Chapter 2 - Blood on the Treatment TableThe next morning, my tiny apartment smelled of cheap bleach and old coffee. I barely slept. At 5:00 AM sharp, a knock rattled my door off its hinges. It wasn't Gabriel this time. It was four armed enforcers who didn't say a word, picking up Oliver's medical equipment boxes, our clothes, and our entire lives, packing us into an armored van before I could even protest.
They didn't take us back to the wellness center. They took us to a heavily fortified medical compound hidden inside a sprawling estate on the outskirts of Chicago.
When Oliver woke up in a sunlit, state-of-the-art medical suite with a full-time private pediatric nurse monitoring his breathing machine, he looked at me with wide, innocent eyes.
"Mom... where are we? Are we rich?"
"We're just visiting a very important client, sweetie," I lied, kissing his forehead while my stomach churned with dread. I had traded our freedom for my son's safety, walking straight into the lion's den.
An hour later, I was summoned to the estate's private gym.
Sebastian was already strapped onto a heavy inversion and physical therapy table, his powerful upper body slick with sweat. His men had cut away his shirt, revealing the massive, jagged burn and shrapnel scars crisscrossing his back like a roadmap of violence.
"You're late," Sebastian grunted, lifting himself slightly using overhead chains.
"My son was waking up," I replied sharply, snapping on medical gloves. "Don't ever move us without telling me first."
Sebastian stopped, a dark smirk playing on his lips. "You have a remarkable lack of survival instinct, Clare. Most people piss themselves when they look at me."
"Most people aren't trying to fix your broken body," I retorted, pressing my thumbs directly into the scarred tissue near his lower lumbar.
Sebastian let out a sudden, brutal roar of agony that shook the glass windows. His entire body convulsed violently, his arms locking onto the chains so hard the metal groaned.
"Hold him!" I shouted to Gabriel, who rushed forward to pin Sebastian's shoulders to the table.
"You're tearing me apart!" Sebastian snarled through gritted teeth, veins bulging across his neck like thick cables.
"I'm breaking the scar tissue that's been choking your nervous system for twenty years!" I yelled back, pushing harder, pouring every ounce of my strange, unexplainable gift into his spine. "If you want to stay in that chair and let your empire crumble around you, tell me to stop right now!"
Sebastian glared at me through a haze of sweat and pain. For a second, I thought he was going to snap my neck with his bare hands.
Instead, his jaw locked, and he whispered, "Do it again."
By the time the session ended, Sebastian was breathing heavily, his face pale, but a strange, electric heat was radiating from his lower back. As I packed my bag, he spoke without looking at me.
"Word is spreading through the Syndicate that I'm bringing a civilian into my inner sanctum," Sebastian said quietly. "My enemies think I'm losing my mind. Tomorrow, they're coming to test if I'm still the monster they fear."
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I froze, my fingers gripping my bag. "What does that have to do with me?"
Sebastian turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto mine with chilling intensity. "Everything. Because you're mine now, Clare. And in my world, whatever touches me becomes a target."
