I feel heat rush to my face like a teenager’s blush.
Blue cocks his head slightly. "And if I had to choose between death and a kiss from an idiot, I’ll take the kiss, especially since it gave us the win. He got a dose of my nanobots in the process, the ones that only respond to me."
"Seriously? Fuck! So they were controlling him?"
"Yes. They interface with the nervous system along the spine and can disrupt signals. I control them through the transmitter my bots form. And I’ve already removed them now,though this time I didn’t need to kiss him," he adds with a small smirk.
"Good… I was worried you’d be mad at me for that plan, it felt like it shouldn’t even work. It was too crazy, and just wrong…"
"It was exactly what we needed, Gabriel. Edgar was crucial, Marcel… wait, what about Marcel?"
I press my lips together, realizing I totally forgot about him.
"Let’s go downstairs and check. I don’t know what the mafia guys did with him, we landed on their car’s hood."
As we head down, Blue’s gaze passes over the bodies scattered around the warehouse, but he doesn’t comment, and when we step outside, I spot Marcel right away.
His small frame lies motionless by the wall, where Ennio’s men must have placed him.
I walk over and kneel beside him, feeling conflicted, angry, and aware that everything went wrong in too many ways.
But the moment I lean down, I hear something.
"Shit… his heart is still beating!"
Blue drops to his knees beside Marcel as well, which sits weird with me, because if anything he should be turning away, maybe even spitting, considering Marcel just tried to condemn him to a gang rape and a brutal death.
"His breathing is shallow," I say gloomily.
Blue shifts closer, one hand supporting Marcel’s jaw while the other moves along his neck and slides under his back, checking each vertebra with careful pressure, watching for any reaction, then pressing lightly along the ribs, listening, his eyes narrowing as he tracks the rise of Marcel’s chest, before placing two fingers on his carotid pulse.
"There’s instability in the cervical spine, likely around C4 or C5, possibly compression or swelling affecting the phrenicnerve, and his breath sounds are uneven; I’m hearing reduced expansion on one side, so a pneumothorax is likely."
I frown. "I have no idea what that means. Is he dying?" I can’t help it, but my tone turns hopeful.
"If he doesn’t receive support for breathing, he will die, yes," Blue says plainly.
"Well-deserved consequences of his actions," I mutter under my breath.
"He still may make it. Ambulances are on the way, along with the police. After I ordered the nanobots to temporarily block the blood flow to Edgar’s brain, I used his phone and… found my glasses in his pocket."
I feel a surge of anger and tension clamp around my throat so hard that a low growl escapes me.
"No… He doesn’t deserve to survive! He’s a fucking psychopath!" I lock my eyes on Marcel, my hand curling into a fist. "He tried to kill us, and wanted them to rape you!"
I catch myself reaching out completely unconsciously toward Marcel’s thin throat. My whole body is trembling, consumed by dark fury, but then Blue’s hand settles on my shoulder. He shakes his head, looking at me intently.
"Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. With that kind of spinal injury, his chances of ever having a normal life are slim anyway."
"Blue, thevillaincan’t walk away alive. That’s not how this works! In our story, he has to pay for what he’s done! He’s a lunatic who’ll keep spewing his poison even from behind bars…"
"I think he’ll face his punishment. From what I can tell, a brain tumor is killing him."
I blink and stare at Blue in shock.
"What? Seriously? How do you know that?"
"Well, I’m a pretty good diagnostician. But of course, only a brain scan can confirm it."
