<h4>Chapter 74: Knife’s Edge.</h4>


    Eliana leaned in, her breath shallow, agony etching lines on her brow. "What happened three years ago? Tell me."


    Rafael let out a sharp breath, his usual strength flickering as old memories wed their way back.


    "Mirabel got to another caregiver," he said, bitterness roughening his voice. "Someone I trusted. Someone I... actually cared about. One day she drove me out, parked the car on a crowded highway, and popped the hood like nothing was wrong. ’Just checking the engine, Mr. Vexley,’ she said, all sweet and harmless. Then she walked away. Just left me there—blind, stranded—in the middle of a death trap."


    Eliana’s chest tightened. She could almost hear the roar of engines, feel the dizzying disorientation of sitting in pitch-ck while the world screamed past. "Rafael... you must have been terrified."


    He nodded, his eyes dark with the memory. "I waited, what felt like half an hour. I kept telling myself she’de back. I had a meeting I waste for, so I sat there, trying to keep calm. But she never came. Eventually I stumbled out, calling her name, reaching for anything solid. I wandered straight into the road. And then—bam. A car hit me. Sent me flying. Bones broken, body wrecked... and whatever little trust I had left? Gone."


    Eliana’s hand slid into his, squeezing gently. "But you lived through it."


    "Yeah. Barely," he muttered. Then, softer: "The driver... turned out to be one of the good ones. A good Samaritan in a world full of wolves. A stranger who didn’t just stop—the person carried me to the hospital, covered my bills without even leaving a name at first. The kind person wasn’t done there either. Theyter came back and pushed for me to see a specialist for my eyes. And that’s when I learned... medicine hade a long way since I was nine."


    His voice cracked with something close to wonder. "They ran test after test. Months of examinations, checkups, preparing me for the surgery. A yearter, it happened. I opened my eyes and—for the first time in years—I saw. Colors, faces, the whole damn world just... flooding back in a blur."


    Eliana’s eyes lit up with a mix of wonder and relief. "That’s miraculous. But... why keep pretending?"


    Rafael’s gaze intensified, pulling her into the depths of his steel-grey eyes. "That person—the one who saved me—heard my story. The endless attempts on my life, Mirabel’s shadow over everything. They helped me craft a n for justice. The core of it? Fake the blindness still, and add paralysis from the ’ident’ to sell it. Make her think her scheme almost worked, lure her into overconfidence."


    Eliana frowned, piecing it together. "How were you so sure it was Mirabel behind that caregiver?"


    "We tracked her down," Rafael said, his voice curling with a sly edge. "Me, my new friend, and James. Back then, James was nothing more than an ambitious employee at one of mypanies. After the ident, he showed up at the hospital—nervous, determined—practically begging to be my secretary. ’Let me protect you, sir,’ he said. Eyes wide, full of sincerity. I couldn’t understand it at first. Why would a stranger care so much?"


    He gave a small shrug, a half-smile tugging at his lips. "My friend ran a background check on him and to my surprise, it came out spotless. No hidden agenda, no skeletons waiting to jump out. So I let him in. And here’s the thing—I didn’t tell him I’d regained my sight, not right away. I watched him, measured him. And he surprised me. He wasn’t faking it, Eliana. He really wanted to shield me from the world. To this day, I still don’t know what fuels that kind of loyalty... but James has it. Loyal to a fault."


    Eliana couldn’t help but smile at the story, warmth flickering through the tension. "Yes. James does seem like a genuinely good man."


    Her smile faltered as the memory of Rafael’s earlier words resurfaced. She leaned in, her voice soft but weighted with dread. "And the caregiver?" she asked.


    "We tracked her down eventually," Rafael said, his tone sharp with remembered contempt. "She was holed up in some dingy motel, living like a rat in the walls. Pathetic, really. My friend’s men cornered her, pressed her for answers, and she spilled everything. Said Mirabel was behind it. Promised her money if she abandoned me like that. But the irony? Mirabel never even paid her. Used her and tossed her aside."


    Eliana’s breath caught, her stomach twisting in horror at the cruelty of it all. "Oh God..." she whispered, her voice trembling. Then, unable to stop herself, she asked, "Rafael... what did you do to her?"


    Rafael smirked, a dark, dangerous curve of his lips that sent a shiver down her spine. "Let’s just say she’s in a ce where she’ll never betray or harm anyone ever again."


    Eliana gulped, her throat dry, imagining shadowy fates—prison, perhaps, or worse. The room felt colder suddenly, the gravity of his world pressing in.


    In a swift motion, Rafael pulled her into his arms, his strong frame enveloping her slender one. She stiffened at first, then forced herself to rx against him, inhaling his scent. "I can’t disclose the full ns for Mirabel yet," he murmured into her hair, his breath warm on her skin. "But this pretense—blind and paralyzed—it’s getting me closer to my goal. Soon, it’ll all unravel."


    He shifted, climbing onto the bed with surprising grace for a man feigning disability, then he drew her into a cuddle again. His arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close against his chest. "I know you might not like me as much as I like you right now—or maybe not at all. I’ve been cold, sarcastic, a real bastard sometimes. But I promise, Eliana, I’ll change. I’ll be the man you can rely on, the one who deserves your trust."


    Eliana sat frozen, her mind spinning. The truth hit her like a blow—her own mother, the source of his torment, the architect of every scar he carried. She looked up at Rafael, and what she saw nearly broke her: the rawness in his eyes, the kind of vulnerability he rarely let anyone glimpse.


    Guilt mmed into her chest, heavy and merciless. It felt like she’d been the one to carve those wounds into him, like her bloodline itself was poison running through his veins.


    Still cradled in his arms, she couldn’t breathe past the weight of it. How could she tell him? How could she confess that the woman he hated most, the woman who had destroyed him piece by piece, was her mother? That his heart was opening to the daughter of his enemy?


    Her throat burned with words she couldn’t push out. Love tangled with dread, truth battling silence. All she could do was cling to him, caught in the fragile moment where their lives, their secrets, and their fates bnced on a knife’s edge.