Semua Bab CRAVING THE WRONG BLACKTHORNE BROTHER: Bab 61 - Bab 70

I made it back to the main level, my heart still hammering so hard I could feel it in my teeth. The key card burned in my pocket like a live coal, and every second I held onto it felt like another second closer to getting caught.I’d done it. I’d actually done it.I’d deleted the footage. Wiped every file, cleared every timestamp, erased every second of evidence that could place me in that garden. My hands had been shaking so badly I’d almost made a mistake twice, almost clicked the wrong folder, almost left a trail. But I hadn’t. The screens had gone dark one by one, and I’d stood there in that cold server room feeling like the floor was dissolving beneath my feet.I’d bought myself time.But now I had to return the key.My phone buzzed and I nearly dropped it.Nate: *Where are you? Marcus has the footage ready.*I stared at the words until they blurred. *Footage ready.* The footage I’d just destroyed. The footage that no longer existed anywhere except in my memory and my guilt.My f

The woman introduced herself as Katya.She was tall and severe, gray streaking through dark hair pulled back without vanity, hands that moved with the particular precision of someone who had stopped being gentle a long time ago because precision mattered more. Her accent was thick — Eastern European, maybe Russian — but her English was clear enough to cut."I have studied rare poisons for thirty years," she said, taking Levi's chart from Dr. Hayes without asking. "Wolfsbane, nightshade, hemlock. All the classics." She looked at the dark veins spreading up his chest and her expression did something complicated. "But this I have not seen."The second specialist was Chen. Older, softer-spoken, with wire-rimmed glasses and a bedside manner that seemed almost too gentle for someone who specialized in toxicology. He reviewed the lab results on a tablet with quiet, focused attention, murmuring to himself."The compound is bonding with the blood cells," he said. "It's sophisticated. Almost en

My body ached in places I’d forgotten existed.The walk from Nate’s bedroom to the medical wing felt longer than it ever had before — every step pulling at muscles that had been pushed past their limit and hadn’t been given nearly enough time to recover. The soreness between my thighs was a constant, low reminder of the night I’d just spent. What I’d done. What I’d used and what I’d withheld and what I was walking toward now, before the sheets had even gone cold behind me.The morning light was gray and thin through the corridor windows. Somewhere outside, birds were doing what birds did, completely indifferent to the fact that my entire life was balanced on a knife’s edge. The estate was waking up around me — servants moving through hallways, guards rotating shifts, the whole enormous machine of the Blackthorne household continuing exactly as it always did. As if nothing had changed. As if I hadn’t spent the night keeping my husband distracted so he wouldn’t have the presence of mind

By midday, Levi had been moved to a private recovery room on the third floor.It was Dr. Hayes’s idea — a more comfortable space now that the crisis had passed, somewhere quieter and less clinical. A king-sized bed, a sitting area, thick curtains that blocked the afternoon glare. Privacy enough that she only checked in every few hours.I told myself I was helping coordinate the move out of practicality. Out of efficiency. Because someone had to make sure the transition went smoothly, and I happened to be there.I was not counting the minutes.I was not thinking about how Nate’s car had cleared the estate gates two hours ago.“You don’t have to hover,” Levi said from the bed. His voice had continued its steady recovery — stronger now, almost normal, threaded through with dry amusement. “I’m not going to collapse the moment you turn your back.”“You almost died three days ago,” I said. “Forgive me for being cautious.”I was arranging flowers. There were already three bouquets in the roo

The evening moved with the particular cruelty of things you want to be over.Nate kept me at his side through all of it. Introductions, small talk, the careful navigation of pack politics dressed up in evening wear. His hand never left me. My waist, my back, the curve of my hip. Small, constant touches that read to everyone watching as affection and read to me as something more deliberate. A reminder. A claim being restated for an audience that included his brother.Levi circulated the room at a careful distance. He was good at it. Gracious with the pack members who came to congratulate him on his recovery, composed with the allied alphas who wanted to assess him, easy in the way of someone who had grown up in these rooms and knew how to perform without appearing to. Every time I found him across the crowd he was looking somewhere else. Every time I looked away I felt his eyes find me.I was going to lose my mind before the first course was served.Dinner, when it came, was exquisite