Once, I Kissed the Moon Chapter 2

Dusk was settling as I left the hospital.

I drove in a daze, my mind a chaotic whirl. As I rounded a corner, an out-of-control truck suddenly barreled toward me.

I wrenched the steering wheel, but it was too late. The world spun violently, and then there was only the screech of metal and shattering glass.

I was pinned in the driver's seat, unable to move.

It didn't take a genius to figure it out. This was one of Adrian's rivals, coming for revenge.

My phone was smashed, useless.

Just then, a familiar black Maybach glided past the intersection.

It was Adrian's car.

"Adrian!" I screamed, my voice raw, struggling against the wreckage to catch his attention.

The car slowed for a heart-stopping second. My breath caught in my throat.

He saw me. He saw me!

But in the next instant, the Maybach accelerated, pulling away from the intersection without a hint of hesitation.

Through the window, I saw him raise a hand to shield Daisy’s eyes.

The strength to scream again vanished.

Daisy was in the car. He wouldn't stop. The violence, the blood, the mangled steel of a revenge hit… he couldn't bear for her to see it.

The last of my adrenaline faded, and my consciousness began to flicker.

When I opened my eyes again, I was staring at the stark white ceiling of a hospital room.

The door was ajar. I could hear one of Adrian's men speaking to him.

"Sir, what if Mrs. Winston saw Miss Miller in the car? If she starts digging, I don't think we can keep it from her."

I heard the hiss of a cigarette being extinguished, then crushed.

"You don't need to worry about that," Adrian's voice was cold. "Your only job is to protect Daisy."

"She's too clean for our world. She's not like us."

"Wendy… she plays dirty. Daisy is too innocent to stand a chance against her. If you have to, use her brother as leverage. The cripple is the only family she has left. She'll have no choice but to back down."

My fingers clenched the thin hospital sheet, my teeth sinking into the soft flesh of my cheek until I tasted blood.

The day he proposed, he had sworn to me, "I will always protect you, Wendy. I'll never let anyone hurt you."

The same vow of protection, the same words, but now they were for Daisy.

And I, the woman he once shielded with his own body, had become the dangerous, dirty schemer in his story.

Hearing footsteps approach, I closed my eyes, then slowly opened them as he entered.

"You're awake," he said, his tone business-like. "I had my men look into it. It was the Wang family's people."

He placed a document on my bedside table. "This is a settlement agreement. Sign it, and they've agreed to hand over the West Side territory."

He stood before me, our eyes meeting.

I was speechless.

My near-death experience had become a bargaining chip in his business.

An icy chill spread through my chest. "Adrian, when did you decide this?"

The moment you saw my car crash? Or the moment you knew the Wangs were coming for me?

His brow furrowed, annoyed by my probing.

I knew better than to press the issue. Forcing the truth would only hurt me.

As if to placate me, Adrian worked from my hospital room for the next two days. He was always wearing his earbuds, a small, familiar smile occasionally gracing his lips. He was talking to her.

While he was on a call with Daisy, I slid the divorce papers I'd had prepared in front of him.

I thought he would notice. It was so obvious.

But he didn't even glance at the header. He flipped to the last page and scrawled his signature, his eyes never leaving his laptop screen.

My hand trembled as I took the document back, staring at the still-wet ink of his name.

Suddenly, I was back in the moment we first met, ten years ago. He was being hunted by his enemies, lying bloody and broken under a derelict iron bridge. He was only eighteen, but his eyes burned with the ferocious light of a wounded lion cub. I was on my way to piano practice, but one look into those eyes, and my heart broke for him.

I turned and walked toward him.

One step, and I had plunged into the abyss.

Later, he took a bullet to the chest to protect me. He was in surgery for eighteen hours. That was the first time I understood that in his world, kindness and innocence were weaknesses that got you killed.

In ten years, I transformed from a girl who trembled at the sight of blood into Mrs. Winston, the woman who handled his dirty work without flinching.

I thought we had finally become equals, standing side-by-side.

But to him, I had just become one of them. Just as tainted.

I rubbed the calluses on my fingers, the ghosts of a thousand trigger pulls. I thought of Daisy at the piano.

And suddenly, it all felt so pointless.

The burning resentment, the gnawing injustice… it all dissolved into a vast, empty ache.

After I was discharged, Adrian used a "business trip" as an excuse to be gone for the entire one-month divorce cooling-off period.

But I never expected that I would be the one to see Daisy.