Chapter 25
twenty-five
The door to Dom’s room opened, and Vivi straightened in her chair as Jude and Libby Wilde stepped inside.
Libby moved immediately, crossing the room with the focused determination of a mother who needed to touch her injured child.
Jude hung back in the doorway, his blue eyes—the same vibrant shade as Dom’s—taking in the medical equipment, the bandages, his son’s pallor, and finally Vivi herself.
There was no judgment in his gaze, just the quiet assessment of a man who’d seen this room too many times before.
“My baby,” Libby murmured, brushing Dom’s hair from his forehead with gentle fingers.
Despite being in her late fifties, she carried herself with the same grace and strength Vivi had always admired.
Today her blonde hair was pulled back in a simple knot, her tailored clothes replaced with a comfortable sweater and slacks—practical attire for a hospital vigil.
Dom stirred at his mother’s touch, blinking awake. “Mom?” His voice was still rough from the intubation during surgery. “Dad?”
“Right here, son.” Jude stepped fully into the room then, his casual stance not quite hiding the tension in his shoulders.
“Didn’t need to come,” Dom mumbled, though Vivi could see the relief in his eyes. “I’m fine.”
“Dominic Jude Wilde, a bullet through your shoulder is not ‘fine,’” Libby said, her stern tone undercut by the tremor in her voice.
She was already rearranging his pillows, checking his IV line, her maternal efficiency something Vivi recognized from her own mother’s playbook.
Different accent, different background, same instinct.
Vivi stood, gathering her phone and the sweater she’d borrowed from Tessa. “I’ll give you some time,” she said quietly.
Dom’s hand shot out, catching her wrist. “You don’t have to go.”
“Yes, she does.” Libby didn’t look up from where she was smoothing Dom’s blanket. “Because I’m about to have words with my son about jumping in front of bullets, and he doesn’t need an audience for that.”
Vivi bit back a smile. There was no heat in Libby’s tone, just the exasperated love of a woman who’d raised three boys with a propensity for danger.
Her gaze met Jude’s briefly as she moved toward the door.
He stepped aside to let her pass, his hand briefly squeezing her shoulder in silent greeting—or perhaps thanks. For what, she wasn’t quite sure.
“I’ll be back,” she told Dom, extracting her wrist from his grasp.
He gave her a semi-panicked look that said he knew exactly what was coming from his mother once she left.
“Coward,” he mouthed.
She couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips as she slipped into the hallway, and closed the door behind her.
Through the glass panel, she could see Libby settling into the chair Vivi had vacated, already speaking with animated hands.
Whatever she was saying had Dom looking both chagrined and loved.
A pang of guilt twisted in her chest. Her own parents had no idea what was happening to their son.
Didn’t know their Sabin had been kidnapped, tortured, and brainwashed.
Didn’t know their daughter had been part of a heist-gone-wrong and nearly shot.
They were probably in their sunny kitchen on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, her father making his famous café au lait while her mother read scientific journals, completely unaware that their children’s lives had imploded.
Because Vivi hadn’t called them.
She pushed the guilt aside and headed down the hallway toward where she knew they were keeping Sabin. She needed an update, and she knew exactly who would give her one without sugar-coating it.
Tessa was exactly where Vivi expected to find her—at the nurses’ station outside the high-security wing, her dark hair pulled into a messy bun, reviewing charts with the focused intensity that reminded Vivi so much of her mother.
The Wilde cousin looked up as Vivi approached, and the brief flicker that crossed her face told Vivi everything before she said a word.
“No improvement?” Vivi asked, her stomach already sinking.
Tessa hesitated, then stepped away from the desk, leading Vivi to a quieter corner of the hallway. “He’s stable. Vitals are good. Physically, he’s recovering well from the dehydration and the injury to his hands.”
“But?”
“But the conditioning is proving harder to break than we hoped.” Tessa’s voice was gentle but unflinching. “He has moments of lucidity—where he knows who he is, who you are. But they’re brief. And the episodes afterward...” She sighed. “They’re not pleasant to watch.”
“What happens in the episodes?”
“He becomes agitated. Violent. Insists he needs to return to his mission. That he serves Praetorian.” Tessa ran a hand over her face. “We’ve had to restrain him twice. The last time, he dislocated his own shoulder trying to break free.”
“Jesus.” Vivi leaned against the wall, suddenly needing the support. “But Daphne said she could break the conditioning.”
“She’s working on it. She’s been monitoring his neural patterns, testing different approaches. But it’s not like flipping a switch, Vivi. Whatever they did to him, it was thorough.”
Vivi closed her eyes briefly. “Can I see him?”
Tessa nodded. “He’s sedated right now. You can observe through the window, but I wouldn’t recommend going in. Not until we’re sure which version of him will wake up.”
She led Vivi down the corridor to a door with a small observation window.
Inside, Sabin lay on a hospital bed, wrists secured with padded restraints.
Even in sleep, his brow was furrowed, his mouth set in a tight line.
It hurt to see him like this—her vibrant, mischievous brother reduced to a restrained patient in a locked room.
“I’ll give you some time,” Tessa said, touching her arm lightly before walking away.
Vivi pressed her palm against the glass, wishing she could reach through it and touch her brother’s hand.
The last time she’d seen him truly himself had been at that party in New York, before everything went to hell.
He’d been teasing her about Dom, his eyes dancing with that familiar mischief.
“Just talk to him, Vivi,” he’d said. “The man’s still crazy about you, and you’re not fooling anyone pretending you’re over him. ”
Now here they all were. Dom shot. Sabin brainwashed. And her, standing outside a locked room, wondering how the hell they were going to put any of this back together.
Her thoughts drifted to her parents. Her mother would know what to do about Sabin’s condition—Claire Cavalier was one of the most respected virologists in the world, with a background in neuroscience.
Her father’s intelligence connections might help them understand what Praetorian had done, might even help track down Raines.
But calling them meant explaining everything.
Not just the current crisis, but all of it—the thieving, Istanbul, the years of deception.
The truth that their perfect daughter and son had been international thieves.
That Sabin had gone to prison not for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as they believed, but because he’d chosen to take the fall for a heist.
How did you even start that conversation?
She watched Sabin’s chest rise and fall, the steady rhythm of the sedatives keeping him under.
He looked younger in sleep, almost like the boy who’d taught her how to pick her first lock when she was nine.
“It’s like solving a puzzle with your fingers,” he’d told her.
“Listen for the clicks. Feel for the give.”
She’d always followed his lead. Always trusted him to know the way forward. Now, for the first time, she was the one who had to figure it out. And she had no idea where to start.
With a last look at her brother, she turned and headed back toward Dom’s room. She needed to be there when he faced his parents’ questions. Needed to support him the way he’d supported her through all of this.
She was halfway down the corridor when she heard voices—Jude’s distinctive cadence carrying from around the corner. She slowed, not meaning to eavesdrop but unable to help herself when she heard the urgency in his tone.
“This is the third close call in as many months,” Jude was saying. “First, Liam in the subway, then Elliot in Antarctica, now Dom shot and Sabin...whatever the hell they’ve done to Sabin. What’s really going on?”
Vivi pressed herself against the wall, just out of sight. Davey’s reply was measured.
“We’ve had some setbacks,” Davey replied, his voice steady. “But everything’s under control.”
“Bullshit,” Jude said mildly, without heat but with absolute certainty.
Vivi heard footsteps, then silence. She could picture Jude pacing, processing what he’d been told, weighing it against whatever his instincts were telling him.
“You know,” Jude finally said, his voice softer now, “your uncles and I built this company on the principle that family comes before business. Always. No matter what.”
“We know, Dad,” Davey’s voice was tight.
“Do you? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you boys are carrying something heavy. Something you’re not sharing.”
“Dad—” Elliot started.
“No, let me finish.” Jude’s voice grew firmer. “I know you’re not telling me everything. I’m choosing to trust you. I’d like that trust not to be a mistake.”
There was a long silence, then the sound of footsteps moving away. Vivi waited, wondering if she should turn back, when she heard Elliot’s harsh whisper.
“How long do we keep doing this, Davey? How long before we tell them what’s really happening?”
“What do you want me to do? Tell Dad that Cade’s working with Praetorian? That his nephew has gone rogue?”
“He deserves to know—”
“And it would destroy him,” Davey cut in. “Him, Uncle Cam, all of them. We handle this ourselves. We fix it before they ever need to know.”
The silence that followed was heavy. Vivi took a step forward, deciding to find another route back to Dom’s room, when she heard Elliot sigh.
“Someone’s coming.”
She froze, then forced herself to round the corner casually, as if she hadn’t heard a thing. Davey and Elliot stood facing each other in the corridor, tension radiating between them. Both turned to look at her, expressions shifting to careful neutrality.
For a moment, nobody spoke. Vivi met Davey’s gaze steadily, refusing to look away first. She could practically see the calculations happening behind his eyes—how much had she heard? What would she do with the information?
“Vivi,” he acknowledged finally with a slight nod.
“Davey. Elliot.” She kept walking, not slowing her pace. “I’m heading back to check on Dom.”
They didn’t try to stop her. She could feel their eyes on her back as she continued down the hallway, her mind spinning with what she’d overheard. Cade working with Praetorian. Secrets layered on secrets, all in the name of protection.
She spent the rest of the evening in Dom’s room, watching him sleep after his parents left. The conversation she’d overheard played on repeat in her mind. Davey’s conviction that his family needed to be protected from the truth. The cost of that protection.
Dom had been doing the same thing for years—keeping their past, their relationship, this whole life, from his family.
Protecting them from knowledge that might hurt them.
And she had done the same with her own parents, crafting careful half-truths and omissions until the wall of secrets between them was so high she couldn’t see over it anymore.
She pulled out her phone and stared at it, thumb hovering over her dad’s contact. It was past midnight in New Orleans. They’d be asleep. She should wait until morning.
But if she waited, she might lose her nerve.
She hit the call button before she could talk herself out of it. The phone rang once, twice, three times. She was about to hang up when her dad’s voice, thick with sleep but instantly alert, came through.
“Vivi? Is everything alright?”
Vivi took a deep breath. “No, Daddy. It’s not. I need to tell you and Mama something about Sabin. About both of us, actually.” She glanced at Dom, still asleep, his face relaxed for the first time in days. “It’s a long story, and you’re not going to like a lot of it. But I need your help.”
There was a brief pause, then the rustle of bedsheets as her dad presumably sat up. “Mais, chérie, I knew something was wrong. Your mama said I was being foolish, but I knew. You tell me everything, from the beginning, and we figure it out together, us.”