Cassandra felt the weight of Aiden's gaze before she understood why it unsettled her so completely. "Why look at me when you say that?""Because you're the first person I've seen him choose to protect since I arrived in this city." Aiden's voice had softened again, that unsettling warmth returning like a mask sliding back into place. "Chen protected him out of duty. Mrs. Whitmore begged for a stranger's life. But you — the ex-wife who signed away his freedom with a check and an insult — you're the one he brought with him today, against his own teacher's advice. That tells me exactly who he'd exhaust himself protecting first, if it ever came to that.""That's not your business," Killian said, low and warning."Everything about you became my business the moment your video hit four million views." Aiden's tone stayed level, almost patient, the tone of a man explaining something obvious to someone who hadn't caught up yet. "I'm not here to threaten her, Mr. Dante. I'm here to show you the

Killian woke to fluorescent light and the low, steady beep of a monitor that wasn't his own heartbeat this time — it was too slow, too careful, the sound of machines watching him instead of the patient he'd come here to heal."Don't sit up yet." Cassandra's voice reached him before his eyes fully focused, her hand already pressed flat against his shoulder, keeping him down against the pillow. "You've been out for almost two hours.""Marcus." The name came out rough, his throat dry, memory of the last thing he'd seen — the boy's eyes opening — surfacing before anything else mattered. "Is he—""Awake. Talking. Asking his mother where he is and why everyone's crying." Cassandra's voice wavered on the last word, relief and residual fear tangled together. "He's confused, disoriented, weak — but alive, Killian, and lucid in a way he hasn't been in four months. Priya's running tests on him right now."Killian let his head fall back against the pillow, some of the tension leaving his body at

The resistance hit Killian harder this time — not the current he remembered from an hour ago, but something with weight behind it, deliberate, like a hand closing around his wrist from the other side of whatever threshold he was reaching across."Killian, stop—" Priya's voice cut through the chaos, her eyes locked on the secondary monitor now tracking his vitals instead of Marcus's. "Your reading just dropped another fifteen percent in under ten seconds. That's not normal depletion. Something's pulling.""I feel it." The words came out through gritted teeth, sweat already beading cold along his hairline. This didn't feel like healing. It felt like a fight, something on the other side actively resisting instead of simply yielding the way the Whitmore girl's small, uncomplicated illness had.Marcus's monitor stuttered, the flatline breaking into an erratic, struggling rhythm, then steadying by degrees — but slower this time, fought for rather than freely given."He's stabilizing." Priya

"Taking what, exactly?" Cassandra's voice had gone tight. "What does Reyes take when asking stops working?""Whatever he needs, from whoever's holding it." Chen was already moving, old instincts overriding the exhaustion that had visibly settled into his own shoulders over the last two days. "Killian, if Aiden's right — if what you carry could make the Order's healing process safe, repeatable, without the cost that broke him — that's not an asset to Reyes. That's the entire mission his organization has been failing at for six centuries, solved by a man who already refused his offer once.""Then he'll come for it," Killian said. "Not ask.""He'll come for you specifically, because whatever this is lives inside you, not on a piece of paper he can steal." Chen turned to Priya, urgency sharpening his voice. "The bloodwork. Every sample, every file, anything documenting what you found in Marcus's system. It can't stay in this hospital's network where anyone with the right access could pull

Killian's grip on the phone didn't tighten. If anything, his voice went quieter, steadier, the calm that had once made Reyes step backward in a warehouse settling over him again now."You just threatened three people in a room you don't actually have eyes on," he said. "Which tells me you're bluffing about the easy way, or you wouldn't have opened with a threat at all."A pause on the line, brief, calculating. "I don't bluff, Mr. Dante. I simply prefer efficiency.""Then be efficient. Tell me what you actually want, instead of performing menace for an audience that isn't impressed by it." Killian met Chen's eyes across the room, a silent signal passing between them — keep him talking. "You said I have something the Council needs. I already told you I'm willing to discuss sharing it. That offer's still on the table. You're the one who decided a countdown was more persuasive than a conversation.""Sharing it," Reyes repeated, something sharp cutting through his composure. "You misunders