CHAPTER SIX: THE BLOOD VOW

The air in the medical suite was heavy with the sterile scent of ozone and the rhythmic, comforting thrum-thrum of the fetal heart monitors. It was a heartbeat in stereo—Leo and Luna, signaling their survival to the quiet room.

Sabizina’s eyelashes fluttered. Her first sensation wasn't pain, but a strange, humming warmth circulating through her veins. It felt like liquid gold, steadying her pulse and anchoring her soul.

She turned her head slowly on the silk pilloww.

Rage was there. He hadn't moved. He was slumped in the high-back leather chair, his head tilted back, eyes closed. The sleeves of his black shirt were rolled up, revealing the white medical tape on his forearm. He looked haggard—the indestructible Alpha CEO finally showing the cracks of a man who had nearly watched his world end.

"Rage," she croaked, her throat feeling like it was filled with glass.

His eyes snapped open instantly. There was no grogginess, no transition from sleep to wakefulness. He was simply on. He was at her side in a second, his large hand hovering over her forehead before gently resting there.

"Don't move," he commanded, though the growl was replaced by a raw, jagged tenderness. "The doctors said your levels are finally stabilizing. If you pull those monitors, the alarm will trigger, and I’ll have to fire everyone on this floor for stressing me out."

Sabizina looked down at the clear tubing still connected to her arm, then at his bandaged wing. "The transfusion... the doctor said it was the 'Golden Blood' protocol. You gave me your blood."

Rage sat on the edge of the bed, his weight shifting the mattress. "It was the only way to bridge the placental barrier. My blood has a specific protein that stabilizes the Vane lineage. It belongs to you now, Sabi. Or rather, it belongs to them."

"It saved us," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears she was too tired to hold back. "I felt it. The moment it hit my system, the pain stopped. It was like you were... holding me from the inside."

Rage reached out, his thumb catching a stray tear.

"I will always hold you. Whether you want me to or not."

The moment was intimate, a fragile peace after the war of the morning's interview. But Sabizina was a hacker, and her mind never truly rested. She looked at the holographic news ticker scrolling silently on the wall behind him.

"The interview," she said, her voice gaining strength.

"Did it work?"

"Public opinion has flipped," Rage said, his expression hardening. "The 'Runaway Bride' is now the 'Tragic Heroine.' The Russo Syndicate's stocks took a hit, and the authorities are officially questioning your father’s 'concerns.' But we’ve smoked him out, Sabi. Lorenzo is desperate.

Desperate men don't use lawyers; they use shadows."

"He sent the cleaners, didn't he?" she asked, her heart rate spiking on the monitor.

Rage’s grip on her hand tightened. "Marcus found a ghost signal in the service elevator an hour ago. Someone bypassed the biometric scan by using a synthetic thumbprint—a high-end job. They’re already inside the tower, hiding in the 'dead zones' where the cameras don't reach."

"And you're sitting here with me?" Sabizina tried to sit up, a flash of panic in her eyes. "Rage, the nursery! The life support systems—if they cut the power to this suite—"

"Shh," Rage hushed her, his hand moving to her stomach. "Look at me. This floor is a vacuum. The walls are reinforced steel. Marcus has a kill-squad in the vents and a sniper on the adjacent roof. I am sitting here because this is the only place in the world that matters."

He leaned in, his forehead resting against hers. "I’ve spent my life building an empire of glass and numbers. But today, I realized that if you aren't in the center of it, it’s just a very expensive tomb."

While the Alpha and his Queen shared a moment of whispered vows, a different kind of life was moving through the Vane Tower.

Kaelen Vance (no relation to the reporter) was known in the underworld as The Eraser. He didn't use bombs, and he didn't use loud guns. He was a master of chemistry. He had been hired by Lorenzo Moretti with a simple directive: Extract the genetic material. Terminate the mother.

Kaelen crawled through the HVAC system of the 100th floor. He wore a suit made of light-

dampening fabric and a mask that filtered out the sedative gas Rage had pumped into the lower levels. He wasn't headed for the medical suite—that was too well-guarded.

He was headed for the Oxygen Scrubbers.

If he could introduce a specific neurotoxin into the penthouse’s air supply, everyone would be unconscious in sixty seconds. He would walk in, take the samples he needed, and leave before the first Sentinel woke up.

He reached the primary vent and pulled a small, silver canister from his belt.

Suddenly, a voice echoed through the metal duct.

"You really shouldn't have used a Moretti-coded thumbprint, Kaelen. It was a bit... nostalgic."

The assassin froze. The voice wasn't coming from a guard. It was coming from the small, internal speaker of his own high-tech HUD.

[POV: SABIZINA]

Inside the medical suite, Sabizina was leaning against the headboard, a tablet she had demanded from a reluctant Rage balanced on her lap. Her eyes were glowing with a predatory fire.

"What are you doing?" Rage asked, watching her fingers dance across the screen.

"I'm playing 'God' in the HVAC system," she muttered. "He's in Sector 4, Rage. He’s trying to gas us."

She tapped a final command.

Back in the vents, the air flow didn't just stop. It reversed. The high-powered turbines of the Vane Tower kicked into an emergency "Purge" mode. The suction was so powerful it acted like a vacuum, pulling the canister out of the assassin’s hand before he could activate it.

"Marcus!" Sabizina shouted. "Sector 4! He's pinned against the intake grate!"

Rage didn't wait. He grabbed his sidearm from the nightstand. "Stay. With. The. Medics."

"Rage—"

"This part isn't for you, Sabi," he said, his voice dropping into a cold, lethal register. "This is for the man who tried to poison my children's first breaths."

Rage stepped into the hallway, his face a mask of absolute fury. He met Marcus at the entrance to the maintenance shaft.

"We have him, Boss," Marcus said, pointing his rifle at the ceiling. "The vacuum pressure has him pinned. He can't move an inch."

"Turn it off," Rage commanded.

"Sir?"

"Turn it off. I want him to fall."

Marcus signaled the control room. The roar of the turbines died down. A heavy thud followed as the assassin fell through the ceiling tiles, landing on the marble floor of the corridor in a heap of black gear.

The man scrambled for a knife, but Rage was faster. He stepped on the assassin’s wrist, the sound of snapping bone echoing in the quiet hallway.

Rage didn't yell. He didn't ask questions. He knelt, his shadow engulfing the man.

"Lorenzo Moretti thinks he can hire a ghost to kill my family?" Rage asked, his voice a whisper that was scarier than any shout. "He forgot that I am the one who owns the darkness."

He grabbed the man by the throat, lifting him until his toes barely touched the ground. "You’re going to go back to your employer. You’re going to tell him that every cent he has left is now a bounty on his own head. And tell him that the next person he sends... I won't just break their bones. I’ll record their screams and play them at his funeral."

Rage tossed the man to Marcus like he was a piece of trash. "Get him out of my sight. And send a message to the Russo Syndicate. The 'Golden Blood' is off-limits. If I see so much as a drone in my airspace, I’ll liquidate their entire Mediterranean holdings by lunch."

When Rage returned to the medical suite, the adrenaline was still humming in his veins. He expected to find Sabizina triumphant, perhaps even mocking his slow response time.

Instead, he found her staring at the monitor with a look of pure, unadulterated shock.

"Sabi? What is it?"

She didn't look up. She pointed at the screen. She had bypassed the building's security and hacked into the assassin's private cloud storage while he was pinned in the vent.

"The money," she whispered. "The payment for the hit. It didn't come from my father, Rage."

Rage frowned, stepping closer. "Then who?"

"It came from a trust fund in the Caymans," she said, her voice trembling. "A trust fund that belongs to... to Elara Thorne."

The name hit the room like a bomb. Elara—the woman Rage’s board had wanted him to marry. The socialite he had discarded like a used contract the moment he set his sights on Sabizina.

Rage’s jaw tightened so hard his teeth threatened to crack. Elara wasn't just a jealous ex; she was a woman with the connections and the capital to fund a war.

"She didn't just want to marry into the fortune," Sabizina said, looking at him with wide, fearful eyes. "She wants the Vane bloodline dead so her own family can take over the shares. Rage... she’s not working with my father. She’s using him."

Rage looked at his bandaged arm, then at the twins' heartbeats on the screen. The enemy wasn't just at the gates; the enemy was in his own social circle.

He reached out and took the tablet from her, shutting it down. He climbed into the bed beside her, pulling her into his arms, despite the wires and the monitorss.

"Then the rules have changed," Rage vowed, his voice cold and resolute. "Until now, I was playing defense. But from this second on... I am the hunter. And Elara Thorne is about to find out what happens when you try to kill an Alpha's heirs."

He kissed the top of her head. "Rest now, my Queen. Tomorrow, we stop hiding. Tomorrow, we go to war."