Page 36 of Ivory Crown

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice choked with emotion. The doctor gave her shoulder another comforting squeeze before stepping back.

“I’ll give you two some privacy,” she said, collecting her charts and heading towards the door. “A nurse will come in to discharge you shortly. And remember, Jade, rest. Avoid any strenuous activities for the next few days.”

“Does that include sex?” Jade asked. I hadn’t even been thinking about it.

The doctor stifled a smile, adjusting her glasses with a sense of amusement. “Yes, Jade. That includes sex. I’d advise against physical intimacy for at least a week, just to give your body a chance to recover. But honestly, you’ll probably be in pain. You won’t be thinking about sex much.”

She looked directly at Jade then, a silent thread of empathy connecting them. “You’ll need to rest and allow yourself to heal. We’ll need to monitor you closely for a while.”

“Thank you,” I said, finally finding my voice as relief slowly uncoiled the tension in my chest.

As we left the hospital, the city seemed to rush back to life around us. Skyscrapers towered like sentinels against the morning sky, yellow cabs weaving through traffic like industrious bees. The normalcy of it all felt surreal after the stark sterility of the hospital.

Jade was quiet during the drive, her gaze fixed on the window, lost in thought. The weight of what could have been hung between us—a specter neither of us wanted to acknowledge.

“You alright?”

“Yes,” she said. “Feeling better. I just have a lot of work to do.”

“Hey,” I said, turning down the radio so I could talk to her. “How about we focus on getting you back to full strength first?”

She turned to look at me, a small, grateful smile curving her lips. “I don’t want to rest.”

“You have to.”

“I can work from bed,” she said. “I can start organizing some research papers, I…”

I sighed. “There’s no way for me to talk you out of this, is there?”

“No,” she replied, her tone laced with a stubbornness I’d grown familiar with.

I chuckled softly, shaking my head. Even in this precarious situation, Jade was relentless. Her dedication to her work was something I admired, even if it often led to our butting heads.

“Alright,” I conceded. “But remember what the doctor said - no strenuous activities.”

She nodded, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards at my fussing. “Seems like it’ll be harder for you than it will for me.”

“Nah, I have your panties to jack off into,” I said.

She laughed, then rubbed her head. “Don’t make me laugh. Everything hurts.”

“That wasn’t a joke.”

She waved me off. “Listen, I get what you’re saying. I want to protect our baby. But my mind...it won’t stop. The genome project—it’s critical, demanding. I can’t do it alone. I need more than just isolation and state-of-the-art equipment. I need collaborators—minds who understand the language of genes and the potential they hold.”

“I’m not letting you go back to BioHQ.”

“Look, Dante,” Jade began, her voice steady despite the tremble of her hands. “I need a team, experts who can dive into this project with me.”

She was right. Her brilliance couldn’t be caged, needed to be fed with collaboration and challenge. But my world was built on trust earned and fear respected—not freely given to strangers.

“Alright,” I said, tightening my grip on the steering wheel. “You’ll have your team, professionals I vet personally.”

And Ellie—she’s the best mind in the field. I need her, Dante.”

“Jade,” I said, hard lines forming around my mouth, “no one from before. It’s not just about science—it’s about survival. Our survival.”

She fell silent, the weight of my words hanging between us like the thick fog that rolled off the Hudson. And yet, the promise stood—I would scour the hidden corners of my empire to find her the minds she needed. Because even if it meant inviting shadows into our sanctuary, I’d do it for her. For us.

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