Chapter 31 Madeline
Madeline
I woke up to Crow.
Not the polite, smoothed-out English he used around other dynasties. The low, fast, knife-edged dialect that came out when he was either exhausted, furious, or both.
“—ven asha, not negotiable,” he snapped, the consonants hard in his mouth. “You try to move on our docks again and I’ll take your ships apart bolt by bolt, do you understand me?”
My stomach dropped. I kept my eyes almost closed, pretending for one more second that I was still asleep. It felt wrong to listen.
He switched back into dialect for a string of words I couldn’t translate, only feel. I pushed myself up on one elbow. His head tipped, like he’d felt it. He muttered something in Crow, then ended the call with a tap.
Silence rushed in after it. The kind that rang. He stood there a second. I watched his chest rise and fall, too slow for the kind of adrenaline I could feel rolling off him.
“Vince.”
His shoulders dropped a fraction. He turned.
“Hey.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, like he was trying to erase the last five minutes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t. Your angry Crow did.”
“Yeah.” His mouth twisted. “Apologies from my angry Crow, then.”
He came back to the bed, dropped his phone on the nightstand, and sat on the edge like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to lie down anymore.
I watched his eyes flick to my legs, then drag back up to my face like it physically hurt him to look away.
“What happened?”
“Nothing that can be fixed from here.” He leaned back. “There’s a situation on the syndicate line. Rival crew started pushing through our shipments last night. Luca contained what he could, but—”
He broke off, jaw tightening. The Crow word that came out next was quiet and vicious.
“—they poked the wrong fucking nest.”
I sat up properly and tugged the hem of his shirt down over my thighs.
“Is it bad?”
“The situation or the fact that they woke me up when I was finally in bed with my girl?”
“Both.”
He huffed, but it wasn’t a laugh. “The situation is… manageable. For now. But if I don’t go in, it won’t be. And once I go in, it’s going to eat the day. And the night.”
The words hit slow. I felt the meaning land before he finished talking.
“You have to go.”
“I have to go.” He stared up at the ceiling for a second, like he hated the sentence more every time he repeated it. “I’m sorry, baby. I thought I’d cleared this weekend. I did clear this weekend. Someone just decided they wanted to die today.”
Two weeks.
I got him two days every second week when the calendars lined up and nobody was bleeding. Forty-eight hours. I swallowed the little lump climbing up my throat.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” His head snapped toward me. “You get two days. Every two weeks. That’s already bullshit. And now I’m cutting that in half because some idiot can’t read a border agreement?”
“It’s not you cutting it. It’s your job.”
“I am my job. That’s the problem.”
He pushed up to his feet like he couldn’t stand still anymore, pacing toward the dresser and back in a tight line. The bandage on his side pulled with the movement. I winced just looking at it.
“You could say no,” I joked weakly. “Let the rival syndicate have Villain. I’m sure it’d be fine.”
He shot me a look over his shoulder that said even imagining that gave him hives.
“Yeah,” I said. “Didn’t think so.”
He paused at the foot of the bed, eyes fixed on me in that way that always felt like being stepped into. Not in a bad way. In a this man sees too much way.
“You’re disappointed.”
“Of course I’m disappointed.” I didn’t bother smoothing that over. “I like you.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. The rest of his face stayed bleak.
“I’m disappointed,” I added, softer. “Not mad.”
“You should be mad.” He dragged a hand down his face. “You plan work all week so you can get away and then… this. You deserve a normal person. A normal weekend that isn’t interrupted by death threats.”
“I would be so bored with a normal person.”
That got a real exhale out of him. Not quite a laugh, but closer.
“I’m still sorry.”
“I know.”
He was still standing there, like he didn’t know where to put his hands.
Vincent Crow, who could walk into a war room and make ten men flinch with a raised brow, looked genuinely lost in his own bedroom because he had to go to work and leave his girlfriend in bed.
Not girlfriend. Sub. That was the word we kept wrapping around this. Daddy and sub. Dom and sub. Crow-language for something that felt suspiciously like husband and wife in training.
He looked wrecked anyway.
I pushed the sheets back and crawled toward him, until I was close enough to wrap my arms around his waist.
He didn’t make me pull. He folded down immediately, arms coming around my shoulders and crushing me to his chest.
“Baby.”
“It’s fine. It sucks. But it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. I get you for two days and I’m about to hand the second one over to a bunch of assholes who couldn’t handle Luca’s first warning.”
I thought of Luca’s “first warning” and decided whoever was on the other end had, in fact, made a very stupid choice.
“I was already planning what we’d do tonight.”
“Yeah?” His voice dropped. “Tell me.”
“I was going to win the argument about movies vs documentaries.”
“You were never going to win that.”
“And I was going to steal one of your shirts.”
“You already stole three.”
“You were going to watch me steal another one and pretend you didn’t like it.”
He exhaled against my temple. “Madeline.”
“I’m allowed to be sad,” I said. “You’re allowed to be guilty. None of that changes the fact you need to go.”
He tipped his forehead against mine. “I hate that you’re reasonable.”
“I hate that you’re still bleeding and thinking about going to yell at people.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“You were stabbed.”
“It was a shallow stab.”
“Do you hear yourself when you talk?”
He didn’t answer that. Which was answer enough.
I leaned back a little and glanced at the clock. Almost nine.
“How long do you have?”
“Car will be here in twenty. I have to shower. Change. Pretend I didn’t get knifed on a Wednesday.”
The stab wound tugged at my brain again.
“Before you go anywhere, I want to see your side.”
“It’s fine.”
“Let me rephrase,” I said, sliding my hands up to his neck. “Sit down, Vincent.”
His eyes flickered darker at the tone. That was the unfair thing about having a dom; sometimes the only way to get them to behave was to talk back in their own language.
He sat.
I shifted off the bed, grabbing the first aid kit from the ensuite before he could protest. He watched me move with that look again.
I peeled the edge of the dressing back as gently as I could.
It was worse than he’d let on. Not catastrophic.
But deep enough that someone had put time into that swing.
The skin around it was angry and tight. Fresh bruise under the tape.
“Vince.”
“I’ve had worse. The other guy hasn’t.”
“Congratulations.” I reached for antiseptic. “That doesn’t make me less unimpressed.”
He hissed when the gauze touched the skin. Tried to pretend he didn’t. I pretended not to notice him playing tough.
“You’re supposed to be the smart Crow,” I muttered. “Maybe act like it and stop collecting knife marks like they’re merit badges.”
“Hard to focus on my personal safety when my sub is walking around in lace with little bows.”
Heat flared in my cheeks and down my throat. “That was last night.” I bit back a smile and focused on smoothing the tape, ignoring the way his fingers flexed around me. “Hold still. If this splits today, I will actually be mad.”
“Yes, baby.”
I smacked his shoulder lightly, at his tone. He caught my hand and kissed the inside of my wrist, all smug and soft.
“I am sorry,” He caught my chin and tilted my face up, pressing his mouth to mine. Slow, careful, like he knew if he deepened it I’d forget to let him leave. When he pulled back, his eyes were serious again.
“I still want the debrief tonight.” His thumb stroked along my jaw. “This doesn’t stop just because I’m at work. The dynamic doesn’t pause. You’re still my girl when you’re on the jet. You’re still my sub when you walk back into your parents’ house.”
“I know.”
His gaze sharpened, like he was checking. “You sure.”
“Yes.” My chest tightened.
Something in his shoulders eased.
“I just…” I hesitated, searching for the right shape of it. “I don’t want it to be only you managing me. These rules, the pictures, the debriefs. I love them. I need them. But if we never… see each other… if it’s just management and control and you on a screen—”
“I know.” His hand slid to the back of my neck. “I don’t want that either.” His gaze flicked away, just for a second, like the idea physically hurt. “I wish my life was different.”
“I don’t wish you were different,” I said quietly. “Just the parts that hurt.”
He looked at me like I’d cracked something open in his ribs that had nothing to do with knives.
“You are more than the weekend,” he said suddenly, like the thought had just grabbed him by the throat. I’m not slotting you into a schedule between enforcement and dinner and calling it done.”
“I know that. I still hate that this is all we get,” I added. “Two days. A lot of phone calls. A lot of photos. It makes the goodbyes feel… bigger than they should.”
His throat worked. “It’s not a goodbye.”
“It is for the next two weeks.”
He flinched like I’d hit him.
I tried to soften it. “It’s not the dramatic kind. It’s just… the quiet one. The kind where I walk into an elevator and know I won’t touch you again until the calendar lets me.”
“Baby.” His hand on my neck tightened. “You’re actually going to kill me.”
“You can call me dramatic.”
“You are dramatic.” He tugged me in, pressed his forehead to mine again. “And you’re right. And I hate it.”
“You’re very honest this morning.”
“Being stabbed loosens my filter.”
“You’re making jokes. That means you’re about to spiral.”
He exhaled, long and slow. “I’m panicking a little, yes.”
“About what?”
“That you’ll walk out that door thinking I care more about syndicate lines than about you.”
“I don’t think that.”
“You might later. When you’re tired and the plane is loud and I’m not there.”
“I’ll be annoyed at your job,” I traced the back of his hand. “Not at you.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not.”
He sighed, lifting my hand and kissing my knuckles. “I need to go shower. If I keep looking at you, I’m going to start a fight with my own timetable.”
“Go. I’ll make coffee. I can at least send you into battle caffeinated.”
He kissed me once more, quick and rough, then pulled away like it hurt. The bathroom door shut behind him. Water started a moment later.
I sat there a second, fingers pressed to my mouth, heart doing something stupid and painful in my chest.
Two days. Every two weeks. And some cruel god had decided even that was too generous.
I moved on autopilot. Coffee. Toast I knew he wouldn’t have time to eat but would take anyway. I cleaned up the gauze wrappers and put the kit back, because chaos made him twitchy.
By the time he came back out, wearing black trousers and a shirt with the sleeves rolled, quiet god of war mode engaged, the apartment smelled like coffee and there was a mug at his place on the counter.
He stopped in the doorway, just looking at me.
“What.”
“Nothing.” The word came out softer than it had any right to. “You look like you live here.”
I did. I also knew I’d replay that look on his face for the next fourteen days.
He crossed the space between us and wrapped a hand gently around the back of my neck, tilting my head up for one more kiss.
“Tonight,” he said against my mouth. “I don’t care if you’re exhausted. I want the call. I want all of it. If you’re mad, I want to hear that too. Don’t do the dynasty thing with me and pretend you’re fine.”
“I promise.”
“And the pictures don’t stop. I want them more now.” His voice dropped. “Especially now. I need to know what my girl’s wearing under all that polite Thorne packaging. I need the reminder that even when you’re in their house, you’re mine.”
“I’ll send them.”
“Good.” A flicker of satisfaction crossed his face. “That’s my girl.”
Heat fluttered low in my stomach at the words. He checked the time on his watch and swore softly under his breath.
We walked to the elevator together. The private one, the one that opened directly into his living room like the rest of the building didn’t exist. He pressed the call button and stood there with one hand still at my waist, as if letting go early might make the lift arrive faster and he was refusing on principle.
“I’ll see you in two weeks, then.” My throat felt tight. “That sounds like a long time when I say it out loud.”
“It is a long time.” He tipped my face up with a knuckle. “I fucking hate it.”
“I do too.”
“Madeline.”
“Yeah?”
“This isn’t… temporary for me.” His eyes held mine, steady and dark. “Just in case you have a night where your brain gets loud and tells you stories. This is not a scene I get bored of. ”
The raw honesty of it hurt more than the goodbye.
“I know. You don’t do halfway, remember?”
The elevator chimed. Doors slid open.
We stood there one more second, in the threshold between our world and everyone else’s. Then he pulled me in, kissed me, hard before letting me go.
“Message when you’re in the car. Then again when you’re at the airport. Then when you land. Don’t roll your eyes. I want the timestamps.”
“I wasn’t going to roll my eyes.”
“You were thinking it.”
“Maybe, but I love you,”
“I love you too.” He stepped back as the doors started to close, hands sliding out of mine at the last possible second.
The lift hummed down. My stomach dropped with it.
Two weeks.