--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
The night had bled into a grey, sickly morning. The ICU wing was still trapped in that heavy, artificial silence, punctuated only by the mechanical breathing of the machines. Keigan and Keiran had finally succumbed to exhaustion, or perhaps they just couldn't bear to look at the glass doors anymore. They had headed down to the cafeteria at my insistence, leaving me alone in the sterile hallway.
The nurse approached me, her eyes softening as she saw me still sitting in the same plastic chair. "Ms. Mariano? You can go back in for sometime. He's stable, but the doctors are still monitoring his neural responses."
I didn't need to be told twice. I stood up, my legs feeling like lead, and stepped back into the room.
Keifer was exactly as I had left him. Pale. Still. A prisoner of his own body. I sat beside him, taking his cold hand in mine, resting my forehead against the side of the bed. I didn't pray—I didn't have the words for it. I just breathed with him, trying to synchronize my heart to the steady *beep* of the monitor.
Suddenly, the heavy door hissed open.
I tensed, thinking it was the nurse coming to tell me my time was up. But when I turned, I saw a tall figure standing in the doorway. It wasn't the brothers. It was Percy.
He looked like he had run all the way from the other side of London. His coat was damp from the rain, and his hair was a mess, but the moment his eyes landed on me, the panic in them shifted into a deep, agonizing pity.
"Jay-Jay," he breathed.
I stood up, and for the first time since the boardroom, I felt my knees actually give out. Percy lunged forward, catching me before I hit the floor. He pulled me into a crushing hug, burying my face against his chest.
"I'm here," he whispered, his hand resting firmly on the back of my head. "Aries called me. I came as fast as I could. It's okay, Jay. He's a Watson. He's the Lion. He's too stubborn to leave us like this."
I squeezed my eyes shut, my fingers digging into the fabric of his coat. I was fighting it—fighting the urge to howl, to let the grief swallow me whole. I had to be strong. I had to keep the mask on.
"I'm okay, Percy," I rasped, though my voice was paper-thin. "I'm... I'm holding it together."
"You don't have to," he said gently, pulling back just enough to look at me. "You look like a ghost, Jay."
"I can't fall apart yet," I whispered, pulling away and looking toward the door. "Keigan and Keiran... they're downstairs in the cafeteria. They haven't eaten or slept. Percy, please. Go find them. They need someone they trust. They need to see a familiar face that isn't... isn't me looking like this."
Percy hesitated, his eyes darting between me and the silent figure of Keifer on the bed. "I don't want to leave you alone with him, Jay. Not right now."
"I'm fine," I insisted, forcing a flicker of the old Jay-Jay into my voice. "The nurses are right outside. Just go check on the boys. Please. For me."
He sighed, giving my hand one final, supportive squeeze. "Fine. But I'm coming right back. Don't move from this spot."
I watched him walk out, the door hissing shut behind him. The silence returned, but it was short-lived.
Not even five minutes had passed when the door opened again. I expected it to be a nurse or maybe Percy forgetting something.
But as the figure stepped out of the shadows of the hallway and into the dim light of the ICU, my blood turned to ice.
*Clyde*
He wasn't wearing the mask of a grieving brother. He didn't look worried. He was dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, a sickening, arrogant grin plastered across his face as he looked at the bed.
I stood up instantly, my chair clattering against the floor. I stepped between him and Keifer, my hands curling into fists.
"Get out," I spat, my voice vibrating with a hatred I didn't know I was capable of.
Clyde didn't move. He just tilted his head, his eyes scanning the room with a cold, clinical curiosity. "No, no, Jay-Jay. Is that any way to greet family? Don't worry, I'm just here to see my dear, heroic brother. I heard he had a little... accident."
"Accident?" I took a step toward him, my heart hammering. "You know exactly what happened. Get out of this room before I call security."
Clyde laughed—a dry, hollow sound that made my skin crawl. He walked further into the room, ignoring me, his gaze fixed on Keifer's pale face.
"Look at him," Clyde sneered, his voice dripping with venom. "The great Keifer Watson. The 'Lion' of London. Reduced to a vegetable. He always was a sentimental fool. Just like that pathetic woman who gave birth to him."
My breath hitched. "Don't you dare talk about his mother."
"Why not?" Clyde stepped closer, his grin widening as he saw the pain in my eyes. "She was weak, Jay-Jay. She died because she couldn't handle the weight of this family. And look at Keifer now. He's just like his demonic father—cold, obsessed with power, and ultimately, a failure. He thought he could protect you? He couldn't even protect himself from a single piece of lead."
He leaned over the bed, his face inches from the oxygen mask. "You're a coward, Keifer. You're just a shadow of a man playing King."
The air in the room seemed to vanish. All the guilt, all the grief, and all the rage I had been suppressing for the last twenty-four hours surged to the surface in a single, blinding explosion.
I didn't shout. I didn't argue.
I lunged forward.
With every ounce of strength I had left, I threw a direct, heavy punch. My knuckles connected squarely with the bridge of Clyde's nose with a sickening *crack*.
The force of the blow sent him reeling backward. He hit the wall with a thud, his hands flying to his face. Blood immediately began to pour from his nose, staining his white shirt and dripping onto the sterile floor.
Clyde let out a strangled, shocked cry. He looked at me, his eyes wide with disbelief and raw, burning fury.
"Fuckk.. You... you little—" he choked out, his voice muffled by his own blood.
"I told you to get out," I said, my voice deathly calm, even as my hand throbbed with a dull, satisfying ache. "If you say one more word about him or his mother, I won't stop at your nose. Get. Out."
Clyde stood up, staggering slightly, his face twisted in a mask of pure malice. He spat blood onto the floor, his eyes darting to the door as he heard the sound of footsteps approaching in the hallway.
"You'll pay for that, Mariano," he hissed, clutching his face as he backed toward the door. "You think he's the only one who can bleed? Just wait. When he's gone, you'll have no one left to hide behind."
He cursed at me—vile, filthy words that I barely heard—before spinning around and bolting out into the hallway just as the nurses arrived to see what the commotion was.
I didn't follow him. I didn't care where he went. I turned back to the bed, my chest heaving, my hand shaking. I sank back into the chair and took Keifer's hand again.
"He's gone, Keifer," I whispered, my tears finally falling again, but this time they were different. "I won't let them touch you. I won't let them say a word against you. Just come back. Please... the pack is coming, but I need the Lion to lead them."
I sat there in the silence, the blood on my knuckles a grim reminder that the war hadn't ended in the boardroom. It was only just beginning.
--: Author's POV: --
The night had reached its deepest, most hollow point. The hospital was alive with the low hum of electricity and the distant, muffled sound of a distant ambulance siren, but inside the private ICU wing, time had simply ceased to exist.
Percy had been a rock. He stood by the door, his presence warding off the nurses who kept trying to move us to the general waiting area. But eventually, the head doctor returned. He looked at my bruised knuckles, then at the exhausted, slumped forms of Keigan and Keiran.
"Ms. Mariano," he said softly, his voice firm but kind. "We need to perform a full neurological scan and clear the room for the night-shift medical team to change his dressings and check the IV lines. It will take about an hour. Please, take this time to step out. If anything—and I mean *anything*—changes, we will alert you immediately."
She didn't want to go. Every cell in her body screamed that if she let go of Keifer's hand, he would slip away into the dark. But Percy placed a hand on my shoulder, his grip steady.
"Come on, Jay," he whispered. "Let them work. We'll be right outside the doors. I've got the boys."
Reluctantly, She stood up. She leaned down and pressed her lips to Keifer's cold forehead, lingering for a second too long. *Stay,* she thought. *Just stay.*
Percy led us out to a smaller, more secluded waiting area about twenty yards down the hall. It was a cold space with stiff, blue chairs and a flickering fluorescent light that made us all look like ghosts. We sat in a line—Jay-Jay, Percy, Keigan, and Keiran. No one spoke. No one checked their phones.
They just sat there, staring at the floor, four shadows waiting for a sign of life.
The minutes ticked by like slow, heavy drops of lead. Jay watched the clock on the wall. 11:45 PM. 11:55 PM.
Almost Midnight
The hospital seemed to sigh as the date changed. In the distance, She saw the nurses moving around the central station, their heads down as they charted the night's progress. They were tucked away in the corner, invisible.
They didn't see the shadow.
They didn't see the figure in the dark suit slip past the service elevator, moving with the silent, predatory grace of a man who had spent his life navigating the darkness. Didn't see him enter Keifer's room while the doctors were momentarily pulled away for an emergency in the neighboring wing.
In the silence of the ICU, a gloved hand reached out. There was no hesitation. No remorse. The hand gripped the edges of the oxygen mask—the thin, plastic lifeline that was feeding air into Keifer's lungs—and pulled.
The mask hissed as it was cast aside. The hand then moved to the bedside monitor, fingers dancing over the controls to mute the immediate audible alarm, delaying the reaction of the nursing station by those precious few seconds needed to vanish.
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
I felt it before I heard it.
A sudden, sharp chill raced down my spine, a feeling of absolute, visceral wrongness. My head snapped up, my eyes darting toward the hallway that led to Keifer's room.
"Jay? What is it?" Percy asked, sensing my sudden tension.
I didn't answer. I stood up, my heart beginning to hammer against my ribs. And then, the silence was shattered.
*BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.*
It wasn't the steady, rhythmic pulse of before. It was the high-pitched, frantic scream of a flatline alarm that had finally bypassed the manual override.
"KEIFER!" I screamed.
I bolted. I didn't care about the rules, I didn't care about the doctors, I didn't care about the pain in my knuckles. I ran down that hallway, my heels skidding on the polished floor.
I reached the door just as a swarm of medical staff burst from the other side of the wing. "Code Blue! Code Blue in Room 402!" a nurse shouted into her radio, her voice high with panic.
"Move! Get out of the way!" a doctor roared, pushing a crash cart toward the room.
I tried to push past them, but Percy caught me from behind, his arms wrapping around my waist to hold me back. Keigan and Keiran were right behind us, their faces twisted in a horror so raw it looked like a physical wound.
"Let me in! Keifer! KEIFER!" I wailed, fighting Percy with everything I had.
Through the chaos of the moving doctors and the swinging doors, I caught a glimpse of the room.
The mask was on the floor. Keifer's chest wasn't moving. The monitor was a straight, glowing line of green.
"He's not breathing! Start compressions!"
"Charge to 200! Clear!"
*THUD.*
I watched as Keifer's body jolted off the bed from the force of the electricity. My knees hit the floor. The world was spinning, the white lights of the hospital blurring into a blinding, searing heat.
"Again! Charge to 300! Clear!"
*THUD.*
I couldn't hear my own screams anymore. I could only hear the mechanical, heartless sound of the machines and the frantic shouts of the people trying to bring him back. They were moving him—the bed was being unlocked, the wheels screaming as they turned.
"He's flatlining! We need to get him back to the OR, now! There's a suspected respiratory failure!"
The doors burst open, and the bed flew past us. I saw his face for a split second—he looked so peaceful, so terrifyingly still, like a statue carved from ice.
"Ate! Ate, look!" Keigan shouted, pointing toward the emergency exit at the far end of the hall.
For a heartbeat, I saw a figure. A tall man in a dark suit, his silhouette disappearing into the stairwell. He didn't look back. He didn't have to.
"CLYDE!" Keigan roared, starting to run, but Percy grabbed him too.
"No! Stay with Jay-Jay!" Percy commanded, his voice shaking.
We ran after the gurney as they pushed it toward the Operating Theater. The double doors slammed shut in our faces, the red 'In Progress' light flickering on like a drop of blood in the darkness.
I collapsed against the doors, my forehead pressed against the cold metal. Inside, I knew they were fighting. I knew they were shocking him, pumping air into him, trying to force the Lion to stay in this world.
I didn't know that inside that room, beneath the closed eyelids and the chaos, Keifer was fighting a different kind of war. I didn't know that every breath he wasn't taking was a calculated risk, a desperate play in a game where the stakes were our very lives.
All I knew was that the heart that had beat for me was silent.
I slid down the door, my hands covering my ears to drown out the sound of my own soul breaking. The midnight fog hadn't just swallowed the city; it had finally come inside to take the only light I had left.