Chapter 11 Julian #2
Kai’s all business the moment his gloves are on, like flipping a switch from smug bastard to clinical executioner.
He drags over the tray that’s already set up beside my bed—gauze, antiseptic, saline, scissors, something in a syringe I don’t recognize.
I try not to flinch when he lifts the edge of the blanket, but I’m not exactly subtle about the hiss that slips out when cool air hits my leg.
“Still tender?” Kai says, not even looking at my face.
“Oh no, I love it,” I mutter, dry. “My new favorite hobby.”
He cuts the outer bandage, peels it back slow, revealing the gauze beneath soaked through with dull red and whatever weird chemical smell they used to keep me from rotting.
He hums low under his breath like he’s inspecting art.
Rafe doesn’t move from the chair. Just watches, eyes narrowed, jaw tight, fingers twitching like he wants to murder someone again just to feel better about the whole thing.
Kai discards the soaked dressing, disinfects the area with a quick, brutal swipe that makes me jolt and hiss, and then tosses a fresh gauze pad over it like it’s just another day in the office. Which, for him, it is.
He reaches for the syringe, holds it up in front of my face like he’s about to auction it off. “This is all you’re getting,” he says, tone flat, slipping the needle into the IV port in my arm without warning.
I don’t even have time to react to the stab before the slow slide of warmth floods into my veins, dulling the ache in my thigh almost instantly.
“All I’m getting?” I pout, eyebrows pulled. “That’s it?”
Rafe glares at me like I’ve personally insulted his ancestors.
Kai doesn’t even blink. “You want more? Bleed harder next time.”
“Mean,” I huff, sinking back into the pillow, lips forming a dramatic little scowl.
“Mm,” Kai hums, and then the bastard pats my thigh right next to the wound.
I jolt. “You dick.”
Kai smiles—serene, soft, full of malice. “Healing nicely. Try not to reopen it by being dramatic.” He peels off his gloves, tosses them in the bin, and saunters out like he didn’t just punch me in the soul with his fingertips.
Rafe watches him go.
I groan and throw an arm over my eyes. “Can you shoot him next?”
“Almost did,” Rafe mutters, not even looking at me as he says it.
His voice is low, matter-of-fact, like shooting Kai was a passing temptation he decided against last minute, probably for logistical reasons like blood cleanup and paperwork.
He leans back in the chair, arms crossed now, ankle propped on his opposite knee.
He looks tired—exhausted really—but not in a weak way.
In that simmering, slow-burn rage kind of way.
Like he’s still waiting for someone to fuck up so he has an excuse to do something unforgivable.
The silence stretches. A few seconds, maybe more. And then Rafe shifts, his eyes cutting to mine. “You know what that little stunt did, pretty boy?”
I arch a brow. “Which one?” I rasp, voice still fucked from screaming. “The knife-stabbing, the goal-scoring, or the near-bleeding-out part? Gonna need you to be specific, boss man.”
He doesn’t take the bait. He just keeps that unreadable glare trained on me like he’s already got the answer locked and loaded.
“It peaked the interest of some other fucking mobsters, Jules” Rafe says, voice hard now, clipped.
“That’s what it did. Word’s already out.
They saw you play. Saw what you did. Saw the blood.
The knife. The goal. The fucking madness of it. And now they want you for themselves.”
I blink. That… should probably worry me. Definitely should. I should be hearing danger in that. Possession. Threats. Leverage. But instead, I’m stuck on something else entirely. Because somewhere in the middle of all that doom, Rafe dropped a word he’s never used before.
Jules.
He called me Jules.
Nobody’s ever called me that. Not even Nathan. Not coaches, not teammates, not the media. It was always Reaver. Golden Boy. Pretty Boy. Kid. Sometimes Julian, when they were trying to be nice before fucking me or firing me.
But never Jules.
I blink at him again, heat crawling up the back of my neck, lips parting like I might say something smart, except all that comes out is—“What?”
Rafe narrows his eyes. “What what?”
I blink again. “You—uh. You said…”
I trail off like a moron. My brain is scrambled eggs and painkillers and Rafe calling me Jules in that voice. The voice that sounds like gravel and murder and maybe a little bit mine.
He stares at me for another long second, then tilts his head, unreadable. “You bleeding out again or just stupid?”
I grin, teeth sharp. “Maybe both.”
But inside?
I’m a fucking puddle.
I forget.
Just—forget.
The pain, the stitches, the hole in my fucking leg.
All of it. It’s Rafe’s fault. Him, sitting there like a carved monument to rage and self-control, arms crossed, mouth in that line, and Jules still ringing in my ears like a bell that won’t stop echoing.
I don’t think. I just move. Try to sit up again like I haven’t been literally impaled and stitched back together less than twenty-four hours ago.
Bad idea.
Agony shoots up my thigh like a lightning strike. My vision tilts, stomach flips, and for a moment everything goes white-hot and narrow, like looking down the barrel of consciousness and watching it almost blink shut.
“Shit—” I choke out, collapsing back, the world spinning like I’m on a carousel from hell.
The chair screeches across the floor.
“You little shit!” Rafe groans, already moving, already at my side. His hands are on me again—one pressing my shoulder down, the other yanking the blanket back over me with more force than necessary, like he’s punishing me for being this fucking reckless. “What the hell do you need?”
I blink up at him, dazed, grinning like an idiot because whatever Kai shoved into my IV is clearly taking full effect now.
Everything feels warm and floaty and a little bit glittery around the edges, like I’m weightless and also full of champagne.
My skin hums. My brain purrs. Rafe is leaning over me again, all gritted teeth and heat and concern-disguised-as-anger, and I want him. Like, now.
I reach up, fingers brushing the edge of his hoodie.
“Mmmmyou,” I slur, voice dropping into a low purr that I didn’t exactly mean to sound like sex but definitely does.
His brows draw together. “What?”
“Youuuu,” I say again, dragging the word out like I’m singing it to him, dreamy and drugged. “Need you. Raaaafe. You smell like fire. Come here, lemme lick it.”
Rafe stares at me like I just proposed marriage and war at the same time. “Christ,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Kai fucking drugged you like a housecat.”
“Mmmmm-hmmmm,” I hum, grinning wider, blinking slow. “He loves me. You do too. It's okay. I won the game. I deserve snuggles.”
Rafe growls under his breath, but doesn’t move away.
I don’t even realize I’m doing it until it’s too late. One second, Rafe’s looming over me like the patron saint of threats and restraint, glowering like I just pissed on the blue line. The next, my hand curls into the front of his hoodie and I yank.
“No—” he starts, too late.
“Come here,” I slur, voice soaked in painkillers and poor decisions. I tug with all the strength I don’t have, and for a split second, Rafe resists, body rigid, like he thinks I’m not serious.
I’m serious.
I need him.
Not just watching me. Not just glaring from the corner. I need the weight of him. The size of him. The feel of him solid and hot and grounding while the rest of the world feels like it’s drifting off the edges of my nerves.
And because I am, apparently, a suicidal genius, I yank again.
Rafe doesn’t stand a chance. His balance shifts, weight tips, and I pull him down right into the narrow bed, into the sheets, into me.
“AaaaaaAYYYSSHHH—!” I yelp the second the movement jolts my thigh, the wound screaming a protest sharp enough to nearly knock me out. Pain explodes like fireworks behind my eyes. My head snaps back, and I nearly fucking sob.
“Idiot!” Rafe snaps, already bracing me, already adjusting his weight so he doesn’t crush me or—worse—touch the injury. His arms cage around me fast, holding me still, voice vibrating near my throat. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing—”
But he doesn’t pull away.
He doesn’t move.
Doesn’t get up.
He stays.
I burrow against his chest like some deranged, injured barn cat, breathing through the ache, trembling from the aftershock, but smiling all the same. “’S warm here,” I mumble, words thick, cheek pressed to his sternum. “You’re heavy. That’s nice.”
Rafe sighs. It’s a violent exhale, full of frustration and disbelief and that low, dangerous affection he won’t name yet.
But he stays and I win.
Again.