Chapter 54 Chapter Fifty-three
ARA
The first phase of Nadia’s surgery stretched into seven agonizing hours. I never left the waiting room—not once.
Thayne wouldn’t allow it. His gaze pinned me to the unforgiving plastic chair, heavy and unrelenting, like a specimen trapped under glass.
Something in him had changed during those endless hours. Earlier, his fury had been a blade aimed directly at me, sharp enough to draw blood. Now the rage still simmered in his storm-green eyes, but it had turned inward, darker, aimed at something, or someone else.
A nurse appeared in the doorway, shoulders slumped with exhaustion, voice thin and frayed. “You may see her now.”
Thayne rose in one smooth, predatory motion. He extended his hand, palm up, fingers curled in silent command.
The proud part of me wanted to slap it away, to storm out and never look back. But before I could choose, his fingers clamped around my wrist like heated steel, hauling me to my feet.
The pull was abrupt, brutal. I collided hard against his chest. My breath snagged in my throat. My lips felt suddenly parched; I wet them without thinking.
His eyes dropped to my mouth at once. They darkened, pupils dilating until only a thin ring of green remained.
“You’re becoming an addiction, little lamb,” he murmured, voice rough and low, like gravel underfoot.
His large hand settled at my waist, fingers pressing in with deliberate possession.
I lifted my chin, heart pounding wildly against my ribs. “Then maybe you should quit me.”
A dark, dangerous chuckle vibrated through his chest. He leaned in until his breath scorched my ear. “I’ve tried. Several times. My blood won’t release you.”
His thumb brushed my lower lip, pressing until my mouth parted on a soft exhale.
Heat surged to my cheeks. Butterflies erupted in my stomach, frantic and dizzying.
“Are you coming, Mr. Slade?” the nurse called again, impatience sharpening her weary tone.
Thayne let me go slowly, reluctantly, as if it physically pained him. We followed her down the sterile corridor, my legs unsteady, each footstep echoing too loudly in my ears.
In the recovery ward, Nadia was already awake.
She looked fragile—pale skin stretched tight over sharp bones, the swell of her pregnancy stark against the hospital gown. Wires and tubes snaked from her arms like lifeless vines.
The instant her gaze found Thayne, raw terror flooded her face. Her cracked lips trembled. Bandaged hands clawed at the blanket, knuckles bleaching white.
I froze in the doorway.
Why was she looking at him like he was the monster from her worst nightmare?
Thayne’s expression hardened to granite. His jaw clenched so tightly I heard the faint grind of teeth. The muscle in his cheek twitched. Those eyes turned glacial, but beneath the ice, something raw and wounded flickered—just for a heartbeat.
He took one deliberate step toward the bed. Nadia whimpered, shrinking back into the pillows, eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears.
I’d never seen her like this. Nadia, vicious, unbreakable Nadia, reduced to something small and shatteringly vulnerable.
Her chest heaved in shallow, panicked breaths. The heart monitor betrayed her, beeping faster, louder, more erratic with every inch Thayne advanced.
Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over, tracing silent paths down her temples into her hair. She twisted the blanket harder, as if it could shield her.
The fear in her eyes wasn’t an act. It was bone-deep, visceral.
Thayne’s voice emerged low and lethally controlled, each word carved from ice and buried rage.
“You thought you could trick me, didn’t you, Nadia?”
A violent shudder wracked her frame. The monitor spiked sharply.
“You sat across from me,” he continued, voice dropping to a lethal whisper, “looked me dead in the eye, and handed over forged papers. Faked DNA results—every page, every marker. You smiled that pretty little smile and tried to force your way into a life that was never yours.”
Her lips parted on a broken gasp, but no words came.
Thayne leaned forward, palms slamming flat against the bed rail. Metal groaned under the pressure. Veins corded along his forearms.
“You actually believed I wouldn’t discover it. That I’d let you lie to my face, worm into my world, and never feel the blade you meant to bury in my back.”
A raw, ugly sob tore from her throat. She shook her head frantically, tears scattering.
“Th-thayne, please—”
“Please what?” His voice was silk over steel. “Please forgive you? Pretend I didn’t spend months questioning why everything felt wrong? Ignore the fact you tried to steal something that could never be yours?”
His eyes narrowed, glittering with something sharper than hatred—betrayal, deep and festering.
“You never once imagined the truth would crawl out and sink its teeth into you.”
Nadia curled tighter, as if she could vanish into the mattress. Her voice emerged tiny, fractured. “I… I was scared… I thought if you just believed…”
Thayne’s laugh cracked through the room—short, bitter, devoid of humor.
“Scared,” he echoed, the word dripping venom. “So you torched my world to feel safe.”
He straightened, looming over her. The air seemed to chill around him.
“Look at me.”
She didn’t move.
“I said look at me.”
Trembling, she turned her head. When her eyes finally met his, she looked like someone staring into her own open grave.
Thayne held her gaze for an endless, terrible moment. Behind the frozen mask, something stormy and deeply wounded flashed—then vanished.
“What’s happening?” I finally whispered, voice barely audible. Was he saying the baby wasn’t his? That she’d faked everything?
“Why did you do it?” Thayne demanded, voice quiet but merciless. “What made you think you could get away with it?”
Nadia’s tear-stained eyes flicked to mine, pleading and broken.
“I was jealous of her,” she whispered. “I couldn’t stand that my stepsister was marrying into the Slade family when I’d been there first. I’m so sorry…”
The words hit like a physical blow.
Stepsister?
Two heartbeats filled the room now, hers, and the baby’s steady rhythm on the monitor.
“Wait…” My voice cracked. “Your stepsister? Who?”
Her gaze held mine, shattered and resigned.
“You, Arayna. We’re sisters.”