I failed my mother and sister, Returned as a Billionaire

Chapter 3

Kevin stood frozen in the middle of the sidewalk with his mouth half open and nothing coming out of it. The most powerful woman in the city had just asked him when they were getting married, and his brain was still three steps behind his ears.

She stepped closer, and before he could think, her body was warm against his chest, her arms reaching around him like they had done this a thousand times in some life he had not lived yet. The jasmine scent of her filled his nose, and for one stupid, impossible second, his hands almost moved on their own.

He caught himself. He took her gently by the shoulders and eased her back, keeping his grip careful, the way a man handles something expensive he is afraid of breaking.

"What the hell are you doing?" He moved away from her. "Who are you?"

"Elena Cross." She was smiling up at him like his confusion was the most charming thing she had seen all week. "And you are wearing my proof right there on your hand."

Kevin looked down at the silver ring on his finger. He had worn it so long it had become invisible to him, the same way a man stops noticing the sound of his own heartbeat. His master had put it on his hand the day before the old man vanished from the prison like smoke through a keyhole.

"Your grandfather," Kevin started slowly.

"Was dying on a roadside in Fujian province nineteen years ago," Elena finished for him. "Your master carried him eleven miles through the rain to a hospital that had already closed for the night. He broke down the door…And thanks to him that my grandfather lived. So, our family has owed that debt every single day since."

So that was the old man's surprise.

Kevin looked at her, really looked, and he would have been lying to himself if he pretended she was not the kind of woman who made the air in a room feel different.

 But the ink on his divorce papers was still wet against the concrete three blocks behind him, and his mother's face kept flashing behind his eyes like a warning light that would not stop.

"I can't do this right now," he told her quietly. "My mother is sick. I need to find my sister. I need to get to them before anything else."

The assistant on Elena's left side took a sharp step forward, and the look on her face could have curdled milk at twenty feet.

"Do you have any idea who you are refusing right now?" Her voice was clipped and precise, every word ironed flat. "Miss Cross runs a company worth more than the GDP of most countries. She flew six thousand miles to meet you today. And you are standing here in prison sandals telling her to wait?"

"Rebecca." Elena did not raise her voice, but the assistant stopped talking as if someone had pressed a button on the back of her neck. "His master saved my grandfather's life. I will honor this arrangement if it takes me ten years. That is not your decision."

Rebecca's lips pressed together so hard they turned white, but she stepped back.

Elena turned to Kevin again, and something shifted in her expression. She moved toward him one more time, close enough that he could count the flecks of gold in her eyes, and that was when he saw it.

 A faint tremor in her left hand. The way her pulse fluttered too fast at the base of her throat. The slight drag in her breathing that most people would never catch unless they had spent three years learning how the human body breaks down from the inside.

His hand shot up and caught her wrist before she could take another step.

"Stop."

Elena blinked at him.

"Your liver meridian is blocked." Kevin informed her while noticing her body changes. "The toxin has been sitting in your blood for at least four years. Your doctors missed it because the symptoms mirror three other conditions that share the same surface markers. If it is not treated in the next six months, your organs will start shutting down one by one."

The color left Elena's face.

"How did you know that?" Her voice dropped to almost nothing. "I have been to nine hospitals on four continents. Not one of them could tell me what was wrong."

"I am not a doctor." Kevin released her wrist gently. "But I can see what they cannot. And I can fix it."

Elena stared at him, like something cracked open behind her eyes…like something that had been sealed shut for a very long time. 

A Hope which was terrified and shaking like a newborn thing that did not yet trust the air in its lungs.

Everyone has told her that she has only a few months, and here he was saying, “He can cure her.”

"Let me come with you," she whispered. "Whatever you need to handle, I can help."

"No." Kevin shook his head. "This is something I do alone. When I am done, I will come to you."

She studied his face for a long moment, then reached into her jacket and pulled out a black card. She pressed it into his palm, and her fingers stayed on his beat longer than they needed to.

"This gives you access to everything under Harvard Company's name. Every building, every account, every door." She pulled out her phone next and typed her number into his. "And this is my private number. If you ever need anything, just a call away."