Chapter 1 - The Weight of Two Hundred and FourThe plaque on the door of Room 204 read Leo Hayes, but the boy huddled beneath the stifling weight of the hospital blanket looked less like my son and more like a fragile sketch of him, erased halfway down the page.
Nico stopped beside me, his broad shoulders blocking out the meager light spilling from the hallway. I could smell him—expensive sandalwood, faint whiskey, and the sharp, metallic tang of absolute power. He didn’t look at Leo. He looked at the medical charts clipped to the foot of the bed, his dark eyes narrowing as his gaze scanned the ominous drop in the boy's vitals.
"You should have called me weeks ago, Claire," Nico said, his voice dropping into that low, velvet baritone that used to make my pulse race and now only made my spine turn to ice. "Instead of running across state lines like a thief in the night."
"I didn't run from you, Nico," I whispered back, my hand gripping the cold brass handle of the door until my knuckles turned white. "I ran for him. And if you touch him—if you try to use his name, his blood, or your lawyers to rip him out of my arms while he’s tethered to this machine—I swear to God, I will burn your entire empire to ash."
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Nico didn't flinch. A slow, terrifying smile curved the corner of his mouth—the exact smile that had terrified boardrooms from New York to Zurich. He reached out, his long fingers wrapping over mine on the door handle, peeling my grip away with effortless strength.
"Claire, darling," he murmured against my ear, his breath hot and dangerous. "You seem to forget who owns the hospital, who pays the doctors, and who holds the only key to the experimental treatment that can save his life. You didn't hide from me. You just walked right back into my cage."
