The Spiteful Bride, Marry to Rival's Son-Chapter 132

THEN WE’LL HELP HIM REMEMBER

After they burned the mourning clothes, silence followed them like a shadow through the empty penthouse.

The fire had died down, but the weight of what it symbolized still clung to their hearts like smoke in their lungs.

The smell of burnt fabric lingered in the air, mixing with the cool night breeze that swept across the private courtyard.

One by one, they had drifted back inside and to their rooms, silent and exhausted, but not quite ready to sleep.

Sleep felt like betrayal somehow. Like forgetting, even for a moment, that somewhere in a secret medical facility across the city, Mose was lying unconscious in a hospital bed, clinging to life by threads they couldn’t see.

Mia lay curled against Stefan in their new bedroom, her head resting gently on his chest. The room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of the city lights filtering through the heavy curtains they had drawn tight.

The space felt foreign still, nothing like their old home with its familiar corners and memories carved into every wall. This place was supposed to be safe, but it felt cold and temporary, like a hotel room where they were hiding from their real lives.

The silence stretched between them, broken only by the faint hum of the air conditioning and the steady rhythm of Stefan’s heartbeat beneath her ear.

Neither of them spoke for a long while. Mia could tell by his breathing that he wasn’t sleeping either. His chest rose and fell too deliberately, too controlled. He was thinking, probably about the same things that were keeping her awake.

The funeral. The crowd. The eggs and tomatoes hitting her dress. The look of pure hatred in people’s eyes as they screamed for her blood.

Then Stefan broke the silence, his voice a low murmur that vibrated through his chest.

"Why did you do that?"

Mia didn’t lift her head, but he felt the way her body tensed at the question. She had heard him clearly. She just needed a second to find the words that were tangled up with all the guilt and pain in her throat.

"He went through so much," she whispered finally, her voice trembling. "All of it... just to protect us. Stefan, he didn’t just fake his death. He lived through that pain. Real pain."

She lifted her head slightly, and in the dim light, Stefan could see the tears already gathering in her eyes.

"I saw him lying in that hospital bed before they moved him. Bloodied and broken and barely breathing. When that doctor came out and told us he was gone..." Her voice cracked like glass breaking. "It looked so real. I believed it completely. My heart shattered into a million pieces."

The tears spilled freely now, soaking into Stefan’s shirt, but she didn’t try to stop them anymore.

"So if taking a few hits from an angry crowd is what it costs to protect his secret, to keep him safe... it’s nothing compared to what he’s already endured. Nothing compared to what you’ve been going through, losing your best friend. Nothing compared to what Elena’s been through, missing and feeling like the man she loves is dead."

She tried to continue, but the sob caught in her throat like a painful fish bone. The words dissolved, swallowed by a wave of helpless grief that had been building inside her for months.

Stefan wrapped his arms around her tighter, his large hand gently stroking her back in slow, soothing circles. "Shh... it’s okay," he murmured against her hair, breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo. "You’re not alone. You don’t have to carry this by yourself. He’ll be fine. I promise."

But Mia knew what haunted him in the dark hours before dawn. What haunted all of them, really. The truth that they couldn’t speak out loud, even to each other sometimes.

Mose had really gotten into an accident that night. The impact of that speeding car had been real, violent, and nearly fatal.

The blood pooling under his head on the asphalt, the twisted angle of his limbs, the way his body had looked so small and broken on that stretcher – all of that was how far they’d gone to stage his death.

The’d carefully orchestrated the illusion of his death, that had been the plan. A desperate, dangerous plan born out of love and terror and the knowledge that the Santiago family would never stop hunting him until they believed he was gone forever.

Now, they only pray and hope he gets better.

Elena had never actually been poisoned in that hospital room either. Mia act after the operation, all of them was just an act.

The Santiagos had tried – they had sent someone disguised as a doctor with a syringe full of something that would have stopped her heart in minutes.

But they had failed, because Mose had managed to warn her just in time.

He had called her, barely a minute before the assassin arrived.

And Elena had agreed to go along with the deception that followed, because she had no choice. None of them did.

The alternative was watching everyone they loved die one by one until the Santiagos got their revenge.

Now, lying in Stefan’s arms in this new home, Mia’s mind swirled with fragments of that terrifying phone call, of Elena’s broken voice when they had finally told her the whole truth about what they were planning to do.

All the talk about the fire, was just to confuse the Santiago. They knew, they’d infuriated their system. They had paid one of their maids.

They aware, so they had to thread with caution.

"He’ll be okay," Stefan said softly, as though trying to convince both of them. His voice carried that forced confidence that people use when they’re scared but trying not to show it.

"The doctors said his brain activity is getting stronger every day. We just need to get the Santiagos completely off our trail. Then he can come back. He’ll come back to Elena."

"But what if he doesn’t remember her?" Mia asked, voicing the fear that had been eating at all of them. "What if the head trauma was too severe? What if the memory loss injection doesn’t wear off? What if all those feelings, all their memories together, are just... gone? What if she’s nothing more than a stranger to him?"

Stefan didn’t answer with words right away. Instead, he gently pulled her up so she was lying beside him instead of on top of him. He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away the fresh tears that were sliding down her cheeks.

"Everything will be okay," he said firmly, looking directly into her eyes. "I promise you that. I won’t let this family fall apart. I won’t let Elena lose him forever."

He kissed her forehead first – soft and lingering. Then her lips – longer, deeper, as if he was trying to pour all his strength and determination and sorrow into that single connection.

She kissed him back with equal desperation, but even in that moment of closeness, her tears didn’t stop falling.

Her heart ached for everyone she loved. For Stefan, who had lost his best friend and was trying so hard to hold everyone else together while he was breaking apart inside.

For Elena, who might have to lose the man she loved all over again, this time in a way that might be even crueler than death. For Mose, lying unconscious and alone in that sterile medical facility, fighting battles they couldn’t help him win.

When Stefan finally pulled back, he pressed his forehead against hers, their breathing mingling in the small space between them. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"You should go to her," he said quietly.

Mia blinked in surprise. "But you...."

"I’ll be fine," he interrupted, though the weight in his eyes betrayed the lie. The dark circles under them, the way his shoulders sagged when he thought she wasn’t looking – he was anything but fine.

"She needs you more right now. She’s been alone with this for too long."

Mia hesitated, searching his face in the dim light. She could see the exhaustion written in every line, the grief he was trying so hard to hide behind his protective instincts.

But she could also see that he meant what he said. Elena did need her, maybe more than Stefan did in this moment.

She leaned in and kissed him again – gentle this time, almost like a promise, before slipping out from under the covers.

The floor was cold against her bare feet as she padded across the room and out into the hallway.

The penthouse felt enormous and empty at night, their footsteps and whispered conversations echoing in ways that reminded them all that they were hiding.

Like their real lives were suspended somewhere else, waiting for them to figure out how to get back to them.

She paused outside Elena’s door, which was standing slightly ajar. Inside, the lights were off, but she could hear the quiet, muffled sound of crying.

Not the dramatic sobs of fresh grief, but the exhausted, hopeless crying of someone who had been holding it together all day and finally had permission to fall apart.

Mia pushed the door open slowly and stepped inside. Elena was curled up on her side in the large bed, her back to the door, her shoulders shaking with each silent sob. She didn’t look up when Mia entered, but she didn’t seem surprised either.

Without saying a word, Mia climbed into bed beside her friend and pulled her into her arms. Elena melted into the embrace immediately, her face pressed against Mia’s shoulder as she finally let the tears come freely.

"What if he wakes up and doesn’t remember any of it? What if I become just a woman who claim to have been important to him?"

Mia didn’t have an answer for that, because it was a real possibility that terrified all of them. Brain injuries were unpredictable.

Memory loss could be temporary or permanent, partial or complete. The doctors had been honest about that from the beginning.

And they’d also decide that, if he remembers everything, he’d be injected.

They didn’t want to take chances, they need him to forget about his horrible past, before he met Stefan or right after he met him.

They wanted him to start a new, with a new identity, a new face and a new stature. No one would suspect it’s him, just for a while he’s back.

Then when he gradually remembers a few things, he’d have been someone else entirely. He’d have moved on.

"Then we’ll help him remember," Mia said finally. "We’ll show him pictures and tell him stories and hope that somewhere inside, his heart remembers what his mind forgot."

"And if that doesn’t work?"

"Then we’ll figure out what comes next. Together. All of us."