"Why didn’t you let the doctor do this?" Ren asked, his voice low.

He began to dab at the wound with a wet cloth, his fingers trembling despite his best efforts to stay calm.

"Because they’re so clinical," Cilian mused, letting out a soft, airy chuckle that ended in a sharp hiss of breath. He reached up with his good hand, his fingers grazing the back of Ren’s neck, just above the leather collar. "You, on the other hand... You look at me like you want to finish what the sniper started. It’s much more refreshing."

Ren didn’t respond. He poured antiseptic over the wound, and Cilian’s body lurched, his muscles cording under his skin, and his heart rate spiked—Ren could see the pulse jumping in Cilian’s throat. But even as he gasped for air, Cilian kept smiling, his pupils blown wide with a terrifying, dazed delight. He wasn’t just enduring the pain; he was feeding on the fact that Ren was the one causing it.

"The bullet is still in there," Ren said, his voice flat.

"Then take it out," Cilian urged, his voice a melodic rasp. "I’m all yours, Ren. Don’t keep me waiting." 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Ren had always been good at these things. He studied medicine and surgery in school just so he could become more proficient when it came to changing bandages, taking out a bullet, and stopping a bleeding wound. He did that to find more ways to be useful to the family.

It was too bad. He had such gifted hands.

Ren picked up the forceps and then asked,

"Without anaesthesia?"

"You’re all the anaesthesia I need, Ren. With you here, I won’t feel the pain." Those were quite the big words, Ren thought.

"Fine. I’ll start now." He had to lean in close, his face inches from Cilian’s. He could smell the cold winter of the Alpha’s pheromones mixing with the salt of sweat and the tang of blood. It was a suffocating, intimate space that Ren wished he didn’t have to be a part of.

Ren dug into the wound, his heart hammering so hard he thought it would burst.

Cilian’s good hand clamped onto Ren’s thigh, his fingers digging into the muscle with bruising force, but he didn’t scream. He just watched Ren’s face, a low-frequency vibration in his chest. Finally, the lead slug dropped into the metal tray with a sharp clink.

Ren began to stitch the skin, his fingers moving with the mechanical precision he had learned to perfection. He worked fast, trying to ignore the way Cilian’s breath hitched every time the needle pierced the skin.

"You’re a very good boy, Ren," Cilian whispered, sounding almost drunk from the pain he was doing his best to endure.

"Shut up," Ren snapped at him in a low voice. "Let me focus, or this needle is going straight to your heart arteries."

He finished sewing and then began to wrap his shoulder with the bandage. He stepped back, his hands covered in Cilian’s blood. He looked at the Alpha—pale, bleeding, and still wearing that fox-like grin—and felt a wave of cold nausea. He had saved the man who destroyed his world. What sort of irony was this?

He looked at his bloody hand and clenched his jaw. This wasn’t supposed to be how things go.

Cilian checked his phone and then gave a little hum before standing up slowly, swaying for a second before finding his balance. He adjusted his ruined shirt, looking down at the bandage with a look of approval. Ren had really outdone himself this time.

"It’s as good as new," He claimed with a chuckled and Ren looked at Cilian. Where did he think he was going with a wound like that?

And as if he read the question on Ren’s face, he responded,

"The broker is in the cellar," Cilian said, his voice returning to its light, singing quality. "He should’ve been waiting quite a while to tell us who sent that little gift. Shall we go find out?"

"Your shoulder is..." He wanted to stop Cilian, but stopped. He could do whatever he wanted; he didn’t care.

"Did you say something, Ren?" Cilian asked, but Ren threw his face away, picking up the tools. He could go misuse his shoulder for all he cared, he thought. It was none of his business.

Cilian watched him with a light huff from his lips. His shoulder hurt like hell, but for some reason, it felt less painful as he teased Ren.

Ren followed Cilian out of the room. He realized that every time he tried to find a way out, Cilian found a new way to pull him in. Cilian was weaving a web out of everything they shared, and more, and Ren was running out of room to move. It was suffocating.

They descended the stone stairs to the basement. The air was damp and cold.

Ren looked around, remembering they had a similar basement back at his family’s mansion. Guess there’s not much of a difference between families of this same profession. A mafia family was a mafia family.

In the center of the room, tied to a wooden chair under a single bulb, was the broker. He was already bruised, gagged with a white cloth that had already been bloodied, and his eyes were blindfolded. He was bleeding from the head as a result of his struggle during the capture process. His breath was coming in ragged gasps, but at least with that, they could confirm that he was still breathing.

Cilian walked up to him, his wounded shoulder held stiffly, his smile widening as he looked at the man’s battered face.

The guard at the side took off the blindfold and gag roughly, and the Broker looked up to see his reaper.

"Now," Cilian said, his voice airy and dangerously sweet. "Let’s talk about why the blood-sucking Mordecais are so interested in my favorite person to the point they wanted to put a bullet in him."