The elevator doors opened with a soft, surgical hiss. What waited beyond wasn't a hallway—it was a warning. White lights, bleach-bright and unforgiving. The air smelled like antiseptic and something faintly metallic underneath, the kind of smell that clung to the back of your throat and refused to leave. Armed guards lined each door, their faces blank, their hands resting on weapons that had seen use. They didn't blink.
Kefas and Maria walked through the corridor side by side, immaculate, unsmiling, wrapped in the kind of quiet glory that came from surviving this place more than once. Each guard they passed dipped into a slow, deliberate bow—not respect, exactly. Recognition. The kind you give a predator who's learned to use the doorbell.
Maria reached a door and pushed it open without knocking.
The room beyond was massive, cathedral-like in its coldness. Medical equipment crowded every surface—beeping monitors, IV stands like skeletal trees, and trays of instruments that gleamed with recent sterilization. Patients lay strapped to beds, their eyes empty, their stillness the kind that didn't come from sleep. One didn't have to ask. These people were not here by choice.
And in the center of it all, a man in a white coat. His back was turned. He hunched over a microscope, utterly absorbed, utterly indifferent to the fact that the room had just gained two more bodies.
"Doctor?" Maria's voice was measured, careful not to startle.
The man didn't turn.
Nearby, a patient on a stretcher let out a low, wet sound—half whimper, half groan. He'd just been operated on. His gown was soaked through, a bloom of red spreading across the white like a slow-motion flower. His fingers twitched. His mouth opened and closed around air that didn't seem to help.
"Doctor?" Maria called again.
This time, the man turned.
"Ah." A smile spread across his face, warm as a hearth fire and twice as dangerous. "My favorite people."
The Doctor was in his sixties, with glasses that perched loosely on his nose like they were considering retirement. Gray hair, neatly combed. He looked healthy—suspiciously so—his body carrying the kind of lean, coiled strength that suggested the gym was not a hobby but a religion. He dried his hands on a cloth and stepped toward them, still smiling.
"I see you're out of the cell," he said to Kefas, his tone light and conversational. As if commenting on the weather.
Kefas's gaze had snagged on the bleeding patient. The man was still making that sound—thin, desperate, animal. Kefas's jaw tightened. His stomach performed a slow, unhappy roll.
The Doctor followed his gaze. "Ah." He reached into his coat pocket, produced a small, viciously compact gun, and shot the patient in the head.
The sound was short. Final. The body went still.
The Doctor smiled—wide, genuine, utterly at peace. "I'm sorry. If he was disturbing you. We were talking." He tucked the gun back into his pocket with the casualness of a man putting away his car keys.
Kefas swallowed. The swallow was loud in his own ears. He felt his heart knock against his ribs, once, twice, and then—with tremendous effort—he forced a smile onto his face. The smile didn't quite reach his eyes. It sat there, awkward and foreign, like a guest who'd arrived at the wrong party.
"Yeah." His voice nearly cracked. He steadied it. "Maria told me about your help. I truly appreciate it."
They had been working for the Doctor for nearly a decade now. And still. Still, the man's stare was cold as a morgue drawer. Kefas couldn't hold eye contact with him. He'd never been able to.
"Ah. It's nothing." The Doctor shrugged, already moving on. "What are partners for?"
He pressed a button on the wall. Immediately, a team in coveralls filed in—silent, efficient, practiced. They lifted the body. Others descended on the floor and the stretcher, wiping blood, stripping sheets, erasing the last five minutes as though they'd never happened. Within seconds, the room was spotless and sterile again. As if the man had never existed.
"Perhaps we should take our meeting in another room," the Doctor said, already walking.
They followed him out and into a different chamber entirely. This one had been decorated to resemble a living room—couches, a coffee table, a rug, and all. The shift was jarring. A hospital that dressed up like a home. A monster that wore a smile.
Kefas and Maria sat on one couch. The Doctor settled opposite them, crossing his legs with the ease of a man who owned every room he entered. The grin was still there, fixed and gleaming. Maria returned it with her own—plastic, polished. Kefas did his best to match. The effort showed.
"So." The Doctor steepled his fingers. "Adrian. The kid has a good brain. I thought you'd have brought him in by now."
"Yes. I plan to, Doctor." Maria's expression was unreadable, her posture perfect. "But as agreed, the company is still his. And I just discovered David changed the conditions to own it."
"Mmm. I see." The Doctor's eyes didn't waver. "What are the conditions?"
"Adrian needs to have a wife. Both would have to sign it off."
"And what happens if he dies now?"
Maria didn't flinch. "If anything happens to Adrian, the company—and everything he has—goes to the government."
The Doctor was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded, slowly, something like admiration flickering behind his glasses. "Yeah. It's tough. David was smart."
He stood. The meeting was over.
"This is all," he said, already moving toward the door. "Expect my call-in soon."
The door clicked shut behind him.
And then, at last, Kefas and Maria breathed.
It came out of them in a rush—twin exhales, heavy and ragged, the kind of sound people make when they've been holding air so long their lungs have started to burn. Kefas slumped back against the couch. His hands, he noticed, were trembling. He pressed them flat against his thighs.
Maria stared at the door, her plastic smile finally gone. In its place: exhaustion. Or maybe fear. The two had started to look the same on her.
Kefas exhaled again, shaking his head slowly.
"The man is still scary," he breathed.
The door swung open again. The Doctor leaned in, one hand on the frame, his face arranged into an expression that might have been apologetic on anyone else. On him, it looked like a cat remembering it had one more mouse to toy with.
"Oh—and you only have a month to get Adrian in here." He tapped the doorframe twice, a cheerful little drumbeat. "I need his brain."
The words landed like a slap.
Maria's composure cracked. Her mouth opened, her spine going rigid against the couch. "A month? Doctor—"
"Remember." The Doctor's voice didn't rise. It didn't have to. His smile thinned into something scalpel-sharp. "I'm the reason Kefas is sitting right there."
He let the sentence hang. Then he was gone, the door clicking shut with a polite, final little sound that was somehow worse than a slam.
Maria stayed frozen, her hand drifting to her chest. Her heart was jumping so violently against her ribs she was certain Kefas could hear it. Thump. Thump. Thump. A trapped bird throwing itself against the bars.
Kefas leaned back, crossing his arms. His face carried the particular smugness of a man who'd been waiting to say something for years. "I want to say I told you so..." He paused, savored it. "But I told you so."
He wasn't pleased. Not really. Getting Adrian to the Doctor in a month would be harder than it sounded—harder than anything they'd pulled off in a decade. The plan had been elegant in its patience: farm Stark Architect under Adrian's care, let him grow it into the multi-billion-dollar beast it now was. Harvest it when ripe. Simple. Clean. No blood necessary. But now Maria had discovered the catch. To own Stark Architect, Adrian needed a wife. Both would have to sign. And if anything—anything—happened to Adrian, the company goes to the government. Taking it from the government wasn't an option. Even the Doctor didn't have those kinds of fingers.
"Contact David's attorney," Kefas said, his voice sharp now. "Right now."
Maria let out a breath that was almost a laugh—hollow, humorless. "He didn't speak to me eight years ago. He isn't going to speak now." Her hand pressed harder against her sternum, as if she could calm the chaos inside by force. "David made sure of that."
Kefas stared at her. Then he looked at the door where the Doctor had just been. Then back at Maria. The math was ugly, and they both knew it.
Adrian walked the halls of MediPrivate Hospital with the particular gait of a man who'd rather be anywhere else. The VIP wing was quiet, hushed in that expensive way hospitals reserved for people whose names opened doors.
Cassian lay in the bed, propped up by pillows, his face a catalogue of bruises and his expression deeply unimpressed with the whole situation.
When Adrian walked in, Cassian's eyes went straight past him, scanning the doorway. His face fell.
"Where's Star?"
Adrian pulled up a chair, its legs scraping softly against the polished floor. "I just dropped her off."
Cassian's frown was weak—everything about him was weak right now—but his disappointment was fully operational. "When you said you were coming, I was looking forward to seeing her."
"What about you? How are you doing?" Adrian asked, steering the conversation away from his absent girlfriend with all the subtlety of a freight train.
"I'm fine." Cassian shifted, winced, and immediately regretted the lie. Pain flickered across his face like lightning in a distant storm. "I'll be up and kicking in no time." He resettled himself, breathing through the ache. "Mom said Saint's got a cough?"
"Yeah." Adrian's voice was short, clipped. "Grandma's looking after him."
Cassian turned his head on the pillow, meeting Adrian's eyes with a look that was older than his years. "You know what this means, right?"
Adrian's jaw tightened. "It's not about the mantle. You can't also believe in those stupid things."
"Well, I'm not saying I believe." Cassian's voice was dry, matter-of-fact. "But I'm in a hospital because I dodged a duck and got thrown off the road. Saint never gets this serious with a cough. And your company ratings just dropped ten percent." He let the words settle like stones in still water. "All of this started right after the mantle was worn."
Adrian straightened in his chair. His brow furrowed, not with belief, but with the effort of rejecting it. "Are you trying to say Bonita isn't my biological sister? Because I thought if the mantle goes on the wrong blood, it kills the host immediately."
"I don't know." Cassian's shrug was small, pained. "All I know is something's wrong somewhere." His eyes flicked to Adrian, pointed. "Look at your company. The ratings are ten percent down from last year. When has that ever happened?"
Adrian exhaled through his nose. The weight of the day—the week, the lifetime—pressed down on his shoulders. For a moment, he looked less like a CEO and more like a man who'd been running too long without knowing where the finish line was.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I'll get to it."
But his voice didn't carry conviction. It carried exhaustion. And Cassian, watching from his pillow, didn't look convinced at all.