62. -61-
Dorian
Sitting on the floor, up to my eyeballs in paperwork, my thoughts involuntarily drifted to my sleeping wife upstairs.
I had meetings to schedule for Zyon about his underground medical facility.
Interviews had to be run, the shipments had to be planned, a million things could go wrong if I didn’t focus on every minor detail.
But instead of organizing the chaos, my brain pushed images of Nina to the forefront of my still-frightened mind.
“Bloody fuck,” I exhaled, running a frustrated hand through my tousled hair.
For years, I knew exactly who could destroy me. Zyon. Malin. Ramzan. Mom. The list ended there. Then Nina barged into my life like an avalanche, and suddenly every nightmare my head could invent wore her face.
Nothing happened to her, idiot, the demon snarled, his presence stronger when she wasn’t around.
“Because she’s the luckiest person in the world,” I mumbled, staring up the stairs in case she woke up. The last thing I needed was her to find me arguing with myself.
Seriously? he whined in evident disbelief. She got you for a husband. Where was her luck then?
“Oh, shut up!” I slammed the file against the coffee table, focusing on the envelope that came the previous day.
The stamp said Social Services. My chest tightened.
Not even that I hadn’t said to my wife about adoption yet, because with Malin, the file, and everything else, I simply forgot.
But I also was scared to open the fucking letter because what if they rejected my application?
Then we’ll kidnap her, falsify her papers, and make her ours, the demon offered a perfect solution, making me smile for the first time this morning. She’s ours.
“Yes, she is,” I agreed, grasping the envelope.
I ripped it open and pulled the paper out when the buzzing of Malin’s phone interrupted me.
He’d handed me his work phone after waking up, loaded with numbers for what I privately called his stalking team.
The name Stella blinked on the screen relentlessly.
“I’m listening,” I picked up, leaning the envelope against the vase.
“Hey, temporary boss,” the young voice chirped. “I have the file you asked for. Everything on Sonny Carlile we were able to dig up.”
“Anything stand out?” I asked, hot rage bubbling in my stomach just from the thought of the bastard.
“The large sums of money he receives stand out,” she replied, the rock music echoing in the background. “But we haven’t found who sends it. Everything goes through shell companies. It’s the perfect cover-up.”
“Cover-up of what?” I groaned, thinking about the things Sonny could be involved in. Money laundering, sex trafficking, weapons, drugs- the list was endless.
“No idea. Whatever it is, they’re paying him too much for it to be legal,” Stella said. “I dug into the connection with the Valentino family, but I hit a wall there, too.”
“We need Malin to break that wall.” I stood up and headed to the kitchen for a coffee refill.
“We sure do,” she agreed. “How is he, by the way?”
“Grumpy, annoying, complaining about everything. His sunshine personality is glowing.”
A genuine laugh spilled out of her.
“Good to hear he’s back.”
“Yeah.” I smiled, inhaling the smell of freshly brewed coffee. “Anyway, keep me updated. Sonny is my number one person of interest. Also,” I remembered another thing, “keep an eye on Lorenzo Valentino, too. He is up to something.”
“Roger that, temporary boss,” she confirmed and ended the call.
“Temporary boss.” I grinned, shaking my head at the title. “If only she knew.”
I put a generous amount of cream into my steamy concoction and turned to the door, almost getting a real heart attack.
“Morning!” Nina greeted me with a murderous expression, a dim kitchen light reflecting off her satin short nightgown. “Who the fuck made you smile at five am, husband?”
Half the coffee splashed onto the floor, but I didn’t mind. My gaze was glued to her. She looked like an angel of death with glowing eyes and long hair framing her lethal face.
“No one,” I exhaled, pretty sure that if I said I was talking to a woman, she would have my balls for breakfast.
“Dorian.” She took a slow step closer, and I almost flinched back. Fuck. I wasn’t scared of my wife, but she’d caught me completely unprepared. And why the hell did I feel like I’d committed a crime?
“Malin’s team member called,” I said, wiping my burning thumb with a napkin. “To debrief me and ask about Malin. No one made me smile.”
“He or she?” Nina lifted a brow when I didn't answer right away, and I sighed.
“She.”
“Why is she calling you at five am?”
“Because it was important.”
“Nothing is that important!” Nina yelled, slamming her hand against the kitchen counter. Her words were unusually thick with an Italian accent. “You’re a married man. You don’t receive calls from women at night!”
“I’m a doctor,” I reminded her calmly, my chest warming with contentment the more she fumed. Was I crazy for loving how possessive she was? Absolutely. “I receive calls from female nurses all the time.”
Her eyes narrowed, potent anger radiating from her in waves.
“And don’t forget Malin owns a sex club, too.” My teeth sank into my lower lip to stop a grin from splitting my face in half as she threw a kitchen towel at me.
“If you meet a hooker while you’re married to me, I swear to God—”
I pulled her flush against my chest, cutting off all the threats running out of her mouth with a passionate kiss. She slammed my shoulder hard, but reciprocated the attention, and in a few minutes, we were on the floor, stripping our clothes off.
“You’re… fucking… unbelievable,” I groaned as I thrust into her ferociously.
“Why?” She nibbled on my nose, her long nails digging into my ass. “Because I protect what is mine?”
“Protect?” My hand wrapped around her throat to keep her in place when she tried to bite me. “You control, manipulate, and threaten everyone who just looks my way.”
“And you enjoy every second of it.” She smiled like the little maniac she was, wrapping invisible ropes around me tighter.
“So fucking much.”
Two hours later, I parked my car outside the hospital, replaying the morning with Nina over and over. Jealousy scene. Sex. Breakfast. Sex. Shower. More sex.
Fuck, I so didn’t want to leave when the stupid phone rang. But Jessica was finally letting me return, and I was a doctor through and through, so whether it was convenient or not, I left the most beautiful woman in the world alone in my house and went to save lives.
“Morning, Doc,” the head nurse waved at me as I hurried past her desk. “Trauma bay 2.”
She didn’t even let me put my scrubs on and pushed me inside. Melody was managing the bleeding while others did their jobs.
“Okay.” I moved toward the patient on the bed, putting on sterile gloves. “How bad is it?”
It was bad. Well, not bad, fucking terrible. And not only the morning, but the afternoon, too. I stopped in the cafeteria at three pm to finally have a cup of coffee and some water because I genuinely thought I might collapse.
“It was a horrible crash, right, Doc?” the middle-aged lady behind the counter said, casting me a sympathetic look. “The news is full of it. Did someone die?”
“Not here.” I shook my head, looking at the flat TV on the wall where the reporter spoke about a bus colliding with three cars. “But some people were transferred to another hospital. So who knows?”
I paid for my stuff and left, mentally incapable of continuing the conversation with anyone. I was drained, walking like a zombie.
“Aryna is asking about you,” Melody woke me from my trance as she passed me. “The nurse brought her a chocolate cake, but she’s still crying. Someone told her she’s leaving today.”
“What?” I almost dropped my coffee for the second time today.
“You don’t know?” Melody halted at the door to the cafeteria. “Watson discharged her this morning. She’s just waiting for Social Services to pick her up.”
My mouth fell open in shock, but I knew Melody wouldn’t give me the answers I needed. Taking the stairs three at a time, I ran to Watson’s office, not bothering with knocking.
“Who authorized you to discharge Aryna Stankovich?” I barked as soon as I stepped in, ignoring the young nurse sitting on top of his desk with her scrubs rolled up to expose her chest. She immediately jumped down, covering herself hastily.
“Get lost.” I waved her away, glaring at the chief of surgery, who was technically my supervisor but, in reality, I was his.
“Answer me!” I demanded when the door closed. “Who authorized you to discharge Aryna?”
“I did,” he replied calmly, pretending not to be fazed by my appearance. But his jaw ticked, and his fingers twitched nervously. “She met every discharge criterion.”
“I am her doctor.” I pointed at my chest angrily. “I decide when she leaves.”
“I didn’t know it was such a sensitive subject.” He rose from his chair, straightening to his full height.
“You know exactly how sensitive it is,” I ground out, rounding the desk without breaking eye contact.
I stopped so close he had nowhere to retreat.
“And it’s not the first time you overstepped your competence.
” His brows shot up in surprise. “Oooh, I know you’re checking on my patients and charts when I’m not here, Jason. I own this fucking place, remember?”
His fists clenched at his sides.
“But you don’t own my medical judgment.” He glared at me as if I was the one crossing the line. And maybe I was, but I didn’t fucking care.
My hospital. My rules.
“Do something like this again, and you’re done,” I said firmly, keeping my temper under control. “You’re a great doctor, but you don’t know when to stop. Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“I’m the chief of surgery,” he pointed out, holding my gaze.
“Yes, and just like that,” I snapped my fingers before his face, “you won’t be. Just push me a little more.”