I only knew I couldn’t let Christian take me home.

The following morning, Gabriel returned alone.

I waited until the nurse left.

“Close the door.”

Gabriel froze.

“Genevieve?”

“Close it.”

He did.

I looked at him.

“I heard everything.”

His face went pale.

He sat down slowly.

“How much?”

“Enough.”

I asked whether he had known.

Gabriel stared at the floor.

“I knew Christian wanted something to happen that would stop the wedding without making him responsible publicly. His assistant called it a security disruption.”

“And you didn’t ask what that meant?”

He swallowed.

“Not enough.”

I didn’t argue.

“Get me out of here.”

He looked up.

“You’re not medically stable enough to go home.”

“I don’t want to go home.”

I pointed toward the IV beside me.

“Find me a doctor Christian doesn’t pay.”

Gabriel stared at me for several seconds.

Then he took out his phone.

By that afternoon, he had contacted Dr. Jocelyn Pratt, a reconstructive specialist affiliated with a treatment center near Cincinnati.

My parents were told privately.

Christian wasn’t.

The transfer was completed before his team understood what was happening.

I remember being wheeled through a service corridor under a plain gray blanket.

Gabriel walked beside the gurney.

Just before the ambulance doors closed, he handed me a small black USB drive.

“What’s this?”

“The conversation in your room.”

I stared at him.

Gabriel explained that he had started recording before entering because he wanted documentation of what Christian intended to do about the wedding.

He hadn’t expected Christian to admit anything else.

“There’s someone you need to meet,” he said. “Bridget Vance. Attorney. She’ll know what to do with this.”

I closed my fingers around the USB.

For the first time since the attack, I had something Christian couldn’t dismiss as medication, trauma, or confusion.

At the Cincinnati facility, Dr. Pratt examined me and explained what could be treated immediately and what would require later surgery.

Before leaving, she showed me an authorization form.

Christian’s name was listed as someone permitted to receive information about my treatment.

I picked up the pen.

My hand shook badly enough that the first line came out crooked.

I crossed his name out.

“My parents only.”

Dr. Pratt nodded.

That evening, Attorney Bridget Vance arrived.

We listened to Gabriel’s recording together.

Christian’s voice filled the small hospital room.

“This way nobody blames me.”

Then came Lawson.

The pregnancies.

Leo.

Sabrina.

When it ended, Bridget removed the USB and placed it inside an evidence envelope.

“Don’t confront Christian,” she said. “Don’t contact Lawson or Sabrina. We verify everything first.”

My phone started vibrating on the table.

Christian.

Eleven missed calls.

Then a message appeared.

Where are you?

Another followed.

We need to talk before people get the wrong idea.

I turned the phone facedown.

My wedding dress was somewhere back in Columbus.

My engagement ring was sitting in a hospital drawer.

And Christian Prescott, a man who had controlled almost every public detail of my life for years, had no idea where I was.

For the moment, that was enough.

The Message Christian Couldn’t Explain

Four days after I disappeared from Columbus, Bridget walked into my room carrying a thin folder.

“Lawson sent your medical records.”

I looked at her.

“And?”

“Some don’t match the pharmacy records.”

Medication entries had been altered. Several dates were inconsistent. There were also payments from Christian’s private business office to a consulting company connected to Dr. Lawson.

Then Gabriel found something simpler.

A deleted message recovered from Christian’s assistant’s account.

It had been sent two days before I was attacked.

The instructions were brief: make it look like an unstable fan, keep Christian away from the details, and make sure the wedding became impossible.

One line was worse.

Face is the point.

I handed the phone back to Bridget.

“Is that enough?”

“Enough to stop treating this as a theory.”

Investigators became involved.

Christian called that afternoon.

Bridget sat beside me while I answered.

“Genevieve, where are you?”

“Getting treatment.”

“I’ve been terrified.”

I waited.

Then I asked:

“Why did you want my face targeted?”

Silence.

“Gen, you’re taking powerful medication.”

“Did you send instructions to your assistant?”

His voice changed.

“Who gave you my private messages?”

I looked at Bridget.

She was writing every word down.

Christian lowered his voice.

“Whatever Gabriel told you, he’s protecting himself.”

“Goodbye, Christian.”

“Wait.”

I stopped.

“You know what my fans are like when they believe somebody is hurting me.”

Bridget’s pen stopped.

“I don’t want people turning against you,” Christian continued.