She pressed a hand to her head. It came away slick and glistening. In the fading light, she saw Chad’s face above her—not angry, now, but cold. Calculating.

"You can’t keep doing this," he said, voice distant, muffled. "You’re mine. You belong to me."

She tried to form a retort, but her jaw wouldn’t move the way she wanted. Her vision buckled, folding in on itself like a ruined dress. Serena’s body slumped to the floor, knees catching under her as her head sagged forward. The world narrowed to a tunnel, then to a pinprick, then nothing at all.

The last thing she saw was Chad’s shoes, perfectly polished, framed by a sunbeam and a spatter of her own blood.

Hours later.

White light—searing and absolute—was the first thing she knew. Not the kind that bled through curtains in the morning, but a harsh, clinical purity that banished all shadow. Serena blinked against it, eyes watering, unable to tell if she was floating or falling.

The ceiling stretched above her, an endless grid of immaculate tiles. She turned her head—slowly, so as not to dislodge the ache thudding behind her left temple—and stared at the sharp lines of the hospital room. Not just any hospital: the sort with windows bigger than some bedrooms, the glass so clean it gave back her face in unsettling high-definition. Pristine sheets, pressed and tucked. Walls a polite, anonymous gray. Medical equipment nested at her side, humming quietly, a constellation of blinking lights.

She reached up. Fingers grazed coarse gauze taped above her eyebrow, then traced a fresh, burning scar beneath it. She pressed gently; the world tilted and threatened to spiral, so she dropped her hand and focused on her breathing. She did not know how she’d gotten here. Or, for that matter, where “here” was, or what was supposed to happen next.

Footsteps approached—soft, measured, expensive. A shadow flickered at the edge of her vision. Serena twisted, tension spiking, and saw a man seated by the bedside. His suit was charcoal, crisp and unyielding, and his blond hair was styled so immaculately it could’ve been carved from wax. He watched her with pale, appraising eyes. A newspaper lay folded in his lap; his phone, facedown, on the table beside him.

“Welcome back,” he said, voice low and intimate, as if she’d always belonged to this place.

Serena’s lips moved, but sound refused to follow. She tried again, summoning moisture to her mouth. “Where am I?” Her voice was ragged, smaller than she remembered.

A flicker of something—relief? amusement?—crossed his face. “You’re in London. Private ward. Harley Street, of course. You gave us quite a scare, Lana.”

Lana. The name skittered across her skin like static. It felt wrong, but she was in no position to argue.

She probed her mind for details, but it was like combing a beach at low tide: the occasional relic, but mostly blank expanse. She remembered bright lights, a stage, maybe—a vague image of herself walking down a runway in some engineered state of grace. A flash of cameras, applause muffled as if underwater. Nothing before. Nothing after.

“Lana,” he said again, softer now, “you’ve been unconscious for almost a day. I was beginning to think—” He stopped himself, shifting in the chair, and smoothed the line of his tie with practiced fingers. “They say you suffered a… temporary disruption. The doctors think it’s concussion. Retrograde amnesia. It should pass, given time.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but all that came out was a whimper.