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2026-05-30 00:28:14
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Two Brothers. One Ruin. 90
Shaun “Everything go smoothly last night?” My father asks. “Yeah.” I lean back slightly in the chair. “Everything got delivered. Half the shipment went to the hospital. Hardware’s already in our warehouse.” “Good.” He studies me for a moment before continuing. “You took only people you trust?” “Yeah.” “These days we can’t afford mistakes,” he says calmly. “Not until we figure out who the second rat is.” A smirk pulls faintly at one corner of my mouth. “Don’t worry, Father. Everything’s under control.” He nods once and walks behind his desk. The office falls quiet for a few seconds except for the soft sound of rain hitting the windows. Then— “Your wife’s been staying here for days. You’re not taking her back yet?” My gaze lifts toward him. “No.” He watches me carefully. “And then what? Is she going to stay here forever?” “If necessary.” I push myself to my feet and head toward the door. “That wasn’t our agreement.” My hand pauses briefly on the handle. “You said it
Two Brothers. One Ruin. 89
“Time of death, fourteen twenty-four.” Dr. Hunt’s voice is steady when he says it. Mine wouldn’t have been. I’m barely holding myself upright at this point. It honestly feels like my legs might give out beneath me at any second. My first patient that didn’t survive under my hands. The first person I ever lost in surgery—was a ten-year-old boy. Everything after that blurs. The operating room. The voices. The movement around me. I don’t even wait for Dr. Hunt to go speak to Sylvia. I know he does—I see him moving toward the hallway through the haze—but I can’t stay long enough to watch it happen. I walk away too fast. Almost stumble, honestly. But even from down the corridor, I still hear her scream. God. That sound. It tears straight through me. “Liana.” Jenny’s voice reaches me somewhere in the middle of all the noise. And the second she touches me, I break. I practically collapse into her arms. “He’s dead, Jenny.” The words come out fractured, barely recognizable. “He’s f
Two Brothers. One Ruin. 88
Just like that, he moved me into his father’s estate. And me? To spend as little time there as possible—to keep my brain too occupied to think, too exhausted to spiral, too dead on my feet to lie awake inside that godforsaken room listening to my own thoughts rot—I started scheduling myself for back-to-back shifts. Twenty-four fucking seven. At this point, I practically live at the hospital. My body’s starting to give out a little. There’s only so much abuse it can take before it starts protesting. My shoulders ache constantly, my feet feel permanently numb, and some days I’m so tired I genuinely forget what day it is halfway through surgery prep. But honestly? For my mind, it’s perfect. For my career, too. Exactly what it should be. And weirdly enough, with the way things are now… it’s not even that terrible. The rare times I go back to the estate—usually once every couple of days just to sleep—I barely run into anyone. And if I do, nobody bothers me. I keep to myself. They ke
Two Brothers. One Ruin. 87
It’s safe to say, Shaun is not the kind of man who handles vulnerability well. Especially not with the person who dragged it out of him. Nothing about his behavior has technically changed. He’s still the same teasing, unreadable asshole he always is. Still calm. Still controlled. Still acting like that night at dinner never happened. But I can feel it anyway. He’s keeping his distance from me. Four days have passed, and I still haven’t managed to say anything dramatic enough to trigger the kind of reaction Ryan promised. Nothing. Not my conversations with Jenny. Not random comments at the hospital. Not even me deliberately pushing certain topics louder than necessary. At this point, I’m starting to think Ryan might just be a fucking liar. Or worse—that the whole thing really was some pathetic loyalty test from Shaun all along. But I just can’t help it. I’ll try one last thing. So the moment I arrive at the hospital today, the very first place I go is the maternity ward.
Two Brothers. One Ruin. 86
“Interesting topic. And I do love…” His mouth curves. “Me. So sure.” Arrogant asshole. “Great.” I smile sweetly at him. “So here’s how this works. I ask questions, you answer them.” He picks up his wine glass—white. Very on brand for him—and takes an unhurried sip. “I’ll meet you halfway. You ask.” Another sip. “And I decide which ones deserve answers.” I shrug one shoulder lightly. “I’ll take whatever I can get.” He sets the glass down and reaches for his silverware. “You’ve got until dinner’s over.” A challenge. I take another slow drink myself, refusing to let the little time limit rush me the way he clearly intended. “What was your dream when you were a kid?” He clearly wasn’t expecting that question. A short scoff leaves him, almost amused. “Seriously?” “It’s simple enough.” I set my wine glass down and lean back comfortably in my chair. “What did you want for yourself? When you pictured your future back then… was this it?” I gesture vaguely around us. “This scene
Two Brothers. One Ruin. 85
Every light downstairs is on. Voices spill from the living room. Several voices. I slow instinctively as I move toward the sound. “The Russians gaining too much ground,” a man says. I don’t recognize the voice. “If you wait any longer, you’ll lose the advantage. It’s time to change tactics.” “What, to the exact thing you wanted from the start?” another voice replies dryly. Ian. “You were the one pushing to let them wipe out the local gangs first.” “Yeah, and now that they’ve already wiped everybody else out, they need to be handled too.” The unfamiliar man’s tone sharpens. “If this keeps going, they’ll become impossible to control.” What the hell are they even talking about? “I told you from the beginning,” the man continues, “I’d keep backing you as long as you kept order in the city.” I move a little closer, finally coming fully into view of the room. A man in a dark overcoat and tailored suit sits in one of the armchairs. Ian and Caleb are off to one side together. And
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