Chapter 13: Bloodied Weapons
The medical room in the east wing smelled of antiseptic and old whiskey. The doctor, a nervous man with thick glasses, had insisted on surgical lighting and sterile fields. Pace had refused the general anesthetic. He lay on the polished steel table, shirt cut away, as the doctor dug for the bullet with a probe. Sweat beaded on his forehead but he did not make a sound. His eyes were open, fixed on the exposed beams of the ceiling.
Lina watched from a corner, her arms crossed. She had washed Pace’s blood from her hands, but the ghost of his grip on her wrist remained. Vito stood by the door, a solid silhouette against the hallway light. He hadn’t left. He watched Pace. He watched her.
“Nearly there, sir,” the doctor mumbled, his fingers slippery with blood. “The femoral artery is… nicked but not severed. It’s a miracle.”
“Luck,” Pace grunted, the word tight. “Or poor marksmanship.”
“The bleeding’s controlled. You’ll need a graft, proper surgery—”
“Patch it. I’m not going to a hospital.”
The doctor glanced at Vito, who gave a single, grim nod. The man sighed and went back to work with a needle and suture.
They had left Jace sedated in a room down the hall. Under guard. The oath hung in the air of the estate like cordite.
Pace’s eyes slid from the ceiling to Lina. “You’re still here.”
“I said I would be.”
“You also said you’d leave after the results were in.”
“The results,” she said, her voice cool, “just tried to kill each other. The variables have changed.”
Pace’s lips twitched. Not a smile. Something darker. “Vito. Give us the room.”
Vito didn’t move. “Don…”
“Now.”
The doctor finished a stitch, tied it off. “I need to bandage—”
“Outside,” Pace said, his voice low but final.
The doctor wiped his hands, gathered his tools, and hurried out. Vito lingered a moment longer, his eyes on Lina. A warning. A question. Then he stepped out and closed the door. They were alone.
Pace swung his legs off the table. The fresh sutures pulled. A fresh stain bloomed on the bandage. He ignored it. He stood, naked from the waist up, the muscles of his torso corded with pain and tension. He took two unsteady steps toward her.
She didn’t back away. “You should not be on your feet.”
“I shouldn’t do a lot of things.” He stopped inches from her. He smelled of iodine and his own iron scent. “You took the gun from my brother.”
“He was dying.”
“He was dangerous.”
“He still is.” She looked up at him, her violet eyes clear. “So are you. Yet here I am.”
He lifted his hand, the one not streaked with drying blood. He traced the line of her jaw with his thumb. It was not a gentle gesture. It was a survey. A claiming. “Why?”
“You told me to be.”
“You don’t take orders.”
“No,” she agreed. Her breath hitched as his thumb pressed against the pulse in her throat. “I don’t.”
He leaned in. His mouth was near her ear. His voice was raw. “What did you see on that bridge?”
She turned her face, her lips almost brushing his. “Two broken engines. Spinning out of control. One fueled by rage. The other by fear. Both on the same catastrophic course.”
“And you?”
“I was the unexpected friction.”
He kissed her then. It was not like the kiss in the vault. That had been conquest. This was consumption. It was hard and desperate and tasted of blood and salt and a furious, wild need. She met it with her own, her hands coming up to claw into the hard muscles of his back, careful to avoid the wound. She felt the bandage grow damp under her fingers.
He walked her backward, his leg buckling once. She absorbed his weight, staggering with him until her back met the cold metal of a medical cabinet. The glass rattled. He pushed against her, his hips pinning her, his hands cupping her face, holding her still for his kiss.
“Tell me to stop,” he growled against her mouth.
She didn’t. She pulled him closer.
The door opened. Vito stood there, his face impassive. “The doctor is nervous. He says you must lie down.”
Pace didn’t turn around. “Close the door.”
“Pace.” Vito’s voice held a stone of caution.
Pace turned his head, just slightly. “What?”
“You’re bleeding through the bandage. You have a target on your back the size of this estate. Now is not the time.”
Pace released Lina. He turned fully, placing himself between her and Vito. “Is there a better time?”
“After. When you’re healed. When the situation with Jace is resolved.”
“The situation with Jace is resolved,” Pace said flatly. “He swore.”
“On blood he can’t take back,” Lina said from behind him, her voice steadying the room. She smoothed her dress, a flicker of the cool scientist returning. “Vito is right. You need to heal. The threat isn’t just Jace. It’s anyone who saw what happened, or thinks they know what happened. Your weakness is visible now.”
Pace looked from Vito’s grim concern to Lina’s clinical assessment. The two poles of his world. The soldier and the scientist. Both telling him the same thing.
He let out a long, controlled breath. The feverish light in his eyes banked, replaced by a colder, more familiar calculation. He nodded to Vito. “Get the doctor. Rebandage it. Tight.”
Vito nodded, relief faint in his shoulders. He left.
Pace turned back to Lina. He cupped the back of her neck, his touch still possessive, but now deliberate. “You’ll stay. In the guest wing. Under guard.”
“Am I a guest,” she asked, “or a prisoner?”
“You are the friction,” he said, echoing her words. “And I am keeping you close.” He studied her face. “You could walk out. Right now. Vito would let you. I’m in no shape to stop you.”
She knew it was true. The door was unguarded. The bridge to the mainland was open. Her work was done. The data was parsed. The sample was gone.
She thought of the empty vial in her pocket. She thought of the erratic, beautiful code of Jace’s genome. She thought of the way Pace had looked at her on the bridge—not as a problem to be solved, but as a truth he could not ignore.
“The variables are still changing,” she said quietly.
He leaned his forehead against hers. For a moment, he was just a man, tired and in pain. “They always are.”
The doctor returned with Vito. Pace allowed himself to be led back to the table. He lay down. He did not look away from Lina as the doctor worked.
Later, in the guest wing, the room was opulent and cold. A fortress within a fortress. Lina stood at the window, looking out over the darkened grounds. The sea was a black void beyond.
There was a soft knock. Vito entered without waiting for an answer. He carried a tray with a pot of tea, a single cup.
“He’s asleep,” Vito said, placing the tray on a table. “The sedative finally took him.”
Lina didn’t turn. “You don’t approve of me.”
“It’s not my job to approve,” Vito said. “It’s my job to keep him alive. To keep the family stable. You are an unknown variable. You make him… emotional. In our line of work, emotion is a luxury paid for in blood.”
She turned then. “What you saw today between him and Jace. That wasn’t because of me. That was a debt thirty years coming due. I was just the catalyst.”
Vito poured the tea, steam rising in the cool air. “Maybe. But a catalyst changes the reaction. Makes it faster. Hotter. More dangerous.” He handed her the cup. “He trusts you. Against his nature. Against my advice.”
“And you?” she asked, taking the cup. “Do you trust me?”
Vito’s dark eyes were unreadable. “I trust that you saved Jace’s life when you could have let him die. I trust that you walked into a line of fire without flinching. That buys you time. Not trust. Time.” He headed for the door. “Sleep well, Doctor Vesperine. The guards outside are for your protection. From everything out there.” He paused, his hand on the knob. “And from anything in here that might forget its place.”
He left, closing the door softly.
Lina listened to the lock turn. A soft, definitive click. She looked at the tea in her hand. She looked at the bed. She looked at the window.
She was the friction. And friction, she knew, inevitably generated heat. And fire.
She set the cup down, untouched, and began to plan.