2…

~~Felix~~

“How long do you think the person who brought me here is gonna take?” I asked the nurse, my eyes doing a slow sweep of the room like it owed me an explanation. Because something wasn’t adding up. In a situation like this, my security detail should’ve already flooded this building. I should’ve had at least four men posted outside this door and one standing way too close to my bed like always. Instead I got beeping machines and a nurse who looked like she’d rather be literally anywhere else.

“Well, sir…” she started.

The door swung open before she could finish that sentence.

And in walked my biggest rival like he owned the whole damn building.

Okay. What the actual fuck.

That was the only thought my brain could produce. I just stared at him, mouth slightly open, because nothing in my extensive vocabulary of insults and threats felt big enough for this moment. He crossed the room in like four strides, way too confident for a man who was supposed to be my enemy, and before I could even process what was happening, he leaned down and kissed me.

On the lips.

Full contact.

“What the fuck?” I said the second he pulled back, my voice cracking somewhere between rage and pure confusion.

“Baby, I’m so glad you’re okay.” He had the nerve to smile when he said it. Soft eyes and everything, like we were in a Hallmark movie and not the middle of whatever psychological warfare this was.

“Bay… what?”

“Baby~~” he said again, completely unbothered, like I hadn’t just short circuited in real time.

“Okay, dude.” I held up a hand because my head was throbbing and I needed a second. “You and I hate each other. You are, and I cannot stress this enough, my enemy. What the actual fuck is happening right now. Are you stupid?”

“I’m not stupid, baby. It’s just—”

“Will you stop being cringy?” I cut him off before he could finish, because whatever was about to come out of his mouth, I did not have the emotional bandwidth for it.

He didn’t even flinch. Just tilted his head like I was the confusing one. “The doctor said you lost a year’s worth of memory.”

“A year’s worth of what?”

“A year’s worth of memory,” he repeated, slower this time, like I was the one being difficult.

My brain was doing that thing where it tries to reboot and just gives you a black screen instead. “What’s today’s date?”

“It’s the 23rd of August, 2026.”

“Wait.” I actually sat up a little, ignoring the way my skull screamed at me for it. “That can’t be right. You’re telling me it’s 2026? Not 2025?”

“Yes, baby.”

“Why do you keep calling me baby.” It wasn’t even a question anymore. It was a demand. “And what happened to me. And why does it feel like I got shot.”

He exhaled, and for a second something flickered across his face that almost looked like guilt before he smoothed it back into that infuriatingly calm expression. “Well. We’re legally married.”

The room went silent except for the heart monitor, which, rude, decided to spike right on cue and rat me out.

“Hell no.” I said it flat. Final. “I said hell no. There is no fucking way we’re married.”

“Yeah.” He almost smiled. “You’d be surprised. We are legally married.”

“There is no fucking way I would marry you.” My voice was climbing now, and I could feel the stitches somewhere on my body pull tight in protest, but I did not care. “I hate you, Evans. We hate each other. I detest you. On a cellular level. I cannot be married to you.”

“Baby.” His voice dropped, and this time it actually sounded like it cost him something to say it. Like it was scraping its way out. “I really wish you remembered me.”

Oh my God. Oh my actual God. This was so fucking cringy I could feel it in my teeth.

I have shot people. I have watched grown men cry and beg on their knees and I did not blink. I have tortured information out of people who thought they were untouchable. I run one of the most feared operations on the east coast and I have never, not once, in my entire bloodstained career, been in a situation this humiliating.

I yanked my hand away so fast the IV line yanked with it. “Do not touch me. Do not baby me. And somebody better get me my phone, because the second I get out of this bed I am calling my second in command and finding out exactly how the hell my worst enemy ended up wearing a wedding ring that apparently matches mine.”

Evans’s smile didn’t drop. If anything it got softer, sadder, more unbearable.

“There’s a lot you don’t remember,” he said. “But you’ll see. I’ve taken care of everything.”

That should’ve comforted me.

It didn’t.

It scared the hell out of me.