Page 47 of Ruthless

I saw his mounting concern as I failed to respond, saw him drain the too-hot water and replace it with cooler water. The dissociation pulled me deeper, Prometheus's parting promise echoing like a death sentence:I'll always be waiting for you to come home.

"Luka, stay with me," Vincent was saying, voice urgent as he bathed my face with cool water. "Focus on my voice. You're safe now. He's gone."

But I knew better. Prometheus was never truly gone. He lived in my head, my nightmares, every calculated move and survival instinct. In the muscle memory that made me yield to his touch, even when every conscious part of me wanted to recoil.

"He's right," I mumbled. "Everyone leaves when they see the truth. Assets don't get happy endings."

Vincent's movements paused briefly before resuming with greater gentleness. "That's not true, Luka. I'm still here, aren't I? Even knowing what I know."

"You don't know everything," I whispered, a tear escaping to mix with the bathwater. "The things I've done. The things I've let be done to me."

"You don't have to tell me everything," he said, voice steady and sure. "But nothing you say will make me abandon you right now. I promise."

Promises. Another thing I'd learned early not to trust. Yet something in his voice anchored me, began slowly pulling me back into my body. The water was no longer burning, the cool cloth on my forehead beginning to cut through the fever's grip.

"Did you mean it?" I asked, voice sounding strange and distant. "What you said to him?"

"Every word," Vincent replied without hesitation.

I nodded as darkness crept at the edges of my vision. My last strength was failing, the combined effects of fever, infection, and emotional exhaustion dragging me toward unconsciousness.

"Don't leave me," I managed, hating the vulnerability in my voice but too exhausted to mask it. "Please."

"I won't." Vincent's hand found mine beneath the water, squeezed gently. "I'll be right here when you wake up."

As I slipped into darkness, I thought I felt him brush a gentle kiss against my forehead.

I'm not an angryperson by nature.

But watching Luka thrash in fever dreams, murmuring broken phrases that sounded like pleas for mercy, ignited something primal inside me. Hearing that broken, childlike voice begging someone to stop made rage blazed through my bloodstream until my fingers trembled against his burning skin.

The asclepiad—which was apparently some sort of nurse practitioner—was already packing her Victorian-era bag, having declared the infection came from wounds "deeper than they appeared."

"Change the dressings twice daily," she said briskly, leaving me with antibiotics and instructions but no outlet for this burning fury.

I couldn't stop replaying it. Prometheus. His hands claiming Luka, possessing him through touches simultaneously paternal and sexual. Luka had shrunk into something small and frightened.

Eight million dollars. That's what Luka had been worth to him. Not a child to nurture, but an investment. A tool.

"Never," I whispered fiercely to Luka as he slept. "You're not a tool."

He didn't stir. The bruising around his nose had darkened to deep purple, spreading across both eyes. I peeled back the blanket to check his dressings, trying to keep my touch clinical. But my eyes betrayed me, tracking across the planes of his chest, the trail of dark hair disappearing beneath the sheet. Even fevered and bruised, he was beautiful in a dangerous way that made my mouth go dry.

"Stop it," I muttered to myself, focusing on the bandages. But when I dabbed antiseptic on a cut near his hip and he arched slightly, a soft groan escaping...

I fled to the kitchen before my thoughts could venture anywhere more inappropriate.

Cooking became my anchor. The rhythmic thud of the knife against the cutting board steadied my pulse as I massacred vegetables. Soon the counters overflowed with containers full of chicken soup, beef stew, enough food to survive an apocalypse. My fingers stung raw from hot water and repetitive chopping, but the productivity carved space in my mind to breathe again.

This was more than professional concern. Somewhere between gunfire and fever, I'd begun to care about Luka as more than a patient.

On the fourth morning, I woke to the smell of coffee. I found Luka in the kitchen wearing only pajama pants, hair damp from showering. Water droplets traced paths down the map of scars across his chest. His movements were more fluid today, the antibiotics finally winning their battle against infection.

"Morning, sunshine," he greeted with a grin. "Coffee?"

"You shouldn't be up," I managed, forcing myself to focus on his face rather than the defined muscles of his torso.

"Relax, doc. I'm not running marathons." He gestured at the refrigerator. "Did you cook for the apocalypse?"

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