Chapter 31
The first thing is the smell. It’s a sterile, chemical stench that claws at the back of my throat, a sharp-edged cleanliness that feels like an insult.
Antiseptic, bleach, the faint, sweet-metallic tang of blood.
It’s a hospital. I don’t need to open my eyes to know that.
My body knows it too, but my body is a distant, pain-wrecked country I can’t quite map out.
A dull, throbbing burn blankets me, a constant, humming distress signal from every single nerve ending.
But there are sharper places. My face feels tight, impossibly stiff, like a mask of clay that has baked and cracked in the sun.
My arms, my back, each breath is a conscious, grinding effort, the skin pulling and screaming with the slightest expansion of my ribs.
I try to swallow, but my throat is a ragged desert. A sound escapes me, a low, guttural croak that is nothing close to human speech.
“Ah, you’re awake,” a female voice says, far too fucking cheerful, far too fucking calm. “Don’t try to move. I’ll get the doctor.”
I hear her quick footsteps retreat. I fight against the leaden weight of my eyelids, prying the left one open. The right refuses, feeling like a swollen, pulsing mass.
The light in the room is soft, muted, but it still feels like a needle in my brain. I’m in a private room, all beige walls and bland furniture. Tubes snake from my arms. I’m cocooned in bandages, a mummy in a prison of gauze and my own ruined flesh.
A man in a white coat enters, followed by the nurse. He has the weary, condescending demeanour of someone who believes his authority is absolute within these four walls. He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with. No one here does.
“Mr Macrae,” he says, his voice a practised baritone of reassurance. “I’m Dr Evans. It’s good to see you conscious.
I try to speak, but my throat seizes. The nurse steps forward with a plastic cup of water, a straw angled towards my cracked lips. The water is lukewarm, but it’s a balm. It allows me to find my voice, though it comes out as a sandpaper rasp.
“How long?”
“You’ve been in a medically induced coma for two weeks,” Dr Evans says, consulting a chart.
“You’ve already undergone extensive surgery to debride the burned tissue.
You suffered severe second and third-degree burns on your face, arms, back, and chest. You are a very lucky man.
It’s a miracle you survived. We were able to successfully graft some skin from your thigh, and we’re using a new synthetic dermal matrix to encourage regeneration. But it’s a delicate process.”
Lucky. He thinks I’m lucky.
He sees a patient who cheated death, when I see a King who was nearly dethroned by an act of treachery.
My mind is already racing, clawing its way through the drug-haze to the stark, brutal realities.
Two weeks. I’ve been gone from my empire for two weeks.
That’s as good as an eternity. Chaos breeds in a vacuum, and I have left the mother of all vacuums.
“The road to recovery will be long,” he continues, oblivious to the storm brewing behind my one good eye. “There will be significant pain, physiotherapy, and of course, the psychological impact…”
“I don’t have time,” I snarl. The effort sends a fresh wave of fire across my back.
Dr Evans blinks, taken aback by the venom in my voice. “Mr Macrae, you need to calm down. Your body has been through an incredible trauma. Stress will only impede your healing. You need to rest.”
“I need to get the fuck out of this bed,” I grind out. “I don’t have time for a long road.”
Even now our enemies could be moving against us. Hell, they could be right outside the door as I speak. Long roads are for nobodies, people of no consequence. I have no such luxuries when I know such action will almost certainly lead to my death and the downfall of the entire Brethren.
“You need to lie down,” he says, a firm edge entering his voice. He places a hand on my shoulder, a gesture meant to be soothing. It feels like a brand. It is an act of control, and I do not tolerate being controlled.
“Take your hand off me,” I whisper, the quiet tone more dangerous than any shout. “And get out.”
He hesitates, his mouth opening to deliver another platitude but he’s saved by the door swinging open.
Mateus fills the doorway. Of course, it’s Mateus.
Tall, impeccably dressed in a dark suit that looks absurdly out of place here, his face a granite mask of loyalty.
His eyes, cold and assessing, sweep the room, dismissing the doctor and nurse in an instant before settling on me.
There is no shock in his gaze, only a grim acknowledgement.
“Give us the room,” My brother says to the doctor. It isn’t a request.
Dr Evans puffs up, ready to assert his authority. “I am this man’s physician…”
“And I am the man who decides whether you continue to be a physician,” Mateus replies, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. “The room. Now.”
The doctor looks at me, at the barely-contained violence in Mateus’s posture, and something in his face fractures.
He’s a man who deals in broken bodies, but this is a different kind of breakage, one he doesn’t understand.
He nods stiffly to the nurse and they both leave, closing the door behind them.
The silence they leave is heavy, charged. Mateus pulls the visitor’s chair close to the bed and sits, his movements economical and precise. He doesn’t offer false sympathy. That’s why I trust him.
“The doctor’s right about one thing,” Mateus says, his voice low. “You should rest.”
“How the fuck is that the case?” I spit out, the pain making me vicious. “Two weeks, Mateus. Tell me everything is not on fire.”
He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “It’s contained.
The official story is you’re overseeing a sensitive, extended negotiation in the Middle East. A communications blackout.
None of the Chapters are aware of this incident.
No one has realised you are here. I am acting as your voice, and everything is proceeding as you would wish. ”
The web of lies is a fragile one but Mateus is a master weaver, he learned from the best, after all. Still, it’s a stopgap. A King cannot rule through a proxy for long. Rumours are a cancer, and they have had two weeks to metastasize.
I shift, trying to find a position that doesn’t feel like I’m lying on a bed of hot coals. “Marco?”
Mateus’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. “Alive, but only just. He’s in a coma two floors down. The doctors aren’t sure if he’ll wake up. He took the brunt of the blast. He’s, he’s far more burnt than you were.”
The image flashes in my mind. His hand shoving me backward a crucial half-second before the world erupted. That shove might have saved my life, even as it condemned his. A cold knot tightens in my gut. It wasn’t Marco. I know it in my bones. He would have died for me, and he very nearly did.
“Everyone else?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
Mateus meets my gaze. “Dead. The clean-up was thorough. There’s nothing left to connect it to us. It was a gas leak. A tragic accident by all accounts, but barely newsworthy.”
An accident. My entire security detail wiped out.
“The Grand Master?” I ask.
Mateus’s face looks more reassuring than I expect. “His brother is playing the part. No one is aware of the real situation.”
I narrow my eyes, is that possible? Is it really as easy as that? Can I simply wake up two weeks after an attack and the world not have imploded without me?
“I want my phone,” I demand.
Mateus doesn’t argue. He reaches into his inside pocket and produces my encrypted satellite phone.
It feels alien and familiar in my bandaged hand.
The screen is a blur. I blink, forcing my left eye to focus.
This is the reality of my new existence.
This weakness. This vulnerability. It is a poison in my veins, more corrosive than any pain.
But a King does not show weakness. A King projects power, even from a hospital bed.
I navigate the menus with a clumsy thumb. First call, the US. Chapter Lord, Charles. The phone rings once.
“Antonio,” Charles’s voice comes through, sharp with relief and thinly-veiled anxiety. “We were starting to worry. This radio silence is unlike you.”
“Worry is a luxury we can’t afford, Charles,” I say, my voice rasping but layered with steel.
I sound like a man who has a cold, not a man who looks like melted wax.
Image is everything. “My negotiations here are more complex than anticipated. I am entrusting you with the East Coast distribution. The shipments from Colombia are to be rerouted through Miami. You handle the logistics. I want a full report on Mateus’s desk by tomorrow night. No excuses.”
There’s a pause. I can almost hear him thinking, reassessing. My tone brokers no argument. “Understood, Antonio. It will be done.”
“See that it is.” I end the call without ceremony.
Next up is Magnus, the U.K. Chapter Lord.
The connection crackles. “Antonio. I’d heard you were unavailable.”
“Rumours are for gossips, Magnus. I am never unavailable.” I let the silence hang, a tool of intimidation that travels perfectly well over a satellite link.
“I am sending you a present. An old acquaintance I’m sure you’ll remember.
Vera Heseltine. I want her to remain in Oblivion but she does not mix with the general population, do you understand? ”
“As you wish.” He says without a second of hesitation.
“She’s in a bad state, so feel free to amputate whatever limbs necessary, and I want it off the books. No records. No evidence. You can do what you like with her as long as no one knows she is there.”
I can practically hear the smile spreading across his face. “I know exactly how to handle such a situation.”
Of course he does, he did the same thing with her daughter, same thing with his first wife too.
“I want her face erased. I want to ensure that even if someone does discover her, they have no clue who she is.”
“Consider it done.”
I hang up, feeling a little relief that one potential fuck up has now been avoided.
Mateus can see to the details, can ensure Vera is packaged and shipped.
When I tell him that he simply nods, as if I’ve asked for a cup of tea and not something as complex as transporting a mutilated woman halfway across Europe undetected.
I make two more calls to the heads in Frankfurt and Dubai, issuing directives, shifting resources, tightening my grip.
Each word is an effort, a spike of pain driven behind my eye.
Sweat beads on my forehead, trickling down the bandages but with each command, I feel a little less like a victim and a little more like a King reclaiming his throne.
Mateus watches me, his expression unreadable. When I finally lower the phone, my hand is trembling with fatigue.
“You see?” He says gently. “We can manage this. You can control everything from this bed. No one will be any wiser. You need to rest now. Regain your strength.”
I nod, but the gesture is hollow. He’s right, and he’s wrong. We can maintain the illusion for a while longer, but strength? My strength was built on fear, on the certainty of my presence. That certainty is now a question mark. Rest is not a luxury I can afford for long.
He holds his hand out and in it, I see the tiny glint of red dangling down. How the fuck it survived I don’t know but it feels like a message, a sign from God that he approves of my methods, my choices, my intentions too.
I reach for it, securing it around my neck, and that semblance of control seems to calm me. I can do this. I can manage all of this.
I open the secure messaging app. Writing a message that is short, and yet typed with agonising slowness. ‘Status update on the bitch.’
The reply is almost instantaneous. ’Asset is progressing. Phase one is complete. Awaiting instructions for phase two.’
I close my eye for a moment, picturing her as she screamed, flailed, and tried to fight.
I type again, each tap a deliberate act of will. ’Maintain current protocol. Keep her in phase one. Intensity is authorised. I want her utterly broken and obedient in everything.’
I drop the phone onto the starched white sheets. The brief surge of adrenaline is fading, leaving behind the crushing weight of my body’s betrayal.
“We need to relocate.” I say quietly. This hospital might be secure, but I am still a sitting duck.
“Where?”
I draw in a shaky breath, hating the feeling of fallibility. “Scotland.” I reply. I can retreat, can disappear to our father’s estate there and know that I have enough security to ensure my safety.
And I can recover there, unseen without alerting anyone, while I continue pulling the strings that control the entire fucking world.