Three days had passed, each dragging slower than the last. Each hour felt like a weight pressing down on Lucian's chest, heavier and more suffocating with each breath. Serena still hadn't stirred. Her face remained pale, almost ghostlike, as if her soul hovered somewhere between life and death, caught in limbo.
Lucian hadn't left her bedside much, only slipping away when he had no choice but to clean up. Even then, it took everything in him to walk out that door. His world had shrunk down to this one room, this one woman, and the rhythmic but quiet sound of her breathing.
He sat beside her now, his fingers barely brushing her wrist, feeling for her pulse, though he knew it was there. He'd checked a hundred times, maybe more. He'd never been this still in his life, not even when he made million-dollar decisions with a gun pointed to his head.
But this? This quiet agony of waiting and not knowing—it was slowly killing him.
