The shattered remains of my coffee cup stayed on the floor for a long time. I couldn't move. I just stared at the bold, red letters on my phone screen until the light dimmed and the display went black.
Asher Reed. Dead.
The words felt like a physical weight on my chest, yet my doctor's brain was already dissecting the probability. The "Mascots" were a disorganized swarm compared to the mafia precision of the Reed family. How could they get close enough to draw blood let alone end Asher But then, I remembered the week of silence. The "False Peace." Has Asher been distracted? Had I been the distraction that left him vulnerable?
I spent the next forty-eight hours in a waking fever dream.
I expected the charcoal-suited men at the hospital to break. I expected them to vanish, or to inform me about what is going on, or at the very least, to look defeated. But they did something worse: they became statues.
The security around Marcus's wing didn't just tighten; it became an iron curtain. There were more of them now—men I didn't recognize, with bulges under their jackets that were far too large to be cell phones. They whispered in the shadows of the stairwells, their eyes darting toward me with a strange, unreadable flick of recognition before they looked away.
By the second day, the silence was screaming.
No one approached me. No one gave me a "Section Four" update. It was as if I had been erased from the narrative, left to rot in the unknown. My surgeries were a blur; my hands moved on autopilot while my mind played back the sound of Asher's gravelly voice.
"You're a Reed, Chloe. Whether you like it or not."
If he was dead, what did that make me? A target? Or a widow to a man I hadn't even forgiven?
I couldn't take it anymore. As I was leaving my shift, I cornered one of the guards near the ambulance bay—a man named Jupiter who I'd seen every day for a week. He looked exhausted, his eyes bloodshot behind his dark lenses.
"Jupiter," I hissed, stepping into his personal space. "The news. Is it true?"
He didn't look at me. He looked over my shoulder, scanning the parking lot. "The news is a circus, Doctor. You know that."
"Don't give me the script," I snapped, my voice trembling with a mix of fury and fear. "Two days. No word. More guards. Tell me the truth. Is he alive?"
Jupiter finally looked at me, and for the first time, I saw genuine cracks in the Mafia facade. "We don't know," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the hum of a nearby generator. "The confrontation happened. It was a bloodbath. We've been trying to reach Nash—the King's current right hand—but his line has been dead for forty-eight hours. That has never happened. Not in ten years."
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. "And Asher?"
"His phone rings," Jupiter said, a haunted look crossing his face. "It rings and rings until it hits voicemail. He isn't answering the soldiers. That is the reason why we have to tighten security here—they will be coming for the King's brother, who is likely to take over in his absence. And in our world, Doctor, when the King doesn't answer, it usually means there's no one left to pick up the crown."
I drove home in a trance. Leo was with the nanny, safe and laughing, completely unaware that his world might have just lost its secret architect. I sat on the edge of my bed, the darkness of the room pressing in on me.
I looked at my phone. I had deleted his number a dozen times, but I knew it by heart. It was burned into my memory like a scar.
Just to know, I told myself. For Leo's safety. Not because I care.
I dialed.
The sound of the ringing was agonizing. It felt like a countdown.
One ring. My breath hitched.
Two rings. The room felt too small.
Three rings. I almost hung up.
Four rings. I closed my eyes, prepared for the mechanical click of the voicemail.
Five rings.
There was a sharp click. The line went live. My heart stopped. I expected silence, or the heavy, rhythmic breathing of the man who had haunted my dreams.
"Asher?" I whispered, my voice breaking.
There was a long, static-filled pause. Then, a voice came through—smooth and cold.
Then the line went dead.
*******