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I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing through the searing pain in tight, controlled breaths. It feels like my stitches are pulling apart. When I finally open my eyes again, Graves has successfully herded everyone out of the room. The door clicks shut behind them.

Graves is watching me with that knowing, disappointed look he’s perfected over the years.

“What?” I snap, the pain finally receding into a dull, ever-present, throbbing ache.

“You’re going to fuck this up.”

“It’s already fucked up.”

“With her,” he says pointedly. “And with them.”

I pull the blanket higher up my chest, suddenly cold. “They’ll be fine without me.”

His eyebrow lifts. “You’re serious? This is the road you’re going to take? Defeat? Pitying?”

I don’t answer right away. The truth is, I don’t know what the hell I am anymore–other than exhausted, in an ungodly amount of pain, and furious at how quickly everything I built has started to crumble.

Graves steps closer and rests a hand on the rail of the bed. “We’ve been through tough times before,” he says quietly. “We’ll get through this one, too.”

I let the silence stretch between us. I want to believe him. Part of me–the part that still remembers what it felt like to be untouchable–wants to cling to that optimism. Last time we had an upheaval like this in BRN, we were younger men. We had deception on our side–secrets no one knew but ourselves. But right now, all I can feel is the burning wound in my chest and the dangerous, addictive pull Arianette has on every broken piece of me.

“I know you’re injured,” he says, voice trembling with anger, “your pride as well as your body, but this isn’t how your reign ends, so while you’re in this bed, take some time to figure your shit out.”

I don’t respond. I just stare at the ceiling as the weight of his assurance does little to change how I feel. Graves lingers for a moment longer, then shakes his head in frustration and starts for the door. I listen to his footsteps fade down the hallway until I’m finally alone with nothing but the steady beep of machines and the cold fluorescent lights.

The silence feels heavier than any pain I carry, because deep down, I know he’s right.

This isn’t how my reign ends.

But I’m not sure where it goes next.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

Graves asks it like he hasn’t already asked twice in the last ten minutes, like I haven’t already made my answer clear with every step I’ve taken out of that sterile, suffocating hospital room.

“If you ask me that one more time, I’m firing you.”

“You can’t fire me,” Graves says, helping me into the front seat of the car he has idling at the curb just outside the hospital entrance. “I’m employed by Beta Nu.”

“Then I’ll get DK to fire you.”

He snorts under his breath and shuts the door. While he walks around to the driver’s side, I think I take my first real breath in weeks.

“I’ll save DK the trouble,” he mutters, once he’s in his seat. He shifts the car in gear. “The last thing he needs to worry about is coming over here and dealing with your sorry ass by himself.”

Graves is pissed that I’m leaving the hospital already. I’d secured my release from the hospital an hour ago–not exactly with the doctor’s approval. The surgeon had stood at the foot of my bed, tablet in hand, voice tight with professional concern as he suggested another week. Just to be safe.

Safe.

I’m done with safe.

Done with tubes taped to my arms, with wires stuck to my chest, with machines beeping every time my body dares to function outside their preferred rhythm. Done with being woken up six times a night by well-meaning nurses who smile too much while they poke and prod like a specimen.

And the food–Christ.

If I had to look at another plate of gray eggs sweating under plastic wrap or a cup of trembling pudding, I might’ve torn the IV out myself just to make a point.

Shedding the hospital gown and slipping into my own clothes may have been the greatest moment in my life.