In the frenzy of shattered glass and echoing gunfire at the cliffside estate, Finn’s world narrowed to a single visceral moment as Stephy’s scream tore through the chaos, propelling him forward like a man possessed. One heartbeat later, he felt the searing impact of metal against flesh—an agonizing shock that stole his breath and buckled his knees—even as he threw himself across his wife’s trembling form.

The bullet meant to silence Stephy’s passionate pleas and end Luna Nozawa’s tormented vendetta in one terrible instant found its true mark in Finn’s side, tearing through muscle and puncturing his lung as crimson blossomed across his pristine shirt. The world tilted. The sprawling Pacific vista through the floor-to-ceiling windows blurred into a smear of blue and gray, and Finn’s vision swam with the white-hot gleam of panic in Stephy’s eyes.

Through the haze of pain, he saw Sheila Carter Sharp’s frail body slumped on the marble hearth from an earlier wound, Luna’s slender frame frozen in horror beside the smoking pistol, and Stephy cradling his head as if the two of them alone could hold reality together. His own hand found hers at the cost of agonizing concentration, but the effort sent another wave of torment ripping through his side—a brutal reminder that the violence he had tried to stop was now tearing him apart.

As officers descended, weapons drawn, and paramedics burst through the French doors, Stephy’s desperate voice cut through the cacophony.
“Finn, stay with me. Please, Finn, stay with me.”
And he managed a faint, broken smile before the world went white and he slipped into oblivion.

When Stephy snapped back to consciousness in the emergency room, her relief at finding Finn alive was swiftly eclipsed by fresh terror. Monitors blared warnings of internal bleeding and plummeting oxygen levels. She sat by his gurney, sleeves soaked with his blood and her own tears, her mind stuck in a broken loop of guilt and grief.
If only she had moved sooner. If only she had been stronger. If only she could have shielded him instead.

The trauma surgeon spoke in clipped tones.
“His vitals are unstable. We need to operate immediately.”
But Stephy heard none of it. Her world had condensed to the sound of Finn’s ragged breathing and the fading wail of sirens swallowed by the sterile hush of the ER.

She clutched his hand so tightly her fingers ached, her knuckles white as a flood of self-reproach threatened to drown her. Every memory—laughter on the veranda of their first home, the tender look in Finn’s eyes when he first saw Hayes’s smile—now felt like shards of a shattered past, irreparable fragments of a love that Luna’s bullet had nearly destroyed.When the surgeons finally emerged, eyes weary and faces scrubbed raw, Stephy was already rocking back and forth in the waiting area, whispering prayers under her breath. Her fashionable attire was crumpled and stained with blood, her heart poised on the razor’s edge between hope and despair.

“He’s stable for now,” one said, voice distant and dreamlike.
“But he’s lost a lot of blood. It’s going to be a long night.”

Stephy nodded numbly, every line of her body taut with exhaustion and dread. She braced herself for a sleepless vigil, desperately hoping the man who had risked everything for her would find the strength to survive this cruel twist of fate.

Meanwhile, Luna Nozawa’s collapse under the weight of her horror sent her spiraling into a chasm of guilt. At first, she remained upright only because adrenaline kept her legs from giving out, her eyes fixed on Finn’s motionless body—willing him back to life as if her regret could rewrite fate.

Her breath caught as paramedics clamped a neck brace around him with practiced efficiency—a cruel contrast to the chaos she had unleashed. Then, as realization struck like lightning—that Finn had taken the bullet meant for the woman she blamed—her knees gave way, and she crumpled to the polished tile. Pressing her hands to her mouth, she tried to stifle a sob that shook her to her core.

A detective crouched beside her, gently prying the pistol from her fingers, speaking quietly of charges and custody. But Luna heard nothing. Her mind had retreated into a maelstrom of remorse.

Every memory of her mother’s final rejection, every act of Stephy’s kindness turned betrayal, merged into a single haunting vision: the flash of the shot, Finn’s body collapsing, the hush that followed. She saw herself as the architect of ruin. And shame, more suffocating than any weapon, coiled around her heart.

As night deepened, Stephy refused to leave Finn’s side. Her eyes rimmed red, her hands stiff from clutching his. Nurses offered coffee and blankets—she declined them all. Her focus never wavered from the faint flicker of his heartbeat on the monitor.

She whispered promises of their future: children’s laughter in sunlit gardens, quiet mornings with coffee on the veranda, a love resilient enough to survive anything. Her words trembled in the sterile air, fragile threads cast out to anchor Finn’s soul to hers.

When the second surgery ended at dawn and a surgeon finally said, “He’s made it through the worst,” Stephy collapsed into Ridge’s arms. The two of them clung to each other, trembling. Ridge’s usual stoicism cracked; tears streamed for the man who had nearly become a son. Taylor, ever the pillar, placed a comforting hand on Stephy’s shoulder, her grief tempered by a fierce resolve: they would see Finn through this.

But outside the hospital, the world turned. Rumors swirled through Los Angeles’s glittering circles. Some called Finn a hero, a modern knight sacrificing himself for love. Others whispered that Luna’s breakdown—and Sheila’s involvement—would soon spark a legal storm.

Public debate exploded: Should Luna face prison, or psychiatric care? Would Finn’s sacrifice be used in court as justification for mercy, or as fuel for retribution?

In therapy, Luna confessed through tears, “I never meant to kill him. I just wanted to be heard.”
Each session peeled back layers of trauma. Her mother’s betrayal. Her festering rage. Her spiraling need to hurt the one person Stephy loved. Until everything misfired and she hurt the only man who had shown her true compassion.

As Finn awoke, bruised and bandaged, to the sight of Stephy’s tear-streaked face and her hand wrapped around his, he understood: healing would not come easy. The physical pain would fade. But the emotional scars—the breach of trust, the weight of sacrifice—would remain.

Stephy vowed to stand by him. To hold him up as he recovered, even as she battled her own guilt.

And Luna, locked in a psychiatric ward, spent sleepless nights reliving the shot, Finn’s collapse, and the moment she crossed a line no sorrow could erase. Her remorse gnawed at her sanity. Her fate teetered between justice and forgiveness.

In the world of the bold and the beautiful, bullets may stray—but the scars they leave are never accidental. And as Finn struggled to breathe through the pain, Stephy whispered,
“Love will heal this. I promise.”
Even as she braced for the reckoning Luna’s remorse would bring.