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“Okay,” Koh says, pinning a fresh towel soaked in disinfectant to the wound. “You got lucky. You’re not going to die.”

Even I hear the sarcasm, and I’m surprised Koh is capable of it. His brother doesn’t find the comment funny and punches him in the upper arm. Though I can see that despite his toned upper body, he has almost no strength left.

“Looks worse than it is,” Koh explains. “It probably hit an artery in the muscle tissue. That’s why the blood comes in pulses.”

“It burns!” Levi forces out.

“Yeah, but don’t worry. You’ll be fine again in two to three weeks.”

“What?”

“I’ll stitch it up quickly, and then you sleep here. You need rest.” Koh actually pulls out a needle, thread, and scissors.

Is he fucking kidding me?

Is he really going to stitch him up right here in the entryway…?

He skillfully threads the needle while Damian removes his belt, placing it in Levi’s mouth to bite on like it’s routine.

I can’t watch.

When Koh pours disinfectant over the wound and sets the needle, I feel nauseous.

“Holy shit…” I turn away from the scene and start pacing in circles.

Behind me, I hear Levi’s suppressed groans as he bites down on the leather belt.

Why isn’t he going to a hospital?

They’d give him a shot before stitching.

Everything is spinning in my head.

Every movement and every step feels like I’m in a foreign body. Like I’m walking on shifting ground.

Is the Earth shaking right now?

My field of vision narrows, darkening from all sides, and all I can still see is the blood.

In the distance, someone calls out my name.

I’m detached.

Cut off from what’s happening, I fight in my head not to be pulled back into that night when Ben lay dying at my feet.

I don’t want to go back there.

Never again.

Never! Again!

There it is—the rage I’ve clung to for the last five years.

It holds me together because it helps me not get lost again and again in that night that turned my life upside down.

But it can also light a fuse in me, so I explode and lose myself.

I thought I’d left the madness behind, and now it turns out the guy hiding here from his crazy ex and playing dog walker is the emergency stop for injured small-time gangsters?