Chapter 14
Dahlia
The first thing I register is a voice. Low, steady, and close. It doesn’t cut through the haze so much as draw me toward it, coaxing me back until my body reacts before my mind does. Heat spreads beneath my skin, warmth settling into my sluggish limbs.
I’m not fully awake. I drift just below the surface, caught between the ache in my head and the weight holding me down. The words blur, impossible to grasp, but the tone sinks deeper, pulling me closer.
My eyes burn, lashes sticky. The ache in my skull sharpens as the world swims into focus, too bright, too sharp, and the fog starts to peel back. I see a man talking on the phone a few feet away from me. Even with his back turned, his broad shoulders are impossible to forget.
Reality crashes over me as memories of Xander in the alley flood back in.
He’d been there when I collapsed. I have the vague memory of his arms around me while I was drifting in and out. I’d been so relieved to see him, but I must have passed out for a bit because when I came to, Xander was talking to Elliot.
They’d been standing in front of each other, voices muffled so I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but one thing I know for sure is even with me hurt, Xander wasn’t fighting him.
My skin goes cold, goose bumps rising under the thin blanket. My muscles lock hard as my fingers claw into the sheets, gripping for something solid while everything inside me screams to run. Loud beeping comes from beside me, growing more frantic, but my gaze fixes on Xander.
A sound tears free, raw and broken, before I can swallow it down.
Xander’s beside me in an instant, filling all the space.
The air thins. The ceiling feels lower, the walls pressing in.
His shadow stretches across me, heavy, inescapable.
He leans down, hand reaching for me like he belongs here, like touching me is the most natural thing in the world.
His fingers skim my hairline, brushing hair back from my bandage with a care that makes bile rise.
I jerk away so hard the back of my head slams into the pillow, pain splintering white across my skull.
He stops. His jaw goes tight, and a tendon jumps in his neck.
His hand closes into a fist once, knuckles white, and then opens again.
He searches my face, clear gray eyes raking over me, and then his features smooth like he’s pulling on a mask.
When he speaks, the sound drops low, soft, almost coaxing.
“Easy. You’re hurt.”
The gentleness in his tone makes my stomach lurch.
The door opens, and relief cuts through me. The doctor pauses on the threshold, eyes flicking to me before he steps inside. His hand lingers on the door like he’s not sure whether to close it. The coat sways around his knees as he moves, clipboard pressed tight against his chest.
His smile is stretched thin when he sees I’m awake. He talks fast about numbers and levels and everything I don’t care about until he adds a word that hits like a hammer.
“You’re stable, Mrs. Everette.”
Mrs. Everette.
The sound of that name detonates in my chest.
My pulse spikes. “What? No. That’s not my name.”
The doctor blinks down at the chart. “That’s what it says here.”
“It’s wrong.” My voice breaks. “My last name is Sinclair.”
His eyes dart to Xander, just for a beat, before he mutters something under his breath and backs out of the room. Fast. Like he knows better than to stay.
The silence afterward crushes me. My body shakes against the bed. My breath scrapes in and out, ragged and too loud.
Xander moves without hesitation. He slides something from a folder and lays it across my lap.
“I think you’ll find that you are wrong, Mrs. Everette.”
The paper is heavy, cream stock, the kind used for things that can’t be undone. The embossed seal catches the light… A marriage certificate.
My name sits there in black ink, steady and permanent. Beside it, in clean print, a title that makes my blood freeze.
Spouse of Alexander Nikos Everette.
My stomach drops.
Below, my signature waits, every curve exact, even the slight hitch at the end. It looks real. Too real.
“No.” The word rasps out, broken. My hands shake so hard the page rattles. “I didn’t sign this. I would never—”
He laughs, rich and low, like I just told a joke. “You already did.”
I can’t make my gaze move off the lines on the paper. My stomach tries to fold in. My chest locks tight. The world narrows to the proof he’s shown.
The paper crumples under my grip as my hand lowers. That’s when I see it. My ring finger. Inked in neat black script. His name. Not a band of gold. Not something I could slip off. Permanent. Branded into me while I was unconscious.
My stomach heaves when I bring it closer to my face and see the red swelling around the letters. It’s a real fucking tattoo. His name. On me.
“What did you do?” The words rip out of me, high and shaking. I shove my hand at him, his name burning against my skin. “Look at it! What the hell is wrong with you?”
He doesn’t move. His gaze drags down to my finger. His mouth curves, faint, smug.
He says, voice low, “Looks good on you.”
The sound that claws out of me is halfway between a laugh and a scream. My pulse thrashes in my ears. “Good? Good? You branded me like an animal!”
He bites back a smile.
“You think this is funny?” I spit, voice climbing. “You think marking me like I’m property is some kind of fucking romantic gesture?”
His eyes lift to mine, steady, unbothered. “Not property. Wife.”
The word guts me. A cold crack shoots through my chest. “You forged papers. You put your name on me. You think any of this is real?”
“I don’t think,” he says, calm as ever. “I know.”
The laugh that bursts out of me sounds hysterical, even to my own ears. “You’re insane. You’re a fucking psycho.”
His gaze flicks back to my finger, then up again. “You’ll get used to it.”
The words slam into me hard. Used to it. Like it’s already decided. Like I have no say.
Tears sting, hot and useless. “Why?” My voice cracks jaggedly. “Why would you do this? What is wrong with you? Aren’t you here to kill me?”
The question hangs between us. For the first time, something shifts across his face. His brows pull together, his mouth flattening as he goes perfectly still. There’s a pull there that suggests he didn’t expect to hear that from me.
“Kill you?” The words grind out like they don’t belong in his mouth. “That’s the last fucking thing I’d ever do.”
I freeze.
He looks thrown and honest for a second, which only makes him more dangerous. Xander leans in, swallowing the space I fought to keep. His body looms over me, his voice dropping lower, iron-edged. “No one touches you.”
The weight of it presses down, choking.
His gaze doesn’t waver. “You’re safe with me now.”
Safe. The word cuts me open.
“Safe? How could I ever be safe with you?” I choke on a laugh, hollow and bitter. “Look at me and tell me you’re not a killer.” My throat burns. Rage rises, replacing the fear, and I let it. It’s the only thing that lets me keep my head above water.
He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t reach for anything to soften this. His silence stretches, sharp and unyielding.
“Do you even know how many people you’ve killed?” I meet his gaze head-on. “Can you even keep count?”
He gives me nothing. No denial, no shift. Just those dark eyes, steady, like he’s carved out of stone.
The truth lands cold and clean. He won’t deny it. Because he can’t.
“You’re no better than them,” I whisper, my voice shaking.
His head tilts, sharp, something cutting through the calm. “Who have you been running from?”
The question throws me.
“I saw—” I cut myself off before telling him I know he’s working with Elliot. That I saw them talking in the alley.
“I’m not telling you anything.” Knowledge is power, and if it will help me figure out why he’s kept me alive, I’ll play his game.
He closes the last of the space. “Give me his name.”
Panic claws at my throat, and I croak. “Why?”
His expression hardens, the air in the room shifting. “So I can put him in the ground.”
Liar.
I spit at him, the only weapon I have.
He wipes it with his thumb and sucks on the tip, humming.
“Fuck, I missed this mouth.” He smiles as his hand clamps around my jaw and crushes his mouth to mine.
I bite down hard, the metallic taste of blood on my tongue.
He jerks back, eyes blazing, then laughs low, like I just gave him exactly what he wanted.
“Why are you doing this?” I hear my voice go sharp and thin and desperate, and I don’t care that he hears it too.
He narrows his eyes like I said something amusing. “You already know why.”
“You’re sick.” I begin to tremble as his gaze drags down me, one reason he may have kept me alive coming in crystal clear.
“It’s impressive you managed to stay hidden for so long.”
The words scrape across my nerves. I didn’t know it was him I was hiding from. “You make it sound like I was playing a game.”
His mouth pulls into a dangerous curve. The flicker dies fast when his face hardens again.
“You’re coming home with me.”
A laugh bursts out, bitter, sharp. “Never.”
He leans so close I feel the heat of his breath against my cheek. His tone doesn’t waver. “You walk out with me, or I make you. Your choice.”
I shove at him, my body shaking. “I’d rather die.”
His mouth curves, not amused but certain. “You don’t get to die, Dahlia.”
My eyes scramble for a way out. The window? Rain streaks down the glass, but we’re too high. The door? Too far. My IV pole, the line tethered to me? My fingers twitch, calculating.
His gaze follows mine, analyzing my face as I mentally plan a getaway. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
My chest heaves. “I’m not going with you.”
He exhales once, low and resolved. “Remember, it was your choice to do it this way.”
Movement shifts at the edge of my vision, and I realize I am not alone with him. A nurse stands to my right, and I don’t know how long she’s been there. Her face is carefully blank. Her badge is flipped around, and her hands are steady.
She doesn’t look at me as she pushes a syringe into the port on my line.
Cold spreads up my arm and into my shoulder and then my chest. Panic detonates. My stomach flips fast enough to make me gag. I grab for the tubing, nails scraping skin. His hand slams down over mine and pins it to the mattress.
The world tilts. The ceiling slides. My vision blurs at the edges.
I kick weakly, thrash once, useless.
Xander doesn’t rush. He patiently watches me fade.
His voice follows me as everything starts to go black.
“You’ll never escape me, Dahlia. Nothing will change that.”