I remembered Tristan’s praise as he wrapped my hands around Cole’s cock.That’s it, kitten, so fucking perfect, tighten your grip a little bit, see how he likes it?
The therapist nodded approvingly as the monitor showed my grip strength improving. “Good. Again.”
“Try to raise your arms over your head.”
I remembered kneeling for Alek in his office on the upper floor of the hockey arena, offering him coffee, feeling safe, my mind quiet for the first time in years.
“Deep breaths. Focus on your core.”
Cole’s utter confidence I could do anything.You can do this, sparrow,he’d whisper, whether it was acing a quiz or taking his cock.
I engaged muscles I hadn’t known existed then pulled myself up from the therapy mat while sweat plastered my hospital gown to my skin.
My men had never made me weak. They made me strong.
“Your recovery is remarkable,” Dr. Kouassi said one day as he flipped through my chart, his eyebrows raised in surprise.
Of course it was. I’d always been disciplined—I’d never had another fucking option.
Week two brought the new challenge of stairs. The physical therapist wanted me to use them. “Just one flight,” she said, hovering beside me like I might collapse at any moment.
I did two, legs trembling, but satisfaction burning brighter than the pain. Each step was a silent message to the men who’d abandoned me.See what I can do? I’m stronger than you think.
I returned to my room to find my father talking to a cardiac specialist in hushed tones.
“She’s pushing too hard,” the doctor said. “The heart is a muscle that needs rest to heal.”
What the doctors didn’t understand was that my heart wouldn’t heal until I got my men back and convinced them to stop making decisions for me and let me make my own.
“Your heart rate’s elevated,” Nurse Santos noted one evening during rounds, eyeing the monitor with suspicion.
I’d obsessively read every article online I could find about Carter Industries, including coverage of Jed Carter’s funeral. One photo showed Cole in a suit, his expression fierce and proud.
Another tab on my laptop showed Tristan’s stats with the hockey team, and gossip sites reported scouts courting him. He was getting everything he’d ever dreamed of.
And Alek? He’d quietly disappeared from the media, but I knew he wouldn’t stay hidden for long. It wasn’t in his nature. A quick search of sports websites showed that he’d been spending time in Boston with the owners of the Boston Anarchists.
They were all moving forward.
Without me.
Because they’d decided—without asking me, without giving me a choice—that I needed protection from them, that I needed freedom.
As if freedom meant anything without them.
By the time Christmas came and went, I was walking the hospital corridors without assistance. Nurses who had hovered now nodded as I passed, my pace steady and determined. The cardiac monitor my medical providers insisted on showed my heart’s growing endurance, my resting rate dropping as my strength returned.
“This is a textbook recovery,” one doctor remarked to new residents as they toured the cardiac wing. Fuck him. There wasnothingtextbook about my motivation.
Dr. Kouassi’s discharge orders included strict limitations on physical activity—no heavy lifting, no strenuous exercise, and absolutely no stress.
The holidays crawled past in a blur of follow-up appointments and rehabilitation exercises. Each day I got stronger. Each day, gifts arrived from three men who said they wanted to give me space—thoughtful, expensive, and always exactly what I needed. A new laptop for my studies. Workout gear for my recovery. Books to keep me occupied.
The first time I put the treadmill on an incline as I walked, my chest tightened in warning. I slowed but didn’t stop. By New Year’s, I could walk a mile. Not fast, not pretty, but continuous.
“Your cardiac function is nearly back to baseline,” my cardiologist said at my four-week follow-up, sounding faintly surprised. “Whatever you’re doing, keep it up.”
Oh, I would.