Chapter 298

ALEXANDER

Pain tore through my leg with every step—white-hot, blinding, vicious enough to make the corridor swim at the edges of my vision.

Blood had soaked through the bandage and into my pants, the fabric sticking to the wound with every movement. I didn't stop. I couldn't.

My leg could break. My body could collapse. I could bleed all over the fucking floor. None of it mattered. Alina did.

Her head lolled against my chest with every uneven step, her body frighteningly limp in my arms. I held her tighter, terrified that even the slightest slip would hurt her.

Leo stepped directly into my path. “Fuck. Just give her to me....”

"No." The word left my mouth before he'd finished speaking. My arms locked around her on pure instinct, some feral part of my brain refusing to even consider it.

"Boss, you can't carry her out like this."  He glanced down at the dark stain spreading across my thigh, then back to my face.

"You're bleeding through the fucking bandage. You're shaking hard enough I can see it from here. You're barely standing. And your plan is to add a hundred and twenty pounds to that?"

"I can carry my own fucking wife." The words came out low, dangerous, forced through gritted teeth. "Now move. Before I make you."

"What the fuck do you think I'm going to do?" His voice cracked with disbelief and exhaustion.

"Run off with her? Sell her on the black market? Use the thirty seconds it takes to reach the car to plan my grand escape to Mexico? I hear the weather's nice this time of year, very tempting offer." He shook his head.

I didn't move. His expression hardened.

“Jesus Christ, Alexander..After everything we've been through — the wars, the enemies, the blood, watching you nearly get your head blown off more times than I can count — you really think this is the moment I decide to betray you?"

He closed the remaining distance, patience gone entirely.

"I've bled for you. I've killed for this family. I've stood beside you when half the world wanted you dead, and tonight alone I put myself between you and a bullet more than once. And now you're standing here barely up right, arguing with me like I'm one of Santos's men instead of the guy who's had your back since before there was even an empire to protect.

So forgive me if I'm a little insulted that you'd rather collapse in this warehouse than let me carry your wife thirty feet to a car. She needs medical attention fast. Not another fucking display of your stubbornness.”

I stared at him, jaw locked. For a second neither of us moved. Then I looked down at her.

Her face was frighteningly pale against my chest. Leo was right. I hated that he was right, hated it with a passion that had nowhere useful to go, but hating it didn't make me any more willing to hand her over.

"Leo." What little control I had left was slipping through my fingers, and I could hear it fraying in my own voice.

"She was fucking taken from me. Seven hours. Seven fucking hours not knowing if I'd find her breathing or find a body. Seven hours imagining every single sick thing that bastard could be doing to her while I was tearing this city apart looking for her.

I watched Santos put a fucking knife to her throat." My voice cracked on it, the image still burned raw behind my eyes.

"I put a blade through men tonight who deserved worse than what I gave them. I have spent this entire night with my heart sitting somewhere outside my own goddamn chest."

I looked down at her, throat tightening so hard it hurt to breathe around it.

"And now she's finally here. She's finally in my arms, where she should've been the entire fucking time, and you want me to just hand her off like she's cargo? Like she's not the only thing in this world I actually give a shit about?" My grip tightened around her, fierce, absolute.

"I am not letting go of her. Not for you,  not for anyone. So don't fucking ask me again."

"Fine." Leo's voice snapped out sharp, all patience finally gone.

"You want to hold onto her that badly?" Leo threw his hands up, disbelief and fury cracking through in equal measure.

"Fine. Fucking hold her. Hold her all the way down when that leg finally gives out and you two go down together on this concrete floor. Really. I'll wait. I'll get the popcorn." He shook his head, jaw tight.

"And then, once you're both bleeding out on the ground instead of just her, you can explain to me exactly how that was the better plan. I'm dying to hear it, boss. Truly a masterclass in tactical thinking — 'why let the guy who isn't shot carry her when I could collapse and turn one patient into two.'"

My jaw was tight enough to crack.

"So here's what's going to happen." Leo's voice was raw now, anger and fear tangled together with nowhere left to hide.

"You're going to swallow whatever's left of your pride — I know, groundbreaking concept, we'll get you a trophy for it later — and you're going to hand her to me. Because if you pass out holding her, if that leg finally gives out and she hits this floor because you were too fucking stubborn to admit you can barely stand upright, I will never, ever let you forget it. Neither will she, assuming she survives you being an idiot long enough to wake up and yell at you herself."

"Leo..." I warned

"Don't Leo me right now. Like I already fucking said — you're going to pass out mid-step and take her down with you, and then what? Then I'm hauling both of you out of here instead of just her, and forgive me if I don't think that's the heroic ending you're picturing in your head right now."

There was no version of tonight where I handed her off. Not now. Not covered in her blood and mine. Not after everything it had taken to get her back into my arms in the first place. But fuck, he was right.

"I know she's your wife." His voice dropped, quieter, working a different angle. "I'm not trying to take her from you. I'm trying to get her to a hospital before she bleeds out in this warehouse because her husband's leg gave out somewhere between the door and the parking lot."

My leg buckled on the next step. I caught myself against the wall, the jolt hard enough that a thin, broken sound escaped Alina — not words, not consciousness, just a whimper of pain that tore through me worse than any bullet had all night.

"Fuck—" The curse ripped out of me, raw, furious at my own body for failing at the one moment it couldn't afford to. "Fuck."

"Alexander." Leo's voice gentled, and somehow that cut deeper than anger ever could.

"Let me help. That's all this is. Not taking her from you. Keeping her alive long enough for you to keep being furious about it later."

I looked down at her again — really looked — and saw how much paler she'd gotten in the last minute alone, how much slower her breathing had become against my chest.

Every second I spent arguing was a second she didn't have left to spare.

"If anything happens to her." My voice dropped, shaking with everything I was barely containing.

"If you drop her, if you jostle her, if you so much as let her head tip the wrong way between here and the car, I will put a bullet in you myself."

Leo let out a short, disbelieving laugh, even with everything falling apart around us.

"Noted." He held his arms out, steady, utterly unbothered by the threat.

"Truly inspiring. Nothing says 'I trust you with the most important thing in my life' like a death threat delivered mid-handoff." He adjusted his stance, ready to take her weight.

"For the record, I've hauled you out of two burning buildings and once dragged your unconscious ass through a minefield outside Kandahar without so much as scuffing your shoes. But sure — let's pretend tonight's the night I suddenly develop butterfingers. Right when it actually matters. Great logic, boss. Really solid read of the situation."

His voice softened slightly as his eyes dropped to Alina.

"I've got her. You're welcome to shoot me after, if it makes you feel better — I'll even stand still for it, give you a nice clean shot. But right now, unless you want to keep threatening me while she bleeds out between us, give her to me."

I reluctantly transferred her weight into his arms. Slow. Excruciating. Like tearing something loose from my own chest.

"Careful." My voice broke as I let go, hands lingering longer than necessary. I touched her cheek once, soft, before forcing myself to nod.

"Her head — support her head. And—"

"I've got her." Leo settled her against his chest with a gentleness that should have reassured me and instead made something in me ache violently — gratitude and jealousy tangled so tight I couldn't separate them anymore.

"I've got her, boss. I promise you. Now, unless you want to keep supervising from flat on your back, move."

I stood there a second with my arms suddenly, horribly empty, watching him move faster than I ever could've managed.

The adrenaline that had been holding me upright finally understood it no longer had a job to do. My knees threatened to buckle.

"Go." My voice came out hoarse.

"Don't wait for me. Just get her to the car."

Vincent appeared at my side, sliding an arm under mine, catching weight I hadn't realized I was about to drop.

"Lean on me." A ghost of a smirk, even now.

And before you threaten to shoot me too, boss, I'd like it on record that I'm just here to stop you from faceplanting, not to steal your wife."

I wanted to argue. Didn't have the strength left. I let him half-carry me down the corridor, eyes locked the entire way on Leo's back, on the small, still shape cradled against his chest.

Hold on Wife. The words looped through my skull, useless and desperate — the only prayer I had left.

Just hold on until we get you help. Don't let that be the last time I held you.

We didn't stop until we cleared the warehouse.

Vincent helped me into the back seat of the SUV. The second I was settled, Leo carefully transferred Alina back into my arms, and I pulled her against my chest at once, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other locked around her like someone might still try to take her from me.

"Get us home." My voice came out rough, raw, done negotiating with anyone about anything else tonight. "As fast as you can. No stops."