CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Raina
T he world comes back in fragments.
There’s light behind my eyes. There’s beeping in my ears. There’s a sterile chill against my skin. All signs of life.
Mine.
I’m alive.
Barely.
A dull ache pounds in my chest and feels like a bruise under my ribs. I shift and wince in pain. The low groan slips out before I can swallow it.
“She’s waking up,” a voice calls out.
It’s familiar to my ears, but with a raw tone I’ve not heard before.
I blink hard, crap on my eyelashes digging into the rims like sandpaper. I lift my hand to wipe it away, feeling the familiar pull of an IV buried in my hand.
“I got it, baby,” the voice says as a warm cloth cleans my eyes.
A few seconds later, they pop open, and the world sharpens.
The first thing I see is Connor. God, he looks wrecked with bloodshot eyes and dark circles underneath. He’s in a wrinkled shirt from God-knows how long ago, his hair’s a mess, and the hollow dent of his cheeks guts me more than the poison ever did.
What the hell do I look like?
Connor’s hand wraps around mine, warm and tight. “Hey, baby. It’s me. You’re back. You came back to me,” he murmurs, brushing tears from his eyes. “Christ, you scared the shit out of me.”
Before I say anything, I glance to my right, and see Valdrin.
I flinch, startled. But he doesn’t move. Just watches me as I imagine a father would.
I try to speak, but my voice is sand. Cracked. Useless. My throat is sore and burning, which means there was a tube down my throat at one time. “How, how long have I been here?”
Connor leans in, resting his forehead gently against mine. “Seven days, sixteen hours, twenty-three minutes, and...” He checks his phone. “Eleven seconds.”
Oh my God.
“Connor,” I struggle to ask so many questions.
“Take your time, Venom.” He brushes my cheek. “You’re safe. And we’ve got all the time in the world.”
Nodding, I ask, “Noel?”
Connor peers at Valdrin to give me the answer.
“Tahiri is dead,” my father says without emotion. “Good work, Venom .”
He knows I killed him...
Noel meant nothing to my father. Levin was his blood. A man he cared about at one time. His cousin. Like Rhys and Trace to Connor and his brothers. But Valdrin accepted and even forgave the Quinlans for killing his blood.
Valdrin understands revenge and vengeance.
Connor tugs my hand to tell me more. “The three knights are in federal custody. The DNA on Ruby’s shirt matched them.
A grand jury listened to her brave testimony and indicted them.
But here’s the twist we didn’t see coming.
” He sounds unhinged. “Because they’re foreign nationals and here illegally, they’ll be deported to a private prison compound overseas. They’ll never make it out.”
With Tahiri’s death and the knights gone forever, Valdrin’s path to power is clear .
My throat aches, but I manage a scratchy whisper to my father, “Really? Are you in charge now?”
Valdrin nods. “I have Noel’s second-in-command in chains. He’s a coward and knows very well who I am. How the crown was stolen from me. He won’t challenge my claim. The Albanians are mine now.”
I exhale slowly. It’s a fragile relief that I won’t be hunted for the rest of my life. But now a greater responsibility sits on my aching shoulders.
“Where is Ruby?” I ask him.
His jaw ticks. “She’s in WITSEC.”
“For how long?”
“Until it’s safe,” Valdrin says.
“There’ve been some rogue attacks,” Connor adds. “To all families and syndicates.”
“Those rogues will be dealt with,” Valdrin says with a spark of authority that gives me the chills.
“Connor, can I talk to my father alone?” I say, my fingers still curled weakly around his.
Connor freezes and stares at me like I just ripped stitches from his chest. “Rain—”
“Please,” I whisper.
He swallows, jaw tight. Brushing a kiss to my forehead, he says, “I’ll be right outside that door.”
I watch him walk, taking him in like it’s the first time I laid eyes on him.
How tall he is. How broad and defined with muscles and power.
The door clicks shut behind him, and I steal a moment to study the room I’m in.
No curtain separates me from another patient, so this must be a private room.
The covers keeping me warm aren’t the typical scratchy hospital linen. It’s a soft cotton sheet and a quilt.
“What is this?” I finger the blanket.
“Connor’s mother dropped it off,” Valdrin answers, smiling .
Oh. My. God.
“The doctors weren’t sure if you’d make it,” Valdrin grinds out low and deadly.
I blink at him, struggling because I nearly died.
He peers down at me. “Connor has barely left this room. I had to threaten to sedate him to get him to sleep.”
“How am I alive? I didn’t take the antidote. Noel beat me. It slipped out of my bra.”
Valdrin’s jaw tightens. Low and upset, he says, “I’m sorry.”
“It was part of the sacrifice, right? I had to get close to him to poison him. But how did I make it?”
“Connor crawled on his hands and knees and found the bottle. He poured it down your throat himself. He cried in front of his brothers. Told them he didn’t care what this cost. Or who they go to war with. You’re the one for him.”
Emotion knots in my throat. “I love him,” I whisper.
Valdrin smiles faintly. “You don’t have to convince me.”
“I just want to be with him on my terms.”
He chuckles. “Trust me, you’ve made that very clear.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“But, Raina, zemer ,” he adds, eyes glittering with dark humor, “as your father and kyre , it is up to me who you marry.”
“And if I want it to be Connor?” I ask, knowing everything points to Valdrin agreeing since a truce with Quinlan Empire benefits his brotherhood.
“I approve.” He nods slowly.
“Then send Connor back in.”
But a doctor comes in with Connor, who joins Valdrin, standing shoulder to shoulder, leaning against the far wall. I’m sitting up now, stiff but functional, while the tall, blond doctor with a neck tattoo checks my pulse and vitals.
“You’re improving rapidly,” the handsome doctor says. “It was good that they knew what you took. The ER team gave you a liquid accelerant for the antidote when you got here. You’re lucky.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it, Cormac,” Connor murmurs, pushing off the back wall.
“You know each other?” I ask, looking from Connor to Cormac, who doesn’t speak with an accent.
The doctor smiles. “Almost my whole life.”
“Dr. O’Rourke is one of us,” Connor says and strides to the doctor’s side. “He’s also Trace’s best friend.”
“And brother-in-law, since he married my sister, Shea-Lynne,” Cormac adds.
“My inhalers?” I ask and take a shaky breath, relieved to breathe freely. “Was that you?”
“Yes. Call me when you need refills.” Cormac winks and squeezes Connor’s shoulder. “Have to get to class.”
After he leaves, walking with power and pride, I say, “Class?”
“He’s a medical school professor.” Connor clears his throat like there’s more to say about Dr. O’Rourke, but he just gazes down at me.
As much as I want to know more about Cormac, I reach out for Connor’s hand and address the elephant in the room first. “I’m sorry I went rogue.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” he says softly. “I get it. You’re not the kind of woman who wants to be rescued.”
Out of nowhere his eyes blaze, looking at me. Glancing at Valdrin, who moved to a guest chair a few feet away to give us a chance to talk, Connor rasps to me in a voice I never heard, “Did Tahiri rape you? I found your underwear on his floor. In his bedroom.”
My brain scrambles to remember the chaotic few minutes in that bedroom: Tahiri beating me. Kicking me. Kissing me, which ended his life.
“No,” I say with as much strength as I can. “He planned to. I didn’t give him that chance.”
The relief on Connor’s face comes off in waves.
“Not many people know this, but female agents are given extra training and fighting skills to prevent a man from assaulting us. No one will ever touch me that way. Except you.”
Connor wipes a tear away and hugs me. “Fucking, thank God. But you will always have a guard, do you hear me?”
I nod. “Can I choose my guard?”
Connor raises an eyebrow. “Who?”
“Nero.”
Connor leans into me. “Aye, but I only trust myself.” Then he exhales. “That isn’t practical, is it?”
“I worry about you, too. You don’t have a guard.”
“I have the entire enforcer team.” He smiles as his fingers squeeze mine.
“Val said you found the antidote bottle. You saved my life. I would’ve died if it wasn’t for you.”
He doesn’t deny it. Just shifts forward, crouching beside the bed, our faces inches apart.
“Then I would have, too,” he says, voice rough. “Because I can’t live without you. I don’t want to.”
My heart cracks and blooms at the same time. “I love you, Connor.”
“I love you, too,” he says, brushing his mouth gently against mine.
“What now?” I choke up. “There’s only one way to stop my father’s people from retaliating for Levin Berisha.”
“And that is?” The brat is making me do all the work.
But I had the easy part, sleeping and healing while in a coma. This week was a flash of time for me. Connor had to endure every hour, minute, and second watching me fight my way back to him. And dreading that I might have been raped. I cringe, thinking what that must have been like for him.
I whisper, “We have to be aligned. Publicly. Permanently.”
Connor’s mouth curves into a slow smile.
“Princess or prisoner, you were going to be mine, forever, no matter what, Venom.”