making it up to her. I’ll cherish her and stay up day and night working until I find a cure.
Because even still, knowing all that I know now, I’m not giving her up. Even knowing she deserves so much better than me. The gods be damned if they think to take Daphne from me now. No. I won’t let her die.
She won’t escape me so easily. She’ll have a long fucking life side-by-side with me until we’re old and gray.
“Sir,” the doctor touches my elbow. I whirl and growl. His hands fly up to show me he’s not a threat. “Sorry,” he squeaks.
“Shhh,” I hush him harshly. “The patient is sleeping.”
“I know, I was just—” The idiot goes to open the door anyway. To wake Daphne from her precious sleep.
I’m gonna kill this guy. He’s gonna be a smear on the beige-tiled floor.
“Back the fuck off,” I grab his name badge and stand to my full intimidating height. “Dr. Lockhart. Hematologist. Where exactly did you go to school?”
He babbles something and I sneer, releasing his badge. “Really? Not the butcher’s shop up the street?” I grab the chart he’s holding and scan it quickly, shoving him off balance when he grabs for it.
At the last second, my free hand fists his collar, keeping him upright. The man teeters before me, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows over and over.
“This is what you call a treatment plan?” I berate him. “You’re barely treating her symptoms and aren’t doing anything to address the disease itself. You don’t know a damn thing about what you’re doing!”
My eyes continue to scan the chart even though what I see makes my chest cinch tight. Her vitals are stable, but her blood cell counts are bad. The disease is ravaging her system. Fuck.
“Sir,” snaps a woman in blue scrubs. She’s Daphne’s new nurse, a replacement for the male fuck they first sent. Her eyes are round but she’s got her hand on the alarm button, ready to call security. “You need to let go of Dr. Lockhart. Now.”
I open my hand and Dr. Lockhart staggers backwards.
“Happy?” I ask the nurse.
“No.” The woman meets my stare head on. “Your…the patient—is she your wife?”
No. Not yet.
“Yes,” I say confidently. Because she will be. As soon as I can get the ring on her finger. “Her father just died, and her mother is gone. I’m her only kin.”
“Well, visiting hours are over. She needs to get some sleep.”
Visiting hours? They think I’m going to go home and leave the love of my life with these idiots? I exhale a growl and hold up Daphne’s chart. “I’d like to go over her course of treatment.” As in, I’d like to actually fucking develop one. “I’m a doctor.”
“I understand, sir,” the nurse says in a syrupy, condescending tone. “But your wife has been battling this disease since she was a girl. This isn’t her first rodeo. We are the best hospital in New Olympus. You need to back off and let us do our jobs—”
Back off? Back off and watch my Daphne wither away and die in a hospital bed in this depressing as hell hospital? This is all bullshit. There are so many shady people on this earth and Daphne is one of the best. It’s not fair that she—
“Fuck this,” I roar, and topple a food cart. Both the nurse and doctor leap back as plates, trash, and trays clatter to the floor at their feet.
Before they can react, I spin and stride into Daphne’s room. “I’m taking her out of here.”
I ignore the frantic shouts behind me, “Sir! You can’t do that. Sir!”
But they don’t know what I’m capable of. I kidnapped her once and I’m doing it again. Right now.
I stand, brace myself, and all but bare my teeth at the doctor and nurse. “I’m her husband, her only living relative,” I bellow. “And she’s coming home with me right now. Don’t dare get in my way.”
I was worried about the slightest noise waking her earlier, but when I storm into her room, Daphne’s all but dead to the world. It takes half a minute to rouse her.
The doctors hover anxiously in the background as I gently cup her face. “Want to go home, kitten?”
She nods, though it looks like it takes all her energy to do so. “Anywhere but here,” she breathes out before her eyes flicker closed again.
It’s enough for me and apparently it’s enough consent for the doctors, too. They let me wheel