Wake up, and she’d be right there.
Go to sleep, and she’d be right there.
I should genuinely get shot more often.
Codrin snapped his fingers in front of my face, and my first instinct was to swing at him. “Okay, that works for me,” I said, forcing casualness when I was screaming inside.
“Is there anything else you want me to tell him?” he asked.
“Consequences will be the same no matter what excuse I give him. Tell him whatever you think is best, bro.” I patted his shoulder, even though I knew he had no idea what I was actually referring to. Maybe my brothers thought Father just pushed metoo hard in training. Maybe they believed I was simply the weak link. Then I looked at Lina. She knew the truth. And the look on her face was enough to make me look away.
Never pity someone like me, Petal.
At night, Codrin left, followed by Dorin. Their men stayed close, stationed outside, but once again it was just Lina and me.
I was becoming addicted to these quiet moments—her presence, the comfort of her near me, the way she always drifted closer without even noticing. She was like a drug. Eventually, she sat on the bed beside me, fingers resting on mine.
“Cezar, thank you. He would have died… he would have—” A sob caught in Lina’s throat, and despite the pain, I moved to wrap her in my arm.
We sat like that for a while, until she realized I was internally dying. Even with the morphine, it was excruciating. “Shit, I didn’t mean to—Why don’t you use your words?” She glared at me.
I didn’t care. She was with me while I was at my weakest. I kept doing that around her—falling apart, bleeding emotions everywhere like some idiot. One day, I’d tell her everything. One day, she’d understand that I wasn’t capable of living without her.
Not anymore.
Chapter 30
ADELINA
Ididn’t want him to fall asleep. I kept thinking to myself, what if he didn’t wake up again? He was exhausted, and the meds were dragging him down. I still tried my best to keep him up for as long as I could. Eventually, when I looked at him again, he was out.
Carefully, I slipped off the bed. There were things to handle on my laptop, maybe sneak in a quick shower. I kept the door open so I could still see him. When I came back, I noticed he was having a nightmare.
No thrashing, no violent jerks—just silent tears tracking down his cheeks. His lips moved, barely forming the wordsI am so sorry.
I understood the nightmares. Half the time, I couldn’t sleep either. The screams still echoed in my skull—memories of the things I didn’t see. Sometimes I wondered if witnessing it all myself would’ve hurt less.
I opened the window, and a cool breeze came in. It felt nice, reminding me of that night in the garden with Cezar. My thoughts kept circling back to him. I needed to face whatever this was head-on. I just didn’t think I was ready to.
We still had a few more days in the hospital ahead of us. Before he woke up again, I planned to have everything in orderfor when the doctor cleared him. I needed the house set up and his physical therapy appointments organized. There were a lot of them.
It pushed my own plans back a bit, but it was fine. The more time I spent with him, the less all the things I’d built my life around mattered.
I wasn’t stopping anything. I wasn’t changing who I was or why I did what I did. I just… wanted to make it past the end. Not just to it. And for the first time in a long time, something after the revenge didn’t feel impossible. All because of the man lying in that bed.
Even though he said things don’t have to be complicated, they were. We couldn’t outrun the messes we were born into or pretend they weren’t waiting for us.
My phone buzzed. It was Dorin. “We found him.”
My pulse jumped. Images of all the ways I could end the person who nearly put the man I cared about deeply in the ground flashed before me. With Cezar getting shot and everything spiraling sideways, stragglers had scattered during the chaos.
Dorin and a few of the other guys were able to locate and take care of most. But that one? That one was mine. It had been a long time since torture was the only motivation.
Chapter 31
ADELINA
Cezar was healing as well as anyone could after nearly dying in my arms. He ignored every call from his father, despite Codrin’s firm reminders that answering would buy him a little time. He was right. No matter what story Cezar fed Viktor, nothing would change once he was home. Not until Viktor was out of the fucking picture for good.
