To Love a Shadow, To Be the Sun novel Chapter 302

The next morning, Elara was finally cleared to leave the hospital.

Her stomach was still fragile; she couldn’t handle any strenuous activity and was restricted to liquids, or she risked another serious hemorrhage.

Summer and Ryan were both tied up with work and couldn’t get away.

So Charles Shaw stepped in to take care of her discharge papers.

“Go home and get plenty of rest,” Charles said as he sorted through the paperwork. “Give it ten days or so, and you’ll be back on your feet.”

Elara tilted her head, thinking aloud. “By then, I guess I’ll be heading to city hall with Brian to sign the divorce papers.”

Charles parted his lips, searching for words, and finally managed a strained smile. “May all your dreams come true.”

He walked her to the exit of the inpatient wing, then turned away and quickly texted Brian.

“She’s been discharged safely. Hancock’s going to be in the hospital for at least a month. His family’s making a scene—keep your eyes open.”

Brian replied almost immediately: “That’s between them and the bar, nothing to do with me. Just make sure she doesn’t find out.”

Elara made her way toward the hospital’s main entrance, phone in hand, already opening the ride-hailing app.

She was so focused that she didn’t see the man coming until she collided with him, hard.

Her phone slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor. As she bent down to pick it up, the man stepped right on it.

Annoyed, Elara looked up—and was startled to see Chuck Chamberlain, someone she hadn’t run into in ages.

He’d been sharp and tidy back when he was a doctor, but now his face was shadowed by an unkempt beard, his clothes wrinkled and dirty—he looked utterly defeated.

Elara was about to ask what had happened to him when he suddenly grabbed her wrist, yanking her close. In the same motion, she felt the cold press of a knife against her waist.

“Keep quiet if you want to live. Come with me.”

Elara narrowed her eyes. “At least let me pick up my phone.”

“Hand it over. No funny business.”

Chuck crouched down with her, keeping the knife pressed against her side.

A dull ache started to gnaw at her stomach, and her knuckles went white, but she kept her expression innocent, her voice gentle.

“Is this where you’re living now? It’s really… basic. How’d you end up here? And that breakfast place downstairs—‘Sunrise Nook’—the health code must be a joke. Do you really eat there every day?”

“Shut up!” Chuck snapped. “You think I’d be like this if it weren’t for you? Lost my job at the hospital because of you, got fired from the clinic, then you even paid patients to set me up for malpractice! I’ve got nothing left. It’s all your fault, you bitch.”

His anger was building, fast.

Elara tried to reason with him. “Why would I do any of that? You’ve got it all wrong.”

But that only made him angrier.

He stormed over and grabbed her by the collar. “You don’t have to do a damn thing, and men line up to worship you. I want to see what makes you so special that they’d throw everything away for you.”

With that, he started tearing at her clothes.

“If you’re going to die anyway, might as well make it as humiliating as possible!”