And if Nathan doesn’t want to be found?
Too fucking bad.
I’ve got a kid back home on his knees for a ghost, and I’m not letting him suffer alone.
19
JULIAN
I’m crawling out of my own damn skin, unable to sit, sleep, or eat, my body vibrating with a restless energy that won’t settle no matter what I do. I’ve already jerked off six times today—six—and it’s not even one in the afternoon. My dick hurts, my chest hurts, and my brain feels like a wasp nest set on fire. Every time I close my eyes, all I see is Rafe—his mouth, his hands, the tape tight around my throat, the promise he left behind vibrating under my ribs like a curse.
He’s gone, and he’s not calling or texting back, and that one fucking message—Do it again—is still sitting in my phone like a loaded gun.
I can’t take it.
I can’t fucking take it.
I need something sharp, something loud, something that cracks me open without actually killing me. Normally I’d go to Misha and let him bark at me, shove me into a wall, maybe crack a rib for funsies—but he’s gone too, off somewhere with Rafe.
Which leaves only one other option in this whole deranged circus.
Vlad.
The coldest. The quietest. The one who stitches wounds while reciting scripture like a lullaby and tortures men without letting his pulse rise.
Perfect.
I storm across the compound barefoot, half-dressed and half-feral, my nails digging into my own arms because if I don’t scratch myself I might actually put my head througha wall. The sun feels too bright, my skin feels wrong, and every sound scraping through the compound grates against my nerves like broken glass.
By the time I reach Vlad’s container, I’m already shaking.
I don’t knock. I slam both fists against the metal door hard enough that the entire row probably hears it, my heartbeat thundering in my throat, my skull, and the base of my spine.
The door opens, and Vlad stands there with his hair slicked back and his shirt half-unbuttoned like he was either in the middle of dissecting someone or praying—honestly hard to tell with him. His icy eyes sweep over me once from head to toe, calmly taking in the disaster I am: bare feet, swollen mouth, pupils blown wide, nail marks carved down my ribs, sweat gluing my hair to my forehead.
He blinks.
I blurt it out before I lose the nerve. “Punch me.”
Both of his eyebrows rise slowly, like something being resurrected from the grave. Then—without saying a word—he slams the door in my face.
I snarl, grinding my teeth so hard my jaw pops as I slam my fist against the metal again, harder this time. “VLAD! OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”
Silence.
I pound on it again, louder, the whole container rattling under the impact. “I SAID—OPEN—THE—DOOR!”
Nothing.
I draw back and kick the damn door, my toes screaming as fury spills out of me. “I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON’T HIT ME I’LL—”
The door flies open so fast I stumble forward. Vlad stands there again, looking slightly amused now, his pale eyes cutting through me like a blade dipped in holy water. “Little one,” he murmurs softly, his accent thick and his calm somehow crueler than shouting, “if you wanted pain, you should have gone to Luca. Or Kai. Or perhaps the wall outside Finn’s room.”
I shake my head violently, my breath coming out sharp and uneven. “I don’t want them. I want something that will shut me up.”
His gaze moves over me again, slower this time. “You want the violence,” he says. It isn’t even a question. It’s a diagnosis.
I swallow hard. “Yes.”
