Page 75 of Ruthless Kings of Obsession

"Rest," she says again, already pulling the door open. "I'll bring fresh notes tomorrow."

"Why?" The question tears from my throat before I can stop it. "Why do you keep coming back when I've been nothing but awful to you?"

She pauses in the doorway, and for a moment I catch a glimpse of something in her reflection in the glass – something deeper than the bruises, more permanent than any physical wound.

"Because," she says so softly I almost miss it, "someone has to remember who you were before the world made you cruel."

Then she's gone, leaving me alone with my guilt and my nausea and the steady beep of machines that can't measure the kind of sickness eating away at my soul.

The drugs make everything too sharp again – the memory of her tears, the sight of those cigarette burns, the way she still wears pigtails like a reminder of better days. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes until I see stars, trying to block out the evidence of what I've become.

Someone has to remember who you were.

But I don't want to be remembered.

Don't want her carrying that weight along with all her other burdens.

Don't want her kindness making me feel worse than any cancer ever could.

Tomorrow, I decide as the medications pull me toward uneasy sleep. Tomorrow I'll find a way to make her stop coming. To make her give up on me like I gave up on her.

It's the only gift I have left to give – freedom from the obligation to care about someone who doesn't deserve it.

Even if it means destroying the last green thing in my withering world.

"After my treatment," I continue, still holding the faded bows like a confession, "remission came suddenly. One day I was dying, the next my numbers started improving. The experimental protocol we developed – it worked. Not like the cure I found for my parents, but enough to give me a future again."

The night presses against the hospital windows as I pace, unable to stay still under the weight of these memories. Eva remains curled against Zander's side, oblivious to the secrets being spilled about her past.

"I threw myself into research," I say, each word feeling like broken glass in my throat. "Different types of cancer, different treatment approaches. Everything had to be kept quiet – you don't announce experimental cures without years of documentation and trials. But Eva knew."

My reflection shows a bitter smile. "She was my outlet. I'd tell her about breakthroughs, failures, theories that kept me up at night. And she'd talk to me too – about everything happening in her life, about the darkness she was facing. We had this... understanding. This shared space where we could both be broken and it was okay."

The bows swing gently from my fingers as I move, catching the artificial light like memories trying to escape. "Then the leg incident happened."

The room grows very still. Even the medical equipment seems to beep more quietly, as if sensing the gravity of what's coming.

"Everything changed after that," I continue, watching Eva's sleeping form in the reflection. "Pigtails just... broke. Not just physically – though watching her learn to walk again was..." I trail off, the memory still too sharp. "She was hurt in ways that went beyond bones and nerves."

"I felt responsible," I admit, pressing my forehead against the cool glass. "Started telling Domino off, refusing to help with his schemes. He got mad. Frustrated." A broken laugh escapes me. "God, we were all so angry back then. But Eva... she didn't deserve any of it. Didn't deserve to have her mobility stolen, to be ridiculed while struggling just to stand."

The words come faster now, like poison finally being drawn from a wound. "When I put those cigarette burns on her back – fuck, I hate myself for that – I actually managed to beat myself up over it. Gave myself a black eye and split lip because the guilt was eating me alive. Domino actually felt sorry for me, thought someone else had done it." My hands shake slightly. "But what he did to her legs..."

I turn to face my brothers, seeing varying degrees of horror and understanding in their expressions. "That was unforgivable."

"What did you do?" Ren asks, all traces of his usual playboy facade gone.

"I couldn't figure out how to hurt him enough at first," I confess, moving away from the window. "Nothing seemed adequate. Breaking his bones wouldn't equal months of physical therapy. Burning his skin wouldn't match the psychological trauma of being trapped in a wheelchair while people mocked your recovery."

My pacing becomes more agitated. "I felt helpless. Here I was, brilliant enough to cure cancer, but I couldn't protect one girl from systematic cruelty. Couldn't shield her from themonster I'd become, from the even bigger monster I'd helped create in Domino."

The bows feel heavier now, weighted with the gravity of what I'm about to confess. "Until finally," I say softly, "I figured out how to hurt him back."

I look at Eva one more time, remembering the girl with pigtails who brought me soup when I was dying, who did my homework when I couldn't lift my head, who forgave betrayal after betrayal until finally...

"What did you do, Marcus?" Matteo asks, though something in his tone suggests he already knows.

The silence stretches like a wire about to snap. Outside, rain begins to fall, providing a gentle backdrop to this moment of terrible truth.

---