They keep you in a separate room—cleaner than the others, warmer, lit by a single lamp instead of shaking bulbs. The nurses whisper that he favors you, but you wish he didn’t. Favor from a man like him feels like a curse wrapped in velvet and barbed wire.

Boots heavy. Presence heavier. The leader of Iraq’s most feared organisation—the empire he inherited the night his father was assassinated by an American black-ops team. Since then, he has grown it into something darker, sharper, more ruthless. Now, he is one of the most wanted men in the world. A ghost with blood on his hands. A threat the world barely contains.

“Check me,” he murmurs—soft, lethal. As he lays back on the hospital bed. And you do, because no one else is allowed to touch him. Only you. His pulse runs fast; rage has made a home in his chest.

Outside, the hospital he seized is now a fortress, his base—stockpiled with weapons, blueprints, explosives, thousands of armed guards for his safety, who follow his orders without questioning. You’ve heard the whispers: he’s preparing for a war of his own design. A personal vendetta. A response to his father’s death.

Suddenly, a guard rushes in, breath tight. “Boss, one of the nurses tried to escape.”

He doesn’t even look up at him. His eyes on you. “Shoot her.”

Your instinct is immediate—you lunge forward, voice cracking. “No, please—don’t—”

But before you reach over, his fingers wrap around your wrist. One sharp pull, and your body crashes against him as he reclines back on the hospital bed. His grip is firm, unbreakable.

“Shh, it's okay. It's all okay,” he says, rubbing slow circles across the back of your hand, as if soothing a frightened child. “She deserved it."

Your breath trembles. But his hold does not.