Chapter 32 Rafe
RAFE
This isn’t fucking happening. One second, he’s spinning in Luca’s arms, mouthing off like the drunken menace he is, cheeks flushed and grin all teeth.
The next, he’s down. Knees slammed into the floor, eyes unfocused, voice slurring into something wrong.
I hear my name from across the room—soft, strained, like it’s been dragged through mud and glass—and my stomach fucking drops.
I’m moving before the thought even fully forms—shoving bodies aside, elbows and shoulders parting like water. Bishop shouts something behind me, Finn laughs for half a second, but the sound dies fast. No one’s laughing anymore.
Because Julian can’t breathe.
I drop to my knees beside him and catch him as he slumps forward, limp and scorching hot, skin fever-bright enough to blister under my palms. His breaths come in short, shallow stutters, chest barely rising at all. “Julian.”
Nothing.
His head lolls against my chest. He smiles—drunk, dazed, completely fucked—and whispers against my collarbone, “Sugary home…” For one stupid second I think maybe he’s just plastered, just heat-stupid and drowning in vodka. But then he giggles. Then his body jerks.
Then he stops.
Stops fucking breathing.
“Jules.”
I shake him. His mouth hangs open. His lips are turning the wrong color. No. No no no—
“KAI!”
He doesn’t respond fast enough. No one is moving fast enough. “KAI, FUCKING DO SOMETHING!!”
I’m holding him, but he’s not holding back anymore. He’s limp, twitching once, twice—and then the convulsions hit. Arms flail weakly. Legs kick against the floor like his body is trying to reject itself from the inside out. Foam bubbles at the corners of his lips.
I can’t fucking breathe either.
He’s not breathing right. He’s not there. His eyes roll back until all I see is white sclera. “Julian—Julian, no—”
I shake him again, harder. Something wet splashes my face—his spit or my tears, I can’t tell anymore. Kai finally drops beside me, ripping his bag open, shoving a penlight into Julian’s eye. “What the fuck did he take?!”
“Nothing!” I snarl. “I gave him his dose this morning. That’s all. Nothing since—nothing else!”
Kai moves faster now—mask, syringe, gloves snapping on. He checks Julian’s pulse, curses low and vicious under his breath. “This isn’t withdrawal,” he says. “It’s not the dose. He’s overdosing on something else.”
“That’s impossible.”
“He’s not responding.”
I stare at Kai, then at Julian, then at the foam now slicking the edge of his mouth. His body jerks again. His breath catches—stutters—then vanishes completely. Gone.
“No no no NO—”
I drop my forehead to his, press my ear to his chest. There’s something there—a faint flutter, a whisper of heartbeat. Barely. I look up. “Kai—fix it.”
Kai’s already drawing a dose—Naloxone, adrenaline, I don’t fucking care what it is.
He jabs the syringe into Julian’s thigh, and the motion still makes my stomach lurch like I’m about to be sick.
I wipe the foam from his mouth with my sleeve, hands shaking so badly I can barely keep them steady, muttering his name over and over like a prayer that might actually work if I say it fast enough.
Julian. Julian. Julian.
What the fuck is happening—
My eyes sweep the room in a frantic arc. Finn stands pale and frozen. Luca clutches Kai’s shoulder like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. Misha mutters low in Russian. Vlad is statue-still, face carved from stone. Ezio—
Gone.
“Where the fuck is Ezio?” I bark, voice raw enough to cut glass.
Everyone looks, but nobody answers. The shot glasses still sit on the table—every single one untouched, glittering under the lights like they’re mocking us, like they know exactly what just happened.
I stare down at Julian in my arms, choking, lips turning blue, breath vanishing into nothing, and the truth slams into me like a blade between the ribs.
That snake poisoned him. He drugged my fucking boy.
And I am going to kill him for it.
Julian’s heart stops.
I feel it—not just under my palm pressed to his chest, but deeper, under my skin, under my ribs, in the sudden void he leaves when his body goes completely still.
One second he’s convulsing, breath hiccupping, foam frothing at the corners of his mouth—and the next?
He goes fucking silent. His chest doesn’t rise.
His pulse doesn’t kick. His mouth falls open on nothing at all.
The scream that rips out of me could crack the compound in half. “JULIAN!!”
Kai’s already moving before the word finishes leaving my mouth—halfway into his emergency kit, yanking out defibrillator pads, barking clipped orders that barely register through the roar in my head. “Flatline—charging—get back!” he snaps.
But I don’t move. I can’t.
He’s in my fucking arms—my boy, my brat, my halo—cold and still and blue around the lips, not breathing. “Do something—FUCKING FIX HIM!” I snarl, voice cracking open, throat raw and bleeding. I’m not barking anymore. I’m begging. “Don’t you let him go, Kai. Don’t you fucking let him die.”
“Move,” Kai hisses. “Now.”
I don’t remember doing it, but I drop back just in time. The first jolt hits. Julian’s body jumps—violent, ugly—spine arching like it’s trying to snap in two. No sound. No breath.
“Again.”
Another shock.
I’m shaking—actually shaking. My hands lock into white-knuckled fists, knees slick with someone else’s blood, vision tunneling until all I can see is him. I can’t stop replaying the way he smiled at me minutes ago, purring “sugary home” like I was something soft, something sweet, and now he’s—
“PUPPY!” I roar, snapping my head around, voice shaking the walls. “FIND THAT FUCKING SNAKE—I WILL KILL HIM IN FRONT OF HIS FUCKING FATHER!!”
Finn doesn’t hesitate. He’s already vaulting over the table, past spilled drinks and broken glass and half the team still frozen in shock. His eyes are wild. He doesn’t even put shoes on. He runs barefoot toward the exit, screaming bloody murder. “EZIOOOOOOO!!”
The others start moving too. Bishop grabs a bat. Luca grabs a knife. Misha’s laughing—soft and unholy—like he’s just been handed permission to massacre. Vlad doesn’t say a word. Just nods once, slow, and disappears into the shadows like death’s already been scheduled.
Back at the center of it all, Kai works like a machine—sweat tracing a line down his temple, blood streaking his hands and forearms. He’s already pushed another dose of adrenaline and has the pads charged again, ready for the next shock.
I’m on my knees beside him, no longer shouting.
The rage has burned down to something quieter, more desperate.
I whisper now, pleading, bargaining with whatever god might still be listening in this fucked-up building.
“Come on, baby. Come on, Jules, breathe for me. Just once. One fucking breath. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him slow. Just come back.”
Kai shocks him again.
And this time— Julian gasps. Wet. Shallow.
But real. He fucking gasps. The sound breaks me open.
I crawl forward, grab his face with shaking hands, and stroke the damp curls back from his forehead like he might vanish again if I stop touching him for even a second.
He’s still out, still lost somewhere deep inside himself, but the faint tremble in his ribs means he’s trying. Fighting to stay.
I cradle his jaw in both hands. “That’s it, halo,” I whisper, voice cracking right down the middle. “Stay with me. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, baby.”
Kai doesn’t pause—he keeps working, checking vitals, adjusting the mask, monitoring every shallow rise and fall—but I catch the subtle drop in his shoulders. The tension easing just enough to tell me we’re not losing him anymore. Julian’s breathing again.
We don’t take him to the med bay. We take him to Kai’s.
Because there’s only one place in this whole fucking compound I trust to be sterile, sharp, and sealed shut against the world.
Kai Moreno’s container—clinical, clean, a little too quiet, but equipped like a warzone ER.
No one gets in without his say. No one gets near him without going through me first. And right now, that’s exactly where Julian needs to be.
Julian’s weight never leaves my arms. He’s breathing again—barely—but it’s shallow, jagged, fucked. His body keeps twitching like there’s still poison inside him trying to crawl out through his skin.
Kai throws the door open, clears the bed in one motion, starts snapping orders at the silence. “Get the IV ready. I need a cooler. Code Red protocol. Don’t talk.”
I don’t talk. I lay Julian down on the bed, as gently as I can while my hands are still shaking from rage. I wipe the sweat from his throat, press my forehead to his cheekbone for one beat too long, then pull back just as Finn bursts in, face flushed and fists clenched.
“He bolted,” he gasps, grabbing the doorframe like it might run too. “He’s not here anymore. Ezio’s gone.”
Something inside me snaps. “Stay here,” I growl, rounding on Finn, jabbing a finger toward Julian’s pale body like it’s the only god that matters. “If he breathes a little funny—if he twitches out of sync—you call me. You fucking call, you hear me?”
“Yes, boss,” Finn says instantly, dropping into the seat beside the bed. His hand finds Julian’s without hesitation. Holds it like he’s anchoring him to the living.
I step forward, bend down, press my lips to Julian’s forehead. He twitches under my mouth and a shiver goes through me so hard I almost can’t stand. “Don’t you fucking go anywhere, halo,” I whisper. “I’m gonna go rip his spine out for you.”
I turn to Kai. He meets my eyes and nods once—sharp, deadly calm. “Go.”
I go.
Out the door, down the hall, straight to the car. The second I slam the door shut, my foot slams the gas so hard the tires scream against the gravel. The compound gates are barely cracked open before I’m through them, engine roaring like it’s trying to outrun the panic still clawing at my ribs.