Page 89 of Billionaire’s Ruin

“Pick a side, June.”

The phrase echoed once.

Then twice.

Then again and again until it stopped being words and turned into a buzzing, blinding noise inside my skull.

Pick a side.

Pick a side.

Pick a side.

A flash⁠—

White.

Burning.

A bang.

I jolted awake, lungs seizing.

My lungs clawed for air.

My chest rose and fell in violent, uneven jerks. The room was dark and silent, but the nightmare clung to me like wet cloth—heavy, suffocating.

Kai’s warmth still clung to my skin.

So did the smell of his blood.

The echo of him.

His ghost.

Tremors ran through my hands. I groped for my cell, the screen lighting up with a harsh glow that stabbed straight into my eyes.

2:35 a.m.

I hesitated for a second.

Then typed anyway:

Any update on Dannie? Please.

My thumb hesitated, then tapped send.

Nurse Anu hadn’t replied to my last message. She’d promised to keep me updated—to tell me the moment anything changed.

Instead, I’d gotten silence.

I told myself I hadn’t forgotten about Dannie.

But maybe I had.

Or maybe I’d shoved him into a dark corner of my mind just to survive the whiplash of everything happening around me. Letting thoughts of him sink beneath the monstrous weight of Kai.

The guilt twisted low in my stomach—thick, acidic, relentless.