The Cold Surgeon's Contract Bride novel Chapter 885

An all-too-familiar number glared back at me from the screen.

It wasn't saved in my contacts.

But I knew it intimately because it was burned into my memory.

It was the exact same number that had called me multiple times before, delivering chilling threats and sinister warnings.

I hadn't known who was on the other end back then, but now it was glaringly obvious. The caller was Wade Winston, the Shadow Caller—one of Theodore Thorne's attack dogs.

It had been months since I'd last heard from him. I had almost convinced myself this number would never darken my screen again.

And yet, here it was.

The notification felt like a death warrant. It struck me like a bolt of lightning, violently yanking my barely settled nerves right back into a state of sheer terror. Every hair on my body stood on end.

My fingers shook so violently that it took me several tries just to open the text message.

The message was brutally brief: "Dr. Hayes, fun? This is just an appetizer. How's the taste? Thrilling enough?"

The words were few, but they stabbed into my chest like a jagged blade, twisting deep inside to deliver a tearing, agonizing pain.

My breath caught in my throat. My hands trembled uncontrollably. I had to force all my willpower just to tap the glass, struggling through the shaking to type out a reply: "If you want to kill someone, come at me!"

Don't touch anyone else.

Don't touch my family.

And absolutely do not touch Ferris.

I couldn't survive if anything happened to them.