"LEO!!!"
The scream tore through my throat, raw and jagged, shattering the silence of the hotel suite. I lurched upright, my lungs burning as if I had been underwater for hours. My nightgown was plastered to my skin with a cold, sickly sweat, and my hands were shaking so violently I had to grip the edges of the mattress to keep from falling.
The room was still dark. The San Francisco fog pressed against the windows like a grey shroud, but it was quiet. No gunshots. No screeching tires. No smell of gunpowder.
I scrambled to my left, my breath hitching until I saw the small, rhythmic rise and fall of the duvet. Leo was there. He was fast asleep, his face peaceful, completely oblivious to the massacre I had just witnessed behind my eyelids.
In the dream, I had been back at the hospital. A single, echoing shot had rung out, and I sound instantly my whole world was taken away from me in a blink of an eye. I had been watching while my son was shot to death and I was unable to save him. Not as a mother and not even as a doctor. The miracle worker I'm known to be. My body shook in fear as the image of Leo's dead from the dream resurfaced in my memory. I had seen Leo's small hand reaching for me as he fell, his voice calling for a mother who couldn't save him
I forced myself to breathe—in for four, out for four—applying the same clinical calm I used during a surgical crisis. It was just a nightmare. A manifestation of my exhaustion and the psychological toll of Asher's reappearance. My mind was simply processing the "fight or flight" response that had been stuck in high gear since the hospital visit.
I sat there for an hour, watching the dawn bleed into the sky, waiting for the terror to fade.
The week that followed was... strange.
It was as if a storm had passed, leaving behind a sky that was too blue to be trusted. Life returned to a rhythm that felt hauntingly normal before the reappearance of asher in our lives . I went back to my shifts at the hospital, my white coat feeling like a suit of armor once again. I performed three successful surgeries in four days, my hands steady and my mind sharp. I was Dr. Valentine again, the brilliant surgeon, the woman who had built a life out of nothing.
But the silence was the loudest part of the day.
Asher Reed was gone. There were no more gravelly phone calls at midnight. No black Mercedes parked at the curb. No looming presence in the hospital corridors that made the air feel like it was vibrating with unspoken threats. He had vanished back into the shadows of his empire as quickly as he had emerged.
"He's actually gone, isn't he?" I whispered to myself as I scrubbed out after a grueling six-hour procedure.
I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe that his apology had been a final goodbye—a way to close the book on us. Oddly enough, I kind of miss him. Chloe focus! You can't possibly miss someone who treated you as nothing but a breeding vessel in the past. I cautioned my subconscious mind. Yes, I may just miss our constant fight. I miss the fact that he wasn't here anymore for me to rub my success all over his face. I exhale the breath I hadn't realized I was holding for awhile now. I guess it is for the best..But I knew better. Asher Reed didn't leave things unfinished.
The only proof that he still existed were the men.
They were subtle, but to my trained eye, they were as obvious as a malignant tumor. Two men in charcoal suits sat in the hospital cafeteria every morning, never eating, just watching. Another stood near the service elevators, his posture too rigid for a janitor, his eyes tracking every person who entered the wing where Asher's brother was still recovering.
Asher wasn't there, but his "men were . He had surrounded his brother with ghosts, turning the hospital into a high-security fortress without ever stepping foot inside it.
On Friday afternoon, I stood by the window of the staff lounge, sipping a bitter cup of coffee. I watched the street below, half-expecting to see that sleek black car return. Instead, I saw parents walking their children, tourists pointing at the fog, and the mundane hum of a city that didn't know a Mafia King was pulling its strings.
For seven days, I didn't have to look over my shoulder. I took Leo to the park. I helped him with his drawings. We ate ice cream on the pier and laughed until our stomachs ached. For a week, I let myself pretend that the "breeding vessel" comment was a lifetime ago. I let myself pretend that the "Shadow" I saw at the service entrance had been a trick of the light.
But as the sun began to set on the seventh day, a cold realization settled in my gut.
In my world, the silence didn't mean the danger was over. In the world of the Reed Mafia, the silence was just the breath a predator took before it lunged.
I put my coffee cup down, my fingers brushing the burner of the machine. The heat was a sharp, stinging reminder of reality. Asher had been gone for a week. No calls. No messages. No sightings.
He was giving me exactly what I asked for: space.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. My heart skipped a beat, a cold dread washing over me as I pulled it out. It wasn't a call. It was a news alert, the headline flashing in bold, jagged letters that made the room spin.
"MASSIVE BLOODSHED BETWEEN THE REED MAFIA AND THE MASCOTS. IT IS SAID THAT THE MOST FEARED MAFIA KING WAS BRUTALLY SHOT. WORD HAS IT THAT HE COULD BE DEAD. IS THIS THE END OF ASHER REED?"
The cup in my hand fell, shattering against the floor, and a single tear dropped from my eyes.
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