.
Adrian Graham had just seen Liana Langston off on a shuttle to the hospital
when the nurse’s station called–Zoe Young was acting up again.
Ever since the “miscarriage scare“, she’d clung to him like a barnacle, breaking into sobs the moment he left her side.
Once, he’d stepped into the bathroom for just five minutes and returned to find her with a bloodied forehead, blood covering half her face.
The memory made him almost break into a
run.
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In the room, Zoe Young was yanking at her IV line, blood beading from where the needle tore at her skin, staining the white bedsheet.
“Landon!” she screamed hoarsely. “Were you with her again?!”
“I’m right here.” Adrian grabbed her thrashing hands, wincing as her nails scraped over the still–healing burns beneath the gauze.
She clung to him like a drowning woman, tears mixing with foundation to leave dark, muddy streaks across his uniform. “They’re saying… you and Liana Langston are running away together…”
She knew this feeling too well–the terror of abandonment. At twelve, she’d watched her mother jump from the top floor, clutching her father’s love letters to another woman.
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“Don’t talk nonsense.” Adrian patted her back stiffly, his eyes, however, drifted out the window-
A shuttle to the hospital was disappearing into the morning mist.
Landon Graham had always treated her well -pulling her out of the hellhole that was the Young family, buying her the trendiest shirts. Even the hospital nurses envied the brand watch on her wrist.
And since he’d returned from the front lines, he couldn’t keep his hands off her, as if trying to make up for lost time in every feverish night.
She’d grown used to being spoiled. She couldn’t live without him now.
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So when the nurse said, “Captain Graham escorted Dr. Langston to the station“, she had smashed the medicine bowl in rage.
Three hours.
Plenty of time for those two to do God knows what in the inn!
Until the door burst open, her pounding heart finally settled.
“The car broke down.” Adrian panted, soaked to the bone, his uniform dripping with sweat. “I didn’t want you to worry, so I ran two kilometers…”
Zoe Young reached up to wipe his sweat with tenderness, though her nails unconsciously dug into his arm. “But Liana is there all alone… and lately, there’s been those gangs-”
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Her voice grew lower, curling like a frightened rabbit into his arms, even as she listened intently for his reaction.
Adrian Graham visibly stiffened.
Outside, a long, low car horn suddenly echoed through the mist like a final farewell.
Zoe’s lips spoke of worry, but her eyes gleamed with something darker.
If only something happened to that bitch–if only she never came back!
Adrian’s muscles clearly tensed–then slowly eased again. He gently patted her back to comfort her. “She’s in her twenties. What could possibly happen?”
He thought about the past three years-
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how Liana Langston had taken care of the household on her own, looked after his
parents, even carried heavy things up to the third floor by herself.
She was just heading to the hospital dorms. Nothing would happen.
Besides, he’d already called the Langston family to pick her up at the station.
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