He Watched Me Die 99 Times,The 100th Time, I Disappeared

With a bitter scoff, he loosened his tie, tugging it down impatiently before dropping himself onto the chair nearby. His posture relaxed, but his expression hardened again, settling back into that familiar coldness. His signet ring caught the lamplight as his hand came to rest on the arm of the chair, perfectly still.

"Stop throwing tantrums," he said flatly, as if trying to erase the moment that had just passed.

"You're not going to die. We've checked everything, and we still don't know what's wrong with you." His tone shifted, becoming more calculated, more deliberate. "I recently acquired a black clinic. Private. Off the books. They'll draw some blood. Figure it out."

He paused briefly, his gaze flickering as if weighing his next words.

"Maybe… maybe we can use it for the baby in Celeste's belly…"

Before he could finish, I had already rolled up my sleeve.

Silently.

Calmly.

I extended my arm toward him, pale skin exposed, veins faintly visible beneath it.

"Go ahead," I said softly. "Draw it. The more, the better."

Something in his chest tightened.

He couldn't quite explain it. The feeling was subtle but unmistakable, like a thread pulling somewhere deep inside him. But he had already promised Celeste. He had already decided that whatever secret existed within me would belong to their child.

So he forced that discomfort down, burying it beneath logic, beneath purpose.

Without another word, he called the family surgeon.

When the surgeon arrived, his movements were hesitant, almost uneasy. He prepared the equipment in silence, his eyes darting toward me more than once. He knew what he was. He knew who paid him. And he knew that questioning the Bellandi heir's orders was the kind of mistake a man only makes once.

The needle he used was thick.

Too thick.

Nearly the width of a baby's finger.

When it pierced my skin, it sank deep into my vein with a dull, invasive pressure that spread through my arm. Blood flowed steadily through the tube, dark and steady, as if my body had already accepted what was happening.

I didn't tell Dominic the truth.

From the very first time I died for him, I had known.

I could only die one hundred times.

And once I had died in his hands one hundred times, my blood-vow curse would be complete.

After that, I would disappear.

Gone completely.

To a place no one could reach.

From that moment on, I would no longer belong to love.

Nor to humanity.

Nor to anyone at all.

Dominic's phone rang, cutting through the silence.

He answered without even glancing at me, his attention already elsewhere.

"I'll pick you up tomorrow and take you to the clinic," he said, his tone brisk and efficient.

The surgeon hesitated mid-motion, his hands pausing slightly as he looked up.

"Don Bellandi," he said cautiously, "with the Signora's current condition… she really needs rest."

Dominic paused for a brief second, as if considering it.

Then he replied, curt and dismissive.

"She won't die."

The surgeon's expression stiffened instantly. A thin sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead. He lowered his head and said nothing more, not daring to argue. In this house, a medical opinion weighed nothing against a direct order.

But the next day came.

And Dominic didn't show up.

Neither did he the day after that.

Instead, the joint account we shared began lighting up with transaction notifications.

One after another.

Couple's down jackets.

Thermal winter sets.

Wool socks.

A sled.

The list went on.

Without warning, a memory surfaced.

Once, long ago, we had gone to Antarctica together.

It had been one of the rare times when things still felt… almost right.

But somehow, Celeste found out.

And she followed us there.

When she arrived, she was dressed in nothing more than a thin sweater, her entire body trembling violently from the cold. Her lips were pale, tinged blue, her breathing uneven.

Like a man possessed, Dominic had rushed to her.

He pulled off his own coat and wrapped it around her shoulders without hesitation.

Then, as if that wasn't enough, he turned to me.

And stripped the coat from my back.

Without a word.

He gave that to her too.

Celeste collapsed into his arms, sobbing softly.

"Serafina didn't want me to come…" she cried, her voice fragile, trembling. "She threw away all my clothes. But Dominic, I just wanted to see the penguins with you…"

He looked at me then.

Not with doubt.

Not with hesitation.

But with pure scorn.

"You're jealous," he said coldly. "Poisonous. Vicious."

His gaze was sharp, cutting.

"Fine. Taste for yourself what it's like to freeze to death in Antarctica."

And then they left.

Together.

Leaving me behind in the endless white.