I never wanted to see him again.

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It was painful to even think about the man who’d broken my heart when I was seventeen—the man I’d thought I’d spend my life with until he tossed me aside as if I meant nothing.

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But when I wake up in the hospital eighteen years later, hurting and confused, Nico’s there to protect me.

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He says I was attacked on my way to see him. He wants to know why, after years of silence, I showed up again. But I can’t answer his questions because I can’t remember. Not why I was back in Manhattan. Not why I supposedly wanted to see him. And I have no idea who tried to kill me.

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The last thing I expected to see on my way home from work was my ex-girlfriend being loaded into an ambulance, unconscious and injured.

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Just as instinct demanded I go to her, logic said to leave the past buried. After all, we were nothing to each other anymore. Dredging up old hurts and betrayals would accomplish nothing.

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But it was Sofia. My Sofia. Who was attacked on the street on her way to see me.

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So I go to see her in the hospital, unsure of what to expect. And when I get there, I arrive just in time to stop another attack.

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As I hold a vulnerable Sofia in my arms, I know there’s no way I can leave her. And I’ll do everything in my power to protect her.