Page 53 of Billionaire’s Heartbreak

“You dropped something,” the woman behind me said.

I turned and saw my hair tie lying on the floor. I bent down to pick it up, and that was when I saw him again.

The man with the baseball cap was standing near the end of the aisle, watching me. He wasn’t pretending anymore. He had stopped hiding behind the shelves, and now he was walking toward me with quick, purposeful steps.

My stomach dropped.

I straightened, my shopping bag still half-open in my hand, just as he cut straight through the line, ignoring the complaints around him.

I barely had time to step back before he grabbed my wrist. His grip was hard enough to hurt, and before I could react, something cold pressed against my back.

“Don’t move,” he said quietly.

My entire body froze.

For a second, nobody seemed to understand what was happening. Then he raised the gun—not at me, but into the air—and the whole store went silent before exploding into chaos. Someone screamed. Someone dropped something. A child started crying.

I didn’t think. I swung the shopping bag straight into his face.

Glass shattered inside the bag as liquid splashed everywhere. He cursed and loosened his grip for half a second, and that was all I needed. I tore myself free and ran straight for the door.

I almost made it.

Hands grabbed me from both sides before I could reach the exit, one arm locking around my neck while another hooked around my waist. I kicked and twisted and screamed, fighting as hard as I could, but my body felt weak and slow, like it belonged to someone else.

The door burst open as they dragged me outside, and cold air hit my face. Before I could get my bearings, they shoved me into the back of a car.

The door slammed shut. The car started moving.

10

Kai

* * *

My phone buzzed again. Another update telling me my stress levels were high. I could feel it in my body—the restless tapping of my fingers against the desk.

The strange thing was, part of me missed it.

The stress. The constant need to watch over my shoulder, anticipate what might go wrong, and have multiple backup plans ready before a problem even occured.

That had been my life for as long as I could remember.

Last year had been different. Calm.

And boring.

My business. My family. Everything had been under control. Even my mother had been behaving herself, mostly because Lucy had somehow become the one person who could get through to her without turning every conversation into a war.

My life was quiet. Easy.

Even peaceful.

And then June came back.

Everything I had spent the past year building seemed to unravel within days. The pressure returned, along with the danger and uncertainty.

At least Lucy and Huan Huan were back in Shanghai, where I didn’t have to worry about them becoming another target.