CHAPTER 134: SLOW WAIT

Aiden – POV

She wouldn’t stop thrashing.

Even sedated, her body jerked against the sheets, her head twisting side to side like she was fighting something I couldn’t see—something no one could reach in and pull her from.

Her skin burned beneath my palm, fever running rampant, sweat soaking the silk pillows and clinging to the curve of her throat. The doctor had set her up in our room—the room we were meant to "play happy couple" in, to keep up appearances for lawyers and contracts and all the damn lies we were living.

Now it felt like a sick joke.

A fucking nightmare.

I sat on the edge of the bed, arms braced on my knees, watching her face contort in pain. Whatever world she was in, it wasn’t this one. Her mouth moved, little murmurs falling out like bleeding memories, but none of them made sense.

She’d cry out. Whimper. Sometimes whisper names—none I recognized. Other times, she curled into herself like she was being beaten, as if the ghosts in her mind had teeth and claws. Like someone was tearing into her from the inside.

And I couldn’t do a thing to stop it.

God, I wanted to break something.

I’d built a life out of control. Power. Plans. Even my rage had a shape, a use, a direction. But this? Watching her fade in and out like this—her breath shallow, her body trembling? There was no logic. No fix. Nothing I could do.

And I fucking hated it.

"Come on," I murmured, brushing her damp hair back from her forehead. Her skin was scalding. "You’ve been through worse than this, right? You’re the damn hurricane that ripped through my life. You don’t get to go soft on me now."

Her lips moved, barely audible.

I leaned closer.

"Stop... it hurts..."

The sound of her voice like that—it wasn’t the sharp, snappy Alexia who bit back when wounded or flung insults like weapons. This was a child’s voice. Frightened. Small.

I swallowed hard, throat tightening as something ugly and unfamiliar knotted in my gut.

Panic.

Real panic.

What if she didn’t make it?

What if this fever dragged her under and never let her go? What if the last thing I ever said to her was to leave her behind at the airport like a dog?

"Goddamn it," I muttered, pushing up from the bed. I started pacing, hand raking through my hair. "You’re not allowed to die, you hear me? Not like this. Not until I get answers. Not until I get to make you pay for what you did to me."

I spun toward her again, pointing at her like she could hear me.

"You owe me that much! After what you did—after what we were

! You don’t get to just... vanish."

But her only response was a weak, shuddering breath and another whimper that cracked something in my chest.

I sank back down beside her.

"Please..." I whispered, voice breaking in spite of myself. "Just wake up. Just... come back."

She didn’t move. Didn’t open her eyes. Just more incoherent words and twitching hands like she was reaching for someone who wasn’t me.

And I hated that.

I hated that it wasn’t me.

I hated that I wanted it to be.

Because for all the hatred I still carried—for everything she’d done in that cursed past life... and everything she’d done to my heart in this one—I didn’t want her gone.

Not like this.

Not when I still loved her.

Even if I didn’t know how to forgive her.

Even if I never could.

*******

The doctor was gone. William had already cleaned the room, sterilized everything as best he could. The sheets were fresh. Her clothes—what was left of them—were nothing but ashes now, burned in the incinerator like they were filth.

She was finally resting.

But God... she looked like a ghost.

And that leg...

That goddamn leg.

I couldn’t stop staring at the bite. Red. Swollen. Still bleeding a little around the edges, bruised like something rotten. The doctor said it looked like a large stray. Probably unvaccinated. Probably feral.

Probably dead soon—if I got my hands on it.

I stood at the foot of the bed, fists clenched so tight my nails dug into my palms. I stared down at her—fragile, unconscious, too still. "A dog," I muttered, the words laced with venom. "A fucking dog."

My jaw clenched so hard it hurt. I could feel the muscles ticking beneath my skin like something about to snap. "What kind of mangy, worthless, disease-ridden animal thinks it can put its teeth in her?" My vision swam red, my body tensing with the need to do something—kill something. "If I ever see that thing... if I ever even smell it—God help me, I’ll rip its throat out with my bare hands."

I dragged a hand through my hair and started pacing, every step too loud, too heavy. The rage had nowhere to go, so it just built, tightening in my chest, burning behind my ribs. "She got lost. She was harassed. She was alone. And then some stray piece of street filth bites her?"

My fist slammed into the wall. Not enough to break anything, but enough to leave a dent—and a throb in my arm I welcomed. "She could’ve died," I growled. "She still might."

My voice cracked. Just a little. Barely enough to hear.

I buried it under more anger. Anger was easier. Anger didn’t require me to admit I was scared.

"I’ll find that damn dog. I swear to God, I’ll find it, and I’ll make sure it never lays teeth on another soul again. I’ll make it regret being born."

I turned back to her, dropped to my knees beside the bed like I was praying—not to any god, but to her. To something softer. Something breakable.

"And you," I whispered, brushing a strand of hair away from her face, "you’re not off the hook either, sweetheart. You scared the shit out of me. You almost died. And I am absolutely going to make you pay for that..."

I swallowed hard. My throat burned.

"...once you wake up."

But she didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Just lay there, pale and silent, her breathing slow and shallow.

So I sat. I waited. And I started plotting the death of a dog.

I couldn’t sit still.

I tried. I fucking tried.

But the more I looked at her—pale, feverish, lying in our bed like a broken doll—the more the fury twisted in my chest like a blade. That leg... the bite. It was brutal. Swollen, angry. Her skin was hot as fire and cold as death all at once. The doctor had done what he could. Now it was just... wait and see.

I hate waiting.

I paced the damn room like a lunatic. My hands were fists, aching from how tight I kept clenching them. My teeth hurt from how hard I was grinding them. I couldn’t stop replaying it in my mind. Her collapsing in my arms, that ragged mess she was in, the smell of garbage and blood and fear on her skin.

And the bite.

A dog. Some rabid street mutt thought it could sink its filthy teeth into her. Into my wife.

I stopped pacing and slammed my fist into the wall. The sharp jolt of pain grounded me for a second. Just a second.

I sat there for hours.

I didn’t sleep. Couldn’t. Her breathing was shallow, uneven, and every time she murmured something in her fevered sleep, I jolted upright, ready to catch her if she started convulsing or... worse.

At some point, when the ache in my neck from sitting too long became unbearable, I stood and paced the room again. My phone was still in my pocket. I yanked it out like it had insulted me.

I didn’t even think about the time. I hit Tobias’s contact and waited.

He answered on the second ring, groggy. "Sir?"

"Clear my schedule for the week," I barked.

There was a pause. "The entire week?"

"Yes. Everything. Push meetings, cancel calls, move dinner with the investors, whatever it takes. I’m not leaving this villa."

Another pause. Then: "Understood. May I ask—"

"No, you may not."

I hung up.

I stood there for a moment, staring at the phone in my hand like it had just revealed something about me I didn’t want to hear.

I just cleared my whole week.

For her.

For the woman I should hate with every fiber of my being. The one who ruined everything in our past life. Who ordered the death of my sister. Who made me beg in a dungeon while she sat on a gilded throne built on my pain.

She’s a murderer.

Even if she doesn’t remember it fully—I do.

And yet here I am.

Calling off my empire. Putting my life on pause. Sitting at her bedside like some pathetic, love-sick fool.

Why? Because she got bitten by a dog?

No—because she almost died.

And that’s what’s killing me most.

Because the thought of losing her sent my entire world crashing in on itself.

I gripped the edge of the dresser and bowed my head, teeth clenched.

"I shouldn’t have let her stay at the airport," I muttered to no one. "Shouldn’t have let her figure it out. Shouldn’t have left her to find her way like she left me in that damn dungeon."

I slammed the drawer shut. The echo cracked through the silence.

But I didn’t feel better.

I felt... hollow.

Because I couldn’t stop thinking about how cold her skin was when I picked her up. How she smelled like damp trash and smoke and blood. How she’d suffered trying to get back here.

How she still muttered "I’m sorry" in her sleep.

What kind of murderer begs for forgiveness in the middle of a fever?

What kind of monster trembles in her nightmares like she’s the one being hurt?

And what the hell does that make me—for still giving a damn?

I rubbed my hands over my face and looked back at her again.

She looked small in the bed.

Vulnerable.

And I hated that my heart clenched seeing her like that.

"Just get better," I whispered. "You’re not getting off that easy, Alexia. You don’t get to slip away in your sleep."

My voice was rough when I added, "You need to live so I can make you pay."

But deep down?

I wasn’t sure if I still meant that anymore.