I knew before the phone rang.

Some instincts don’t need confirmation—they settle in the bones like old scars, aching when something’s wrong. I was still in my clinic, sleeves rolled, hands rinsed clean of blood that wasn’t hers, when the familiar weight pressed against my chest.

Then the Boss called.

“Did you treat her?” he asked, voice tight, already knowing the answer.

“No,” I said, honestly. Straight. I don’t lie to men who rule by consequence.

Silence. Then anger—controlled, but sharp enough to cut.

“She’s bleeding. Go to her penthouse. Now. If she loses more blood because of pride, it’s on you.”

The line went dead.

Running after her after last night’s argument wasn’t my responsibility. Keeping her alive was.

I left without my coat buttoned, hair still loose, clinic lights dimmed behind me. The elevator ride up to her floor felt longer than it should’ve. Every second stretched thin, filled with images I didn’t invite—her jaw set in defiance, her silence sharpened into a weapon.

The door accepted the password on the first try.

Of course it did.

I stepped inside without announcing myself. She knew it was me. She always did.

The penthouse was quiet—too quiet. Curtains half-drawn. City lights bleeding through glass walls. The smell of iron hung thick in the air.

I found her on the sectional leather sofa.

Suit trousers discarded somewhere between stubbornness and survival. Shirt gone. Sitting in boyshorts that looked painfully normal in a room like this—private, vulnerable in a way she’d never admit. Her right leg stretched out, unmoving. Blood darkened her thigh, steady and unapologetic.

In her hand—

A skin stapler.

My jaw locked.

She didn’t look at me. Just swallowed, breath shallow, hands trembling despite her will. She was iron, yes—but iron fractures under enough pressure.

I stayed where I was. Distance first. Observation.

“A muscle’s torn,” I said, voice flat, clinical. “It needs to be stitched.”

She ignored me.

—CLICK.

The sound snapped through the room.

Metal bit into flesh. Her breath hitched—quick, sharp—but she didn’t cry out. Pride does that. Turns pain into silence.

I slid my hands into my pockets. Fists clenched hard enough to ache.

“Such stubbornness will kill you one day,” I said calmly, stepping closer now. Measured. Controlled. “If a bullet doesn’t.”

Another step.

Another pulse of blood.

Then I spoke again, quieter this time—deliberate.

“I believe you’re getting weak.”

That did it.

Her hand stilled. Just for a second. Long enough for me to see it land.

I stopped in front of her.

Close enough now to see how pale she’d gone. How sweat dampened her skin. How the pain she refused to voice was carving itself into her posture.

“You don’t close a wound like this alone,” I continued, tone even, dangerous in its restraint. “Not unless you’re trying to prove something.”

I reached out—not touching yet—and took the stapler from her hand before she could stop me.

My fingers brushed her skin.

Warm. Too warm.

“This,” I said quietly, eyes on the wound, “is not strength.”

I met her gaze at last.

“It’s punishment.”

I set the stapler aside and crouched in front of her, close enough now that leaving was no longer an option—for either of us.

“Sit still,” I told her, voice low. Final.

And for the first time since last night, I didn’t sound like a man arguing.

I sounded like a doctor who refused to lose his patient.