Chapter 72: The Return to the Underworld
The tires screeched as I stopped outside the dry-cleaners. The place looked ordinary—fluorescent lights, pressed shirts in plastic, quiet city storefront. No one would ever guess that an entire secret medical facility was buried beneath it.
I stumbled out, half-dragging Nico’s unconscious weight toward the door. The bell chimed as I pushed inside.
Two men in black suits were already waiting.
No uniforms. No badges. No emotion.
They stepped forward to take Nico—but I pulled him closer instinctively.
I didn’t trust them. Not after what had just happened in the woods. Not after Matteo.
Then a third figure stepped out from behind them.
Ken.
Scar on his jaw, same calm stare—one I remembered from the night he’d saved me from Viktor. He didn’t speak, just looked at Nico, then at me.
I finally breathed and nodded.
Ken lifted Nico effortlessly and headed for the elevator behind the false wall. I followed, my steps uneven, lungs still aching from the gas.
The elevator dropped.
The doors opened into a world of steel and fluorescent white. Underground corridors, medical staff moving with precision, armed guards in black posted at every corner.
The De Luca secret hospital.
But my focus was only one thing—
Lorenzo.
I rushed through the reinforced door into the room. The machines hummed quietly. Lorenzo was still asleep, chest rising and falling, but his body looked less tense than before. The poison was still in his system, but now I had the final component.
I tore open the emergency kit and prepared the injection. My hands didn’t shake—not now. I had memorized every step, every measurement. I lined up the needle to the exact point Alexei’s diagram had shown. A controlled blood release, flushing the last of the poison from his system.
I administered it.
For a moment, nothing.
Then Lorenzo’s breathing changed—slow, steady, deep. Color crept back into his face. His pulse strengthened on the monitor.
It worked.
After everything—Matteo, the gas, the betrayal—Lorenzo would wake up.
He would be stronger than before. The slow poison that had been eating him alive for weeks… was gone.
Finally.
I exhaled, letting my shoulders drop. Hours—weeks—of pressure lifted from my chest.
In the reflection of the heart monitor glass, I saw Alexei standing in the doorway. Silent. Watching.
I didn’t look at him.
He had known everything.
He knew Matteo was the mole.
He knew the assassination attempt was coming.
He let it happen—because it served his purpose.
For Lorenzo to wake up and see me as the one who saved him… not Alexei.
He was right, in a cruel way. If Alexei cured him, Lorenzo would depend on him. But if I did it—if I dragged Lorenzo back from death again—then I would be the one he trusted most.
Alexei stepped closer, voice calm.
“He will wake soon. And when he does… he will remember who stood over him when he was dying. Not me.”
I still didn’t face him.
"I expected you to be faster, Isla," Alexei Valerius's smooth, Russian-accented voice purred. It sounded like he was lounging in a quiet drawing-room, not monitoring a siege.
"Sarin gas, Alexei?" I spat, "You risked Nico's life, and mine, with a nerve agent. You're not saving Lorenzo; you're trying to destabilize the entire family."
Alexei chuckled softly. "Sarin ensured your cooperation, my dear. You needed a reason to use the Atropine I provided, yes? And the threat on Nico ensured you moved quickly after neutralizing the primary traitor."
he said simply.
Disgust rose in my throat.
Alexei was brilliant—too brilliant. He played life and death like chess pieces. Lorenzo’s loyalty, my loyalty, the hospital, the family—nothing was sacred to him except strategy.
He is dangerous.
More dangerous than anyone realizes.
How much did he actually know about Lorenzo?
About his childhood?
About his trauma?
About the darkness in his veins?
Alexei turned away before I could ask.
“Clean yourself up. He would want to see you whole when he opens his eyes.”
I turned back to Lorenzo, brushed a strand of hair from his forehead, and whispered:
“You’re safe now.”
Not because of Alexei.
Because I refused to let him die.
The machine kept beeping.
His fingers twitched.
Lorenzo was coming back.
"Matteo is paralyzed in the snow. Nico is paralyzed and taken for treatment . Please take care of them. I'm tired” I said.
Then he nodded, His footsteps faded, leaving only the heartbeat monitor filling the room.
—-
Alexei Valerius walked into his lavish, soundproofed office overlooking the city, the soft clink of the heavy door sealing him in. He moved with a languid grace, the expensive silk of his shirt whispering as he stripped it off. He wasn't sweating, but the exercise—the meticulous engineering of near-death—always left a residue he needed to wash away.
He walked into the attached marble bathroom, the room pristine and cold, and turned the tap, watching the water flow over his hands. He raised his eyes to the mirror, meeting his own gaze—intense, unsettlingly calm, and deeply satisfied.
“Ahh, what a brave girl,” he murmured, the words smooth and Russian-accented, meant only for reflection. His lips curved into a slow, appreciative smile. “That is why I’m going to use you well, my little nurse. And you even let me.
He pressed his palms flat against the cold marble counter, the smile turning predatory.
“She’s so beautiful, so resilient. It's becoming a problem… I’ve fallen for her completely.”
He dried his hands with a spotless white towel, folding it once with military precision before setting it aside.
“When Lorenzo wakes and sees that you’re all he has left, that he owes his very breath to you… that’s when I’ll make my move..” His smile widened. “I’ll take what is rightfully mine at his weakest.”
“And that weakest is you isla”
He looked into the mirror again, not at himself—but at the future he could already see.
“He will learn everything. That we planned it together. That you were my partner… and we fooled him perfectly.”
He spoke the words as if rehearsing a confession meant to destroy a kingdom.
“When he hears that, He will abandon you, Isla, cast you out into the political cold, ruined and unprotected,” Alexei said calmly.
His eyes darkened with a chilling possessiveness. “And that, my dear, is how I’ll get you for myself. You will have nowhere else to go but to me.”
He stepped away from the sink, stripping off the rest of his shirt and tossing it aside carelessly.
“I’ll f you every day,” he whispered, as if Isla stood right in front of him. “Give you everything you want.”
His eyes gleamed, sharp and possessive.
“And Lorenzo…”
A soft laugh escaped him.
“He will be left with nothing.”
The lights hummed quietly above him, the only witness to the beginning of a betrayal that had already taken root.