Ares dragged his attention back to the investigation report Xander had sent. A year-old car accident and a female victim. Nothing about it should have mattered—until he opened the photos.
The first image hit like a punch. A black sedan lay upside down a few meters away from the road, its roof crushed inward as if a giant fist had slammed it flat. The windshield had exploded into a spiderweb of glass, glittering under the harsh white glare of emergency lights. One door had been torn clean off, metal peeled back like a wound. Skid marks scorched the asphalt, long and frantic, ending in a violent smear of oil and blood. Ares could almost hear it—the screech of tires, the thunder of impact, the sudden, terrible silence that followed.
It claimed the lives of three at impact—Larissa's parents and the driver.
Then he saw the other vehicle.
A military truck, front end caved in, its reinforced bumper twisted at an unnatural angle. Debris clung to its wheels. The insignia on the side was partially obscured, but not enough. Something about the angle, the damage, the way the truck sat slightly askew—it stirred a memory Ares hadn't touched in a year.
His heartbeat rose.
Ares swiped through the remaining photos, faster now and more close-ups. His finger hovered over the image of a shattered side mirror—a dented hood. And then—his blood ran cold as his gaze landed on the driver's photo.
The man leaning against the military truck, face grim and pale beneath the flashing lights, was unmistakable—Asher, his younger brother.
His brother, who came back broken, with a leg injury so severe that it confined him to a wheelchair for six months.
The same brother who never spoke about the accident—only said it had been "a mission incident."
The same brother who had been sent overseas to be treated for psychological trauma because he had never gotten over the incident.
He was just promoted to second lieutenant and tasked with escorting the general back to the capital, but an accident happened, and his brother was never the same again.
Ares stared at the screen, the weight of realization crashing down on him.
What a stroke of fate, or was it just a coincidence?
So the woman that Shay found and called Mommy, was the victim of the car accident where his brother was the unfortunate driver.
Ares looked at the sleeping child thoughtfully, then, with steady strides, he exited the room and headed to the opposite end of the corridor.
...
The room at the very end of the corridor seemed to be out of place.
While the rest of Hope Hospital's executive floor gleamed with polished wood, pristine white walls, and quiet prestige, this room felt like an afterthought—smaller, stripped of luxury apart from a bed, a side table, and a sofa set that could seat ten people. It was crowded instead with machines that hummed softly in the dim. Tubes, monitors, and experimental apparatus occupied the space where comfort should have been.
Ares learned quickly why.
Larissa Reyes was a special case.
Her body had healed completely within six months—brain restored, bones mended, organs stabilized, scars faded into faint whispers against her fair skin. Yet she refused to wake. She was not unconscious in the usual sense. She was simply… asleep as if time itself had paused inside her.
And yet, even in that suspended state, she betrayed signs of life beyond stillness. Emotions flickered across her face—subtle furrows of her brow, the faint tremble of her lips—while the monitors at her bedside rose and fell in restless patterns. The machines recorded fear, relief, longing, and joy. Sometimes, when a certain presence lingered too close, her heartbeat changed—softened, then steadied—as if recognizing something her mind could not yet name.
It was as though she were living an entire life in her dreams, waiting for something—or someone—to reach her there.
Doctors from every department came and went, eager hands guided by sharper ambition, probing her condition — experimental medications, clinical trials, and endless evaluations. Larissa Reyes became a quiet fixture in their training—a living thesis, a convenient mystery.
A lab rat.
As compensation, the hospital had moved her to the executive floor and assigned a caretaker to tend to her hygiene, massaging her body to prevent muscle atrophy and washing her hair like a ritual apology that never quite erased the truth.
Ares wasn't a sentimental man. Sympathy had never been his weakness.
But something about a helpless orphan being dissected by ambition twisted something tight and ugly in his chest.
Anger followed him as he reached for the door.
When he stepped inside, he stopped short.
Larissa had just finished bathing. She wore a double-lapped patient gown printed with tiny blue and yellow flowers, the fabric hanging loosely from her thin frame. Her brown hair was still damp, strands clinging to her neck as she towel-dried it slowly, deliberately. Her arms looked too long for her body, made fragile by the sharpness of her bones.
She felt him before she saw him.
The air shifted.
Ares stood in the doorway, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a black suit so precise it looked intentional down to the last seam. Power clung to him effortlessly. He didn't have to announce himself—his presence did it for him.
Their eyes met.
For a brief, unsettling second, neither of them moved.
"Miss Larissa," Ares said at last, his voice low and controlled. "I apologize if I wasn't able to speak with you properly earlier."
Lara gestured calmly toward the couch.
He obeyed without realizing it.
She took the seat opposite him, back straight, chin lifted, and she sat composed and dignified. There was something regal in the way she carried herself, as if the hospital gown were silk and the seat was her throne.
Ares frowned inwardly and shook the thought away.
"What are your plans once you're discharged?" he asked.
Lara blinked.
Plans?
She searched her mind and found nothing but blank space. The doctor had mentioned that the family who brought her in would visit tomorrow, but they felt distant and unreal.
"I don't know," she said honestly.
Ares studied her face carefully, noting the calm in her eyes, the quiet intelligence beneath her frailty. She was beautiful in a way that didn't demand attention—subtle and restrained.
"Shay likes you very much," he said at last, breaking the silence. His voice was measured, but there was something careful beneath it, as though he were weighing each word before letting it fall. "If you don't already have plans… would you consider —"