Page 61 of Billionaire’s Heartbreak

I reached for her.

I gasped and jolted upright in bed, air rushing into my lungs so violently my chest hurt. For a few seconds, I couldn’t remember where I was.

I’d known it was a dream while I was in it. I knew I was dreaming, but I could never wake myself up.

I was forced to stay. Forced to watch. Forced to feel everything, like I didn’t belong to my own body.

I turned toward the white digital clock beside the bed.

8:27 A.M.

Ten hours.

I must have slept for at least ten hours. I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

The last thing I remembered was sitting in bed, reading everything I could find about triads: Wikipedia pages, old articles, online forums. Anything.

Because no one here would tell me anything. Not Kai. Not his people.

Without Squirrel, contacts, or any real access to what was happening on the ground, the internet was all I had. Fragments of information. Old structures. Outdated articles. Rumours written by people who probably knew even less than I did.

Nothing that mentioned Dannie.

Of course not. Why would it? He’d spent most of his life trying to erase that part of himself. He’d wanted to go legitimate. Build something clean. Something better.

I didn’t even remember falling asleep. I hadn’t slept properly in weeks, maybe months. Dannie used to get up for Maru every night, even when he shouldn’t have, even when he was sick. I woke at every sound she made—the little cries, the restless movements. My body never truly rested.

Maybe that was why I’d slept so deeply. Maybe it was yesterday—the fear, the adrenaline, the crash afterward. Or maybe it was this place. For the first time in months, I hadn’t been listening for a baby crying in the next room.

I yawned, and the urge to go back to sleep scared me more than anything. I couldn’t afford to, not now. Not when Dannie’s life, his people, and everything he’d spent years building were falling apart around him.

Somewhere deep inside, I knew the truth I didn’t want to admit: the only way forward was to work with Kai.

Not trust him. Not forgive him. Not forget everything he’d done. Just work with him.

For now, that would have to be enough.

I pushed the blankets aside and sat on the edge of the bed. Hong Kong pulsed beneath the glass—restless, impatient, alive. Cars streamed through the streets, horns sounded somewhere below, and the city carried on as if my entire world hadn’t been turned upside down.

I closed my eyes and forced myself to reset. Think clearly. Figure out what came next.

The kidnapping was scary. Fake or not, my body didn’t know the difference. My hands still remembered the ropes, my wrists the pressure, my lungs the panic. If anything, knowing it had been staged made it worse, because it had been real for them. For Lincoln. For Kai. For Dannie.

I’d only tasted it, and already I felt like I was breaking.

“I can’t let this keep happening,” I muttered. Not to me. Not to them. Not to Maru.

I turned on the tap and splashed water onto my face. Once. Twice. It did nothing. Back in the States, the water had been freezing, sharp enough to jolt me awake. Here, it was room temperature, leaving my thoughts slow and heavy.

I lifted my head and stared at my reflection. Pale. Tired. Eyes dull from too many sleepless nights.

Then I saw my wrist.

A raw pink line cut across my skin. The memory returned instantly—the grip, the restraint, the helplessness. My stomach twisted.

What if that had been Maru?

I gripped the edge of the sink, pressing my hands together to stop the tremor, but it didn’t work.