Louis Delano stood just beyond the glass wall of the ICU, arms crossed tightly over his chest, as if holding himself together was the only thing keeping him upright.

Inside, she lay unmoving. Serena Kingston.

The only woman he loved, in all certainty.

Beneath the tubes, the wires, the pale sheets and sterile light, she didn’t look like his Serena. Not the woman who once danced barefoot in their kitchen at midnight, laughing with a glass of wine in her hand. Not the woman who kissed him fiercely when she was angry, and held him longer when she was scared. This version of her—still, bruised, breath rattling through a machine—felt...