22. -21-
Dorian
By the evening, Eleanor glued enough wires and needles into me to build a small robot.
I felt like an exam she couldn’t fail. Heart rhythm, blood work, EEG, MRI, liver panels, kidney function, toxicology screens, reflex tests, neuro checks, pupil reflex, coordination, memory tasks.
I touched my nose on command like a trained circus bear.
I walked in a straight line down the corridor while she stalked beside me with a tablet and a frown, ready to catch me if I swayed.
Everything came back perfect. My brain and organs were intact, my reflexes sharp, my concentration decent for someone who’d spent three days in chemically induced purgatory.
No tremors, no cognitive deficits, no arrhythmia, no lingering toxins.
Apparently, I was the healthiest man in the hospital, which was ironic, considering my last clear memory was coming in my wife’s mouth while chained to a bed in a haunted house.
Eleanor insisted on two more days of strict observation, but I’d already observed enough. If I stayed in this room any longer, I would lose my mind. Or worse, Malin would corner me with questions I had zero intention of answering.
I managed to keep him at bay so far, which meant almost the whole day, only because he presumed I was still too weak for interrogation.
But he wasn’t stupid. He was a shark in human skin, a predator who smelled the faintest drop of blood in the water.
And the moment he deduced I remembered something and didn’t share it with him, he’d start being an annoying pain in my ass.
Sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, I read my chart out of pure boredom when the knock came, three short and one long. Sasha’s signal, meaning my beloved older brother was approaching.
The door opened, and Malin walked in with the same energy as a guillotine blade, silent and lethal.
His dark, narrowed eyes swept the room, lingering first on the IV stand, then on my wrists where faint bruises still marked the restraints.
A muscle ticked along his jaw. That alone told me he was barely holding the leash on whatever monstrous thought that ran through his mind.
“You look alive,” he grumbled in a low voice that carried a weight that could crush a ribcage.
“You sound disappointed, sunshine.” I grinned, flipping the chart shut. “The whole family is grieving my survival.”
An ordinary person would smile at the joke, but Malin rarely reacted unless something terrible was about to happen. Instead, he stepped closer until his ominous aura almost ate all the brightness of my enlightening personality.
“I have news,” he disclosed, his eyes scanning my face like surveillance cameras. This was one of the few times he said more than ten words in half an hour. With Zyon, we always cherished those moments, but right now, I was concerned. “We found two distinct sets of footprints outside the house.”
I hummed, pretending to be impressed by this revelation while my stomach tightened. The memory of the shooting and suffocating smoke forced unpleasant thoughts about my villainess’s safety to the front of my mind.
“One small,” Malin continued, voice sharp like a sword. “Light. Most probably female. And,” he paused as if weighing the severity of his words, “she was bleeding.”
My fingers twitched against the mattress, but my expression stayed intact.
“Maybe she twisted her ankle while running from your charming personality.” I winked at him, getting no reaction once or ever.
“The second,” he started pacing menacingly before me, “is surely a man, someone who knows how to cover tracks, someone who wiped every camera between Starlight and that forest.” His head snapped toward me, his glare murderous.
“They are dangerously clever, professionally equipped, and interested in you. What the fuck do they want, Dorian?”
“How should I know?” I whined, rolling my eyes right into his deadly serious face. “Everything is wiped out.”
“I don’t believe you.” He raised his index finger and bent down so our eyes were on the same level. “You must remember something. Anything.”
His stare was a silent threat carved into the air. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
“I remember a headache,” I lied, holding his look.
“And before that?” he rumbled, which made me lift my brows because he rarely raised his voice. His reputation and actions often did the magic, but here, I saw cracks. My villainess didn’t just mess with my head. She messed his, too.
“I already told you,” I sighed, annoyance dripping from every syllable. “I remember everything before the abduction, nothing after the garage. I woke up here with a massive headache, thirsty, and horny.”
The last word slipped out by accident, but I let it sit between us because it distracted him. Malin’s mouth twitched at the corner. It wasn’t a smile, more like a glitch in his programming.
“Horny,” he spat like it was the most disgusting insult. “You almost died, and you think about your dick. Magnificent.”
“My dick almost died, too,” I pouted like a five-year-old, knowing he hated the behavior. “It deserves to be part of the debrief.”
Malin’s jaw flexed. He leaned even closer so our noses almost touched. It was unsettling to look into a face identical to mine and see absolutely nothing of myself in it.
“You’re hiding something, brother,” he whispered in a chilling voice, his eyes like probes that saw right into my soul.
I knew I couldn’t lie to him forever, but I had to find a way to keep him from my villainess.
However, my pathetic approach only seemed to heighten his interest in the whole matter.
Fuck. Why the hell did he have to act like a throat-slicing robot?
It never bothered me that he killed people without hesitation.
His hunts and torture sessions were my source of entertainment.
I even participated in them. But this time, I feared he would catch his prey.
I was scared of what he would do to her for daring to touch me.
And that meant something, because I never stopped Malin from delivering punishment.
“I will find them,” he interrupted my thoughts, bringing me back to the terrifying reality. My pulse kicked harder from fear for her, my lunatic wife, my villainess, my brown-eyed unexplainable obsession who drugged me half to death. Still, I forced a casual shrug.
“Good luck,” I said in a detached tone, doing my best to pass his test. But only he knew the fucking results. “I know you love a good hunt.”
“And I always catch them,” he reminded me, straightening to his full height. The truth in that sentence made the room colder.
“You stay in this room,” he ordered, moving to the door like he expected it to detonate.
“I need fresh air,” I whined.
“You don’t.”
“Oh, I do.” I lifted the jug of hospital water, trying to make him understand my suffering. “This vintage is terrible.”
He rolled his eyes and disappeared before I could destroy the lie I crafted for the past few minutes. Thank God, because I almost shouted into his face: Don’t touch her. She’s mine.
The door clicked quietly behind him, leaving me with suffocating anxiety clutching my chest. He was on a mission, and instead of being happy that he craved to avenge me and send a message to everyone that our family was untouchable, I was… I didn’t even know what I was.
Conflicted? Maybe.
Confused? Probably.
Enchanted? Absolutely.
You’re fucking crazy, the demon voiced the obvious. Protecting the woman who nearly killed you.
“Like I didn’t know that,” I hissed under my breath. Sure, that strong need to protect my wife was unexpected. But I couldn’t let Malin hurt her. He would touch her only over my dead body.
She was mine to punish for this chaos in my head, the confusion swirling in my chest, and the endless thoughts she left behind.
No other woman had ever made me obsess over a pair of gorgeous eyes, bold actions, and a mouth skilled enough to ruin my common sense.
She forced me to submit, and because of that, I couldn’t let her go. She imprinted herself into my brain.
“Fuck,” I groaned, rubbing my eyes. “I need a distraction.”
Of course, the demon mocked. Find another masked psychopath to balance the scales.
“Oh, shut up,” I muttered, peeling the pulse oximeter off my finger. He wasn’t usually this annoying.
I slid off the bed and stepped into the hall.
Sasha glanced at me from down the corridor, but didn’t block the exit and didn’t ask questions.
He simply nodded in silent acknowledgment.
I walked away with the relaxed confidence of a man who absolutely didn’t have a secret wife hiding somewhere in the city plotting her next insanity.
The elevator doors closed and silence pressed in.
My mind immediately filled with her. A muffled groan slipped past my lips as I returned to that dusty old house.
Leather, mask, brown eyes surrounded by that thin dark ring that glowed with borderline obsession.
Gloved fingers brushing my shirt open like it was a ritual.
The wicked glint when she swallowed me whole and left me gasping.
The way her voice trembled only once, when she pressed the gun to my hand and threatened my ability to operate.
She wanted me so badly she bought an illegal serum from whatever pit sold it, kidnapped me from my brother’s casino, dragged me into an ancient house that barely stood, and staged my death. What was it if not terrifyingly impressive?
My upbringing screamed that this outrageousness had to be punished.
The correct protocol was simple: track, corner, crush.
The exact thing Malin was doing. But another part of me claimed it was outstanding foreplay.
When I remembered the way I begged her when she denied me release, shivers ran down my spine.
The way she looked at me was like she would devour every cell in my body and wear the memory like jewelry.
My dick stirred to life, like a creature with no survival instinct. Malin’s bullets, Bratva politics, the staged cliff accident, none of it mattered to the idiot. One blowjob and he was loyal for life.
Wonderful. I survived a designer poison only to wake up with a brain full of chaos and a cock with attachment issues.
By the time I reached my office floor, my brain was a messy playground of mafia logic and sexual obsession. Great balance and perfect mental stability. My psychiatrist would’ve had a stroke if I had one.
The hallway was empty. Only two other doctors were here with me, and it was too soon for the cleaning lady to show up, dust the massive plants, and wipe the invisible dirt from the pristine floor.
Opening the door into my office, my gaze naturally landed on the sofa opposite the entrance, and I froze.
She sat on my couch as if she owned it, one leg crossed over the other, leather hugging every sinful line.
A new Venetian white mask hid her face. The gun rested casually on her thigh.
She looked just like I remembered, elegant, bold, and absolutely stunning.
My heart slammed against my ribcage painfully. Half an hour ago, Malin assured me that no one would enter the hospital unnoticed. And still, here she was, staring at me like she knew she had already owned my every fucking thought.