Vidar read the message once, then again, because he enjoyed repetition when the truth carried advantage.
Bjorn Severin. The patriarch. The empire. The man whose name still opened doors evenwhile he lay behind someone else’s locks. Regaining consciousness.
The facility had kept him in that gray place for weeks, aprivate medical fortress with its own security tier and a staff trained to look down at the floor when the family entered. It was expensive. It was discreet. It was designed for recoveries that required silence.
Vidar had signed off on every payment.He had also made sure there were no unnecessary visitors.Because visitors created variables, and Vidar disliked variables.He set his phone down on his desk and waited a full minute before he moved.
He rose, adjusted his cuffs, and reached for his coat.He didn’t bring security. He didn’t bring an assistant.He didn’t bring a weapon.He simply brought himself. And that was enough.
The drive to the facility took twenty-two minutes. Vidar tracked the time without checking a clock, because his mind cataloged details the way other people cataloged emotions.There was a light drizzle, the kind that turned the city into a smear of reflections. Traffic was thin. The streets gave him what he wanted, which was space.
He parked in a visitor lot that was never full and entered through an access point that recognized him before a humandid.The lobby smelled like expensive antiseptic and something faintly floral, as if the air itself had been bribed to pretend this wasn’t a place where bodies failed.
A night nurse sat behind the desk. Her face shifted when she saw him. Not fear, exactly.Recognition.Recognition was a currency.
“Mr. Johnson,” she said, standing.
Vidar offered her a smile that implied he appreciated competence.
“Good evening,” he replied. His voice was soft. Pleasant. He made it easy for people to be polite to him. “How is he?”
Her posture tightened, not because the question was difficult, but because simple questions carried consequences in places like this.”He’s… more responsive,” she said carefully. “Not fully alert. But there’s been eye movement. Some purposeful tracking. He…” She hesitated, then committed. “He squeezed my hand earlier. We believe he recognized me. He’s been hearing voices. He’s been… trying to orient.”
Trying to orient.
Vidar nodded as if this was good news.It was.Because disorientationwas agift.
He held up a paper bag. The scent of food slipped out, warm and immediate. He had chosen something that looked indulgent from the outside and harmless on the inside.
“I brought you dinner,” he said. “Something that isn’t vending machine tragedy.”
Her eyes widened. People always did when you offered them something that didn’t match the severity of the night.”That’s not necessary,” shesaid.
“Of course it is,” Vidar replied, still smiling. “You’re sitting in fluorescent light while the world sleeps. You’re keeping him alive. You deserve more than crackers.”
He set the bag on the counter and slid it toward her with a gentle push. The motion was smooth, practiced. He had mastered the art of giving people permission to accept.”I can sit with him for a while,” he continued. “You can take a break. Eat. Stretch your legs. Get something warm in you before dawn traps you in a loop.”
The nurse glanced down the hall, then back at him.”I’m supposed to remain on the floor,” shesaid.
“You are,” Vidar agreed, his smile warming a fraction. “And you will. Thestaff lounge is just steps away. I’ll sit with him, make sure he’s not alone.”
He watched her consider her options. The tug of a free meal. The very human desire to not be the one who says no.”Fifteen minutes,” she repeated.
Vidar tilted his head in a gesture that suggested respect.”Fifteen,” he confirmed. “And if you’d like, you can set a timer. Iwon’t be offended.”
That made her laugh, quiet and relieved, because humor was another currency.”All right,” she said. “All right. I’ll… I’ll check on him in fifteen.”
The nurse walked away.Vidar waited until her footsteps faded and the sound of the lounge door closing traveled down the corridor like a softseal.
Then he turned toward Bjorn’s room.He entered the room without knocking.
Bjorn lay in a bed that looked too modern to belong to a man who had built a dynasty on old rules. Tubes, monitors, aregulated drip of medication. The steady beep of a heart that still insisted on pushing blood through a body that had earned its exhaustion.
The old man’s face looked thinner than it had during the last meeting they’d attended together at Severin’s. Thesharpness of his bones showed through. His hair was more gray than blond now, his skin pale beneath the lights.But the shape of him was still Bjorn.
Vidar crossed to the chair beside the bed and sat as if he belonged there.He did. Bjorn just didn’t know that, yet. He folded his hands loosely and looked at the man in thebed.
For a long moment, Bjorn didn’t move.Then his eyelids fluttered.Not reflexive.Purposeful.His gaze drifted, searching the room the way a man searches for the boundaries of a dream.His eyes found Vidar.Confusion shifted over his expression in slow waves. His brow furrowed, then relaxed, then furrowed again. His mouth moved slightly as if trying to form a question he hadn’t yet found the languagefor.
