Chapter 22
Knox
Cassian walked ahead of them, whistling softly, like the evening had been mildly entertaining rather than what it actually was.
Dominic said nothing. Knox fell in behind him automatically. The silence didn’t feel awkward—it felt heavy, dense with the implications of what had just happened.
They crossed the floor toward the metal staircase. The overhead lights burned bright and everything looked normal, like nothing violent had happened fifteen feet away.
Halfway across the warehouse floor, Dominic pulled his phone out without breaking stride. “Get down to the lower holding cell,” he said when the call connected.
A short pause as Dominic took in whatever was said on the other end.
“Take care of it. Handle the cleanup.”
He ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket before pressing the elevator button. The doors opened almost immediately. Dominic and Cassian stepped inside, the latter leaning back against the wall with the relaxed ease of someone who had done this a hundred times.
Knox stopped at the threshold. Stepping in meant assuming he was welcome. He wasn’t sure he had the right to assume that—wasn’t sure what he was doing here at all, if he was honest.
Cassian’s gaze slid from Knox to Dominic, fascination clear on his face.
The elevator waited and Knox felt the silence stretch. Dominic hadn’t told him to leave, but he hadn't told him to come upstairs either.
Dominic’s eyes found Knox. “You coming?”
Two words. That was all it took. Knox stepped into the elevator.
Cassian shook his head. “Look at that. You’re bringing guests upstairs now.”
Knox stood near the wall with his hands loose at his sides, acutely aware of how small the space felt now that the moment of decision had passed. Dominic stood near the control panel, gaze fixed forward as the floor numbers ticked upward. Not looking at anyone. Not explaining anything.
Cassian smiled to himself. “You know,” he said, “this might be the most interesting part of my evening.”
Nobody answered him, but he didn’t seem to mind.
With nothing to do, Knox pulled out his phone. His screen was crowded with missed calls and messages from his friends, trying to figure out what the hell had happened at the club and whether he was okay.
He sent back a quick reply, assuring them he was safe and promising he’d explain later.
It was the best he could do. By tomorrow, he’d have to come up with a version of the night that sounded believable enough to answer their questions without coming anywhere close to the truth.
The doors opened onto the third level and Cassian stepped out into the hallway, hands in his pockets. Just before the doors slid shut, he glanced back at them and said, “Play nice.”
The doors closed.
Knox was painfully aware there were only two of them left. His eyes dropped to Dominic’s arm where the dark stain had spread farther. “Your arm’s still bleeding.”
Dominic glanced down. “Yeah,” he said.
The casual tone made something twist in Knox’s stomach. He pushed past it. “You need stitches.”
Dominic rolled his shoulder. Knox saw the tightness around his mouth even if his expression barely shifted. “Yeah,” he said again. “Probably.”
Probably. Like it was a mild inconvenience instead of a knife wound that had been bleeding through his shirt for the past hour. “You’re not going to the hospital?”
The faint, humorless curve of Dominic’s mouth said everything. “Not my favorite place.”
Of course it wasn’t. Hospitals meant paperwork, questions, police sometimes. People who wanted to know where stab wounds came from.
The elevator chimed and the doors slid open onto his floor. Knox followed him out, the adrenaline that had carried him through the evening beginning to settle, leaving his nerves raw and overexposed. “What are you going to do then?”
“You’re going to stitch it.”
Knox blinked. “What?”
“I can’t reach my own arm like that.” Dominic lifted it slightly, like that settled the matter. “So you’ll have to.”
“I’ve never—”
“I’ll walk you through it. You’ll manage.” The confidence in his voice was irritatingly absolute.
Knox ran a hand through his hair. “This sounds like a terrible plan.”
Dominic’s mouth twitched. “Probably.” He nodded toward the kitchen. “Go wash your hands, carefully. Then grab the first aid kit. It’s in the cabinet above the sink.”
Knox moved before he could argue himself out of it. The kit was easy enough to find, a metal box that looked expensive and well stocked. Of course it was. Dominic didn’t do anything halfway.
When he turned around, Dominic had shrugged out of his shirt and was removing the bandage. For a second Knox’s brain didn’t seem to process what he was looking at.
Dominic stood near the kitchen island, bare from the waist up, while he examined the wound. The overhead light cast stark lines across his shoulders and chest, accentuating his muscles with every motion.
And then there was the blood. Streaking down his upper arm in a dark red line, dripping toward his elbow. The sight should have pulled Knox’s focus straight to the injury.
It didn’t.
Jesus Christ.
He forced his eyes back to the wound. Right. Blood. Knife wound. That was the problem. He set the first aid kit down harder than he meant to and stood there for a moment, willing his pulse to do something reasonable. It didn’t cooperate.
Dominic’s gaze flicked up and took in whatever must have shown on Knox’s face, but he didn’t comment on it. He just shifted slightly, the movement making the muscles in his stomach tighten under the sweep of dark ink. “Come here,” he said.
Knox moved closer.
“Sanitize your hands with the antiseptic solution first. Then soak some gauze in it too.”
Knox did as he was told, his fingers less steady than he wanted them to be.
Dominic nodded. “Clean the blood so you can see what you’re doing.”
Knox pressed the soaked gauze against the cut. Dominic’s jaw tightened, but that was the only sign it hurt. “Harder,” Dominic said.
Knox glanced up. “You’re kidding.”
“If you baby it, we’ll be here all night.”
Knox muttered under his breath and pressed harder. Blood smeared away under the gauze, revealing the full length of the cut. It was deeper than Knox had wanted to believe, the edges of skin parted in a way that made his stomach turn over. “Shit.”
“It’s fine.”
“It is absolutely not fine.”
That got the faintest curve from Dominic’s mouth. “Still standing.”
Knox shook his head and reached for another clean piece of gauze.
Up close, Dominic was impossible to ignore in a way that had nothing to do with the wound—the heat coming off him, the solid breadth of him, the tattoos winding over muscle and skin.
Knox had to force himself not to notice too much at once, because every time he did, his thoughts started moving in a direction he didn’t have the energy to fight right now.
He wiped away the last of the blood and stepped back enough to look at the wound properly. “Okay,” he said, mostly to himself.
Dominic reached into the kit and pulled out the suture pack, setting it closer. “Open that.”
Knox tore it open and stared at the curved needle inside. His stomach dipped. “Jesus. You’re sure about this?”
“You’ll be fine. I’ll tell you exactly what to do.” Dominic held his gaze for a beat, calm and certain in a way Knox envied and resented in equal measure.
Dominic pulled one of the kitchen island stools closer with his feet and sat, turning so the injured arm faced the light.
Knox stepped forward, holding the needle awkwardly, and immediately realized the problem. There was no way to reach the wound from where he stood.
Which meant—
He stepped between Dominic’s knees. His thighs bracketed Knox on either side. He tried very hard not to notice how close their bodies were, how little space existed between them.
“Wolfe,” Dominic said dryly. “Focus. The next part involves you stabbing me with a needle.”
Knox snorted. “Shut up.”
Dominic’s mouth twitched. “Start at the edge of the cut.” He reached over with his good hand and touched just beside the wound. “Right here. Through this side, then bring it across.”
Knox pushed the needle through the skin. Dominic’s jaw tightened, a brief flex along the side of his face, but he didn’t make a sound.
“Across,” Dominic said.
Knox followed the instruction and brought the needle out through the other side.
“Good. Pull it through.”
The thread slid after it, darkening where it brushed the blood.
“Now tie it.”
Knox tightened the knot carefully. Dominic’s fingers curled once against the edge of the counter before relaxing.
“You always this calm about someone learning surgery on you?” Knox muttered.
“I’ve had worse.”
Knox huffed and moved on to the next stitch.
The rhythm came easier now: needle through skin, pull the thread, and tie.
The loft had gone quiet except for their breathing.
Knox could feel the slow rise and fall of Dominic’s chest, the warmth coming off him in a way that made focusing considerably harder. He kept his eyes on the wound.
“You didn’t panic tonight,” Dominic said after a moment.
Knox glanced up. Dominic was watching him. Knox shrugged as he tied another knot. “Didn’t really think about it.”
Knox looked back down and pushed the needle through for the next stitch. Dominic’s arm shifted under his hand. “You can admit that hurts, you know,” he said.
“I could.”
“But you won’t.”
Dominic gave the smallest shrug. “Doesn’t help anything.”
“You’re insane.”
For a while neither of them spoke. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable exactly, just… loaded. Full of everything he was actively trying not to think about. Except the memories kept surfacing anyway, unbidden and insistent.
The cell. The blood. The screams. Knox swallowed hard, his grip tightening on the needle. He tried to focus on the present, on the task at hand, but his mind kept drifting, sliding between the horror of the night and the moments that had led up to it.