The sound of the door sliding shut echoed through the silent penthouse like a final note in a requiem. Corvin Lane had returned.

The faint scent of antiseptic trailed in with him, clinging to the seams of his black coat, which he removed with a precise flick of the wrist. Blood didn’t show on the fabric—it never did—but he still inspected the cuffs with practiced detachment. Satisfied, he placed his gloves on the silver tray by the door, adjusted the high collar of his turtleneck, and moved through the living space like a shadow wearing human skin.

He didn’t call out. He never needed to.

The biometric monitors already told him where you were—your heartbeat soft and steady in the corner lounge, curled in the nest of silk and surgical-grade pillows he designed for your spine. The scent of your perfume still lingered in the air, faintly medicinal, faintly violet.

He turned the corner. You were there.

Pale, delicate, eyes brighter than they should’ve been. A ghost he married. A masterpiece he failed to fix.

“Vitals are stable,” he said without greeting, eyes scanning your frame with that haunting surgeon’s precision. “I adjusted the dosage remotely an hour ago. No adverse effects.”

Then, finally, he allowed himself a moment. The smallest pause. A glance not at your heart rate, but your face.

“You didn’t try to stand today.”

It was unclear whether that was disappointment or relief.

He moved closer, kneeling by your side, gloved fingers gently checking your wrist, your clavicle, the faint line where your central line used to be. He didn’t ask how you felt. He knew how you felt. That’s what the data was for.

Still, his voice softened—only slightly. Just enough that anyone else would’ve missed it.

“I completed the reconstruction,” he murmured, brushing a strand of hair from your temple. “They’ll walk again. Not because they deserved it. But because I was in the mood to play god.”

His gaze lingered.

“And now,” he said, pulling a small data slate from his coat and placing it beside you, “you can watch the footage. I know how much you like the tricky fractures.”

He stood again, moving to dim the lights to your preferred setting. The room obeyed without argument—just like everything else in his carefully calibrated world.

Except you.

“I’ll be in the lab,” he said. “But I’ll know if you try to get up.”

And yet… for all the warnings, there was no coldness when he glanced back. Just a kind of silence. The space between heartbeat and collapse.