Chapter 119
Hector's POV
I sat in the chair beside the bed, arms crossed, watching Caleb sleep. Or pretend to sleep. With him, it was hard to tell.
The doctor had been blunt: "Gastritis, severe enough to cause internal bleeding if left untreated. He's lucky he came in when he did." Then, in a lower voice meant only for me: "This isn't acute. This is chronic. Years of irregular eating. His stomach lining is damaged. If he keeps this up—especially at his age—he won't be able to fix it later."
Years of irregular eating. A clinical way of saying: Years of being starved, neglected, and treated like he didn't deserve basic care.
I wanted to punch something. Preferably Marcus Vance's face.
Instead, I'd thanked the doctor and sat down to wait.
Now it was nearly midnight, and Caleb was finally stirring. His eyes opened slowly, unfocused at first, then sharpening as they landed on me.
"You're still here," he said, his voice rough.
"Where else would I be?"
He didn't answer. Just closed his eyes again, like the effort of staying conscious was too much.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. "You want to tell me what the hell you were thinking? Going to a bar, drinking on an empty stomach after working fourteen hours straight?"
"I was thinking," he said quietly, "that I needed to stop thinking."
"Well, congratulations. You succeeded. You also almost gave yourself a perforated ulcer."
His mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but close. "Always so dramatic, Hector."
"And you're always so cavalier about destroying yourself." I sat back, exhaling hard. "This is about her, isn't it?"
He didn't need to ask who I meant.
"She's engaged," he said flatly. "To him. It's done."
"So you decided to drink yourself into a hospital bed?"
"I decided," he corrected, "that I was tired of pretending I had any control over my own life."
The bitterness in his voice cut deeper than any anger could have. Because he was right—he didn't have control. Not over his family, not over Elena's choices, not over the fact that the universe kept shoving him back into the same suffocating corner he'd spent years trying to escape.
"You deserve better than this," I said finally.
He opened his eyes, looking at me with something too bleak to be called hope. "Do I?"
"Yes."
"Then why does it keep happening?" His voice was soft, almost curious. "Why does everyone I—" He stopped himself, jaw tightening. "Why does it always end the same way?"
Because you fall for people who don't know how to choose you, I thought. But saying it out loud felt cruel.
So instead, I said: "Because you're too good at loving people who don't deserve it."
He laughed—a short, harsh sound. "That's poetic."
"It's true."
Silence fell between us, heavy and uncomfortable. Outside, a nurse's shoes squeaked down the hallway. A monitor beeped steadily in the next room.
Finally, I pulled out my phone. "I texted her."
His whole body went rigid. "What?"
"Elena." I kept my tone casual, even though I knew this would set him off. "Told her exactly what I think of her little disappearing act."
"Hector—"
"She made you believe she cared. Made you plan a whole damn future—patents, buyouts, everything. Then she just... vanished. Sent you a breakup text like you were some Tinder hookup instead of the guy who was ready to burn his whole life down for her."
"Stop." His voice was low, dangerous.
"Why? Someone needs to say it."
"No." He sat up despite the IV in his arm, his eyes blazing with something close to fury. "No one needs to say anything. Especially not to her."
"She hurt you—"
"She made a choice." His hands clenched into fists. "Her choice. And I don't need you harassing her because you think you're protecting me."
"Harassing?" I stood, matching his intensity. "I sent her three messages telling her she's a coward. That's not harassment—that's honesty."
"It's cruelty," he shot back. "And if you ever contact her again without my permission, we're done. Do you understand me?"
The threat hung in the air, absolute and final.
I'd never seen him like this—protective to the point of self-destruction. Willing to defend someone who'd abandoned him.
"You're still in love with her?"
---
Caleb's POV
"You're still in love with her."
Hector's question hung in the sterile hospital air, heavy and unavoidable. I didn't answer right away. Instead, I reached for the bottle of pills the nurse had left on the bedside table—gastric medication, antacids, something to coat the lining of my stomach that years of skipped meals and swallowed rage had torn to shreds.
I dry-swallowed three pills.
"From the moment they dragged me into that manor," I said, voice low and scraped raw, "nothing in my life has ever come easy."
I lit a cigarette. Hector made a face, started to protest, but I cut him off with a look. The nicotine hit my lungs, steadied my hands. "If I gave up that easily, I'd be dead in that bell tower by now."
Hector leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "She's already Damon's fiancée, Caleb. She's standing on the other side. Why are you still—"
"Damon won't stay faithful just because he put a ring on her finger." I exhaled smoke toward the window, watching it curl against the glass. "He's still got Scarlett. That mess isn't over."
"Then what the hell are you waiting for?" Hector's voice rose, frustration bleeding through. "She left. She chose him. What does she have that's worth destroying yourself over?"
I laughed—a short, bitter sound that carried no humor at all. "Nothing."
Hector blinked.
"She's got nothing good about her," I continued, ash falling from the cigarette onto my hospital gown. "She's a coward. Overthinks everything. Spends her whole life trying to please everyone except herself."
"Then why—"
"But she's the only one who gave me light when I thought I'd die in the dark."
The words came out quieter than I intended. Hector went still.
I pressed my palm against my chest, right over my heart. It ached—not from the medication, not from lack of sleep. This was different. Deeper. Like invisible claws tearing at something vital every time I thought about her walking into that engagement party.
I'd been denying it for months, telling myself it was just obsession, just unresolved childhood trauma, just anything other than what it actually was.
My wolf had chosen her. And when your wolf chooses, you don't get a say in it.
That winter night, when they locked me in the bell tower... it was her glowing crystal ball—dispersing the darkness around me. When I tried to end my life in that frozen lake, she pulled me out.
"Sometimes I want to burn this whole fucking world down," I muttered, grinding the cigarette into the ashtray with enough force to crack it. "Make everyone who decided what I'm worth feel what it's like to be powerless."
My canines pierced the inside of my lower lip. Blood—the taste of it—flooded my mouth, metallic and sharp.
Hector jerked back slightly. I saw his nostrils flare, saw him instinctively lower his head. He was Beta. And I was... no longer that fragile boy who couldn't even control his shifts. I had awakened something stronger. Something that shouldn't exist in polite shifter society.
"This is a hospital," he said quietly.
"I know." I swallowed the blood, forced my canines to retract. My hands were shaking worse now. "Go buy something. Vitamins. Protein shakes. I don't care. Just—" I looked away. "I need you to not be here right now."
He stood slowly, like backing away from a live grenade. "You should shower. Shave. You look half-dead."
"Get out, Hector."
He paused at the door. "I've never seen you this close to losing it."
The door clicked shut behind him.