Luca waves them on, Bishop laughs like he’s missed this, and the rest of Fiamma snaps back into position like nothing ever went wrong.
The game goes on and the war keeps raging behind us, but I’ve already taken the only piece that matters.
Julian is bleeding into my chest as I carry him off the ice, his weight heavy in my arms while the chaos of the rink fades behind us.
By the time we reach Kai’s container, he's already kicking the door open, and I shoulder us both through, laying Julian down on the metal slab of a bed already lined with surgical tools, tape, vials, tubing, towels, syringes. The place is a fucking apothecary for killers. The floor’s clean, stainless steel counters, light overhead surgical-bright. He wasn’t kidding when he said this place was more OR than bedroom.
Kai’s already ripping his shirt off, snapping gloves on, grabbing a scalpel.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I bark, stepping into his space, looming over him fast enough to make most men twitch.
“I’m saving his fucking leg,Scalzi,” Kai hisses back, tearing a packet open with his teeth and reaching for a curved needle. “Unless you’d like to shoot me first and watch him bleed out instead?”
I don’t back off. But I don’t shoot him either.
Kai shoves a tray of supplies toward me with one hand. “Sterilize the knife. I’m not fucking around. This isn’t a street patch. This is real. That knife might’ve grazed the femoral. He’s lucky. Barely. Now either help, or get out.”
Julian groans on the slab, eyes fluttering.
I growl but grab the fucking knife, find the tray of alcohol, and do what he says. The smell hits me hard—sterile and sharp. Kai’s already slicing into fabric, cutting through tape and skin and blood to reach the damage with brutal, surgical confidence.
“You gonna tell me what you’re doing?” I grind out, eyeing the tubing in his hand.
Kai doesn’t look up. “Debriding the wound. The clot held, but I’m not risking internal buildup. I’m cleaning out the trauma, checking for splintering, and then I’ll stitch it in layers.”
“And if he goes into shock?”
“Then you better fucking pray I work fast.”
I grit my teeth and stay. Because if Kai falters forone fucking second—if Julian stops breathing—if anything in this container looks like death instead of life—Iwillput a bullet in someone.
Even if it’s mercy.
But Kai works like a goddamn machine. And Julian keeps breathing.
11
JULIAN
Iwake up slow, dragged back into myself like someone’s hauling me out of a pit by the bones. The first thing that hits me is pain—thick and pulsing. It radiates from my thigh in heavy, nauseating waves, like my heartbeat migrated into the wound and is trying to punch its way out. Every throb sends a hot, electric sting up my hip, down my knee, all the way into my goddamn toes. For a second, I can’t even breathe through it. My chest locks, my jaw clamps, and all I can manage is a rough, broken groan that sounds like it came from someone dying under a truck. The kind of sound you don’t make unless something has been taken out of you and shoved back in wrong.
I blink hard, vision swimming, metal ceiling above me tilting like someone nudged the world off its axis. This is my container. My bed. My sheets. But it feels wrong—everything feels wrong—too clean, too cold, too still. My leg is heavy, wrapped tight from hip to knee, bandages thick and stiff with dried blood. The memories come back in shards: the blade, the shot, the scream, Kai’s hand buried in my thigh, Rafe’s voice in my ear ordering me to stay awake, threatening me into consciousness. Then the goal—Christ, I actually scored. And then I collapsed. I remember ice. I remember hands. I remember nothing after that.
Another groan tears out of me as I shift, and the pain lances sharp enough to blur my vision for a second. I curse under my breath and force my eyes to stay open. And that’s when I see him.
Rafe. Sitting in the metal chair beside my bed like a fucking statue carved out of storm clouds and violence. He’s still in his gear, half-out of it, pads undone, chest protectorhanging loose like he couldn’t decide whether to take it off or kill someone in it. His arms rest on his thighs, hands loose but ready—those big, scarred hands with dried blood crusted across the knuckles. Some of it is mine. Some of it isn’t. His hair is a mess, pushed back like he’s raked his fingers through it half a dozen times. There’s a dark bruise blooming along his jaw. He looks like he hasn’t slept at all. Like he’s been sitting there the whole time I was unconscious, waiting me out like a storm he planned to outstare.
And fuck me, he looks hot.
Not soft-hot. Not pretty-hot. Not anything human. Hot like danger incarnate. Hot like he spent the night killing ghosts with his bare hands and came back bloody. Hot like a nightmare wearing black and watching me breathe.
For a long, thick moment, I just stare at him. Because I don’t know why the hell he’s here. Because I don’t know why he looks furious and exhausted at the same time. Because the last thing I remember is him slapping me awake and promising to kill me if I passed out—and now he’s sitting guard like he hasn’t moved in hours.
My throat is raw when I finally speak, voice gravelled down to something ugly. “Shit,” I rasp, unable to hold back another groan, “either I’m alive… or hell looks better than I expected.”
I shift—stupidly, automatically, like my body hasn’t caught up with the fact that it’s been torn open and sewn back together with fury and surgical thread. My torso twists, and I try to sit up, groaning as I brace against the mattress with one hand.
Big mistake.
