Chapter 2 - The Bleeding Vow
Alina froze, the air violently leaving her lungs. "What did you say?"
Julian didn't answer. His head fell back against the dark pillows, his pulse fluttering erratically against her trembling palm. Blood soaked through the clean white linen bandage taped across his lower left abdomen. The ambush had torn his stitches wide open, and he was slipping fast into hemorrhagic shock.
"Julian! Look at me!" she commanded, pressing both hands hard over the wound. Fresh warmth flooded her fingers. She couldn't afford him dying—not because she owed him loyalty, but because his living body was the only wall standing between her and Helena Vance’s executioners.
The doors swung open again, and Dr. Robert Callahan rushed in, his leather medical kit swinging heavily in hand. Two armed house guards stationed themselves outside the threshold, facing outward.
"Get out of the way, girl!" Callahan barked, shoving her aside as he tore open Julian’s dressing with surgical scissors. "He’s blowing through his vascular repair. Hand me the hemostatic gauze from that side tray. Move!"
Alina scrambled across the mahogany floor, her bare feet slipping on stray drops of blood. She snatched the yellow military-grade packet and slammed it into Callahan’s bloodied latex gloves.
"What did he mean Michael is dead?" she demanded, her voice shaking violently. "Callahan, talk to me!"
The aging doctor clamped a pair of artery forceps deep into the tear near Julian’s iliac crest without flinching. "I don't ask questions about corpses, Miss Brooks. I patch up what's left of the living. If Julian Vance said your brother is gone, you can assume Michael’s car is at the bottom of the Hudson River."
Nausea hammered Alina’s gut. Michael had been her only family. Six months ago, Michael had begged her to take the data entry job at Vance Shipping, swearing it was a simple logistics front. Then came the intercepted federal indictments, the encrypted flash drives, and Michael’s terrified phone call yesterday afternoon: “Take the drive to Julian Vance directly, Alina. He's the only one who hates Helena enough to burn her empire down from the inside.”
She had handed the drive to Julian in the parking garage. Minutes later, three black SUVs had boxed Julian’s sedan in, unleashing hundreds of rounds of hollow-point fire. Julian had dragged her into his car, shielded her body with his own, and driven them out through the gunfire before collapsing in this very bedroom.
And now he claimed the drive was empty.
"Blood pressure is bottoming out," Callahan swore under his breath, jamming an IV line directly into Julian’s jugular vein. "He needs a field transfusion immediately. What's your type?"
"O-negative," Alina whispered.
"Sit in that chair and roll up your sleeve," the doctor ordered. "If he flatlines before dusk, Madam Helena will have both our heads mounted on spikes at the compound gates."
Ten minutes later, Alina sat motionless as the plastic tube pulled hot crimson from her inner arm directly into the vein of the man who had dragged her into hell. She watched Julian's face as color slowly seeped back into his hollowed cheekbones. The wolf tattoo on his right arm seemed to writhe against his skin with every forced beat of his heart.
Suddenly, Julian’s eyes snapped open. The slate gray was clear, lethal, and completely aware.
He didn't acknowledge the needle in his arm. Instead, he gripped Callahan by the throat with terrifying speed, choking the doctor until the older man gagged against the bedframe.
"Out," Julian grated out.
Callahan clawed at the vice-like grip, nodding frantically. Julian released him, and the doctor gathered his instruments in utter terror, fleeing the room without looking back.
The heavy silence returned, broken only by the rhythmic click of the transfusion line.
Julian turned his head toward Alina. He reached up, tore the IV line straight out of his neck, and let the needle clatter against the floorboards. Blood dripped down his collarbone, but he didn't even flinch.
"You knew Michael was stealing for the feds," Julian stated flatly.
"He was trying to save our lives!" Alina hissed, tearing her own line out and pressing her thumb over the puncture. "You told me you were going to use that evidence to break Helena’s control! You told me we were getting out!"
"Nobody gets out of this family alive, Alina," Julian said, swinging his bare legs over the side of the bed despite the agony tearing through his stitched side. He stood upright, towering over her, a silhouette of muscle, scar tissue, and ruthless calculation. "The drive you brought me wasn't a ledger. It was a Trojan virus that wiped the syndicate’s master offshore routing keys. The moment you plugged it into my laptop, you triggered the kill-switch on Helena’s entire vault."
Alina stepped backward, her spine hitting the cold mahogany dresser. "I didn't know—"
"It doesn't matter what you knew," Julian growled, closing the distance until his chest nearly touched hers. "The board believes I orchestrated the robbery. Helena believes you did. In three hours, the heads of the five syndicate families will arrive here to witness our vows."
He reached behind her, opening the top velvet drawer of the dresser, and pulled out an antique silver ring mounted with a flawless black diamond.
"Why marry me if you think I betrayed you?" she choked out.
Julian grabbed her left hand, sliding the heavy, freezing band onto her third finger until it bruised the knuckle.
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"Because under cartel law," Julian whispered darkly, "a husband has the exclusive right to execute his wife himself... and until I find out who Michael was really working for, you're the only hostage keeping Helena’s snipers from pulling the trigger on me."
Before she could speak, a deafening explosion shattered the north courtyard windows, showering the bedroom floor in glass and blinding smoke.
