chapter2190

Before anyone could rebut, Nicholas braced both palms against the mattress and forced himself upright, sweat beading at his hairline.

"He's right. I don't need any of you." His tone was iron scraped across stone.

Elena hurried forward, hands outstretched to steady him.

Nicholas jerked free, impatience flashing like a blade. "Don't."

Elena's eyes shone with hurt. "Nicholas, please—listen to me. Don't be this stubborn, I beg you."

Since young, Nicholas' frail health had been Elena's constant vigil. She had always pictured him as gentle and accommodating. Now, watching that gentleness calcify into something fierce and dangerous, she wondered when her soft-spoken boy had disappeared.

Nicholas drew in a breath so long and slow it seemed to vacuum the stale air out of the room, his shoulders rising then dropping with a barely restrained shudder. "Elena, if you really want me to be all right, stop assigning people to tail me."

Wren lurched a step closer, almost tripping over the foot of the bed in his hurry. "All right—yes, of course. Anything, so long as you stop punishing your body. Whatever you ask, we'll do it."

Elena shot her husband a hard look—a flash of reprimand that cut sharper than words-yet she held her tongue.

Only then did the tension in Nicholas' shoulders ease, the storm in his eyes quieting to a fragile calm.

Seeing he needed rest, Elena, Wren, and Nathaniel slipped from the ward into the muted corridor beyond, their footsteps swallowed by polished linoleum.

Outside, Elena's composure cracked. She rounded on Nathaniel, her voice dropping to a strained whisper edged with frustration.

"Nathaniel, Nicholas is your brother. You have to soften the way you talk to him."

Nathaniel sat down, elbows on knees. "I arrived in this world only minutes before he did, yet every moment since I've been expected to step aside for him—shield him— serve him. That isn't fair."

The grievance had lived in him for years; he simply hadn't spoken it aloud until now.

Elena tried again, her tone gentler. "But you know how fragile Nicholas's health has always—"

"Mom, I don't owe him anything." Nathaniel's words cut in, flat and final, leaving no room for debate.

Speech deserted Elena. The hallway hummed with distant machinery, filling the silence he left behind.

Nathaniel took in his parents' weary faces and tempered his edge. "He'll be fine. Don't work yourselves sick over it. Ceci's at home alone, and I don't want to leave her alone. I'm heading back."

"Very well," Wren said, and Elena managed a faint nod.

Long after Nathaniel's footsteps faded, Elena remained, gnawing her lip as she stared at Nicholas' closed door. "What on earth are we supposed to do now?"

Wren mulled the air, then spoke quietly. "Perhaps Nathaniel's right. We should give Nicholas his freedom and stop micromanaging his life."

Elena hesitated, worry flickering across her face, but finally, she agreed with a weary dip of her head.

Nicholas underwent a final round of treatment, and by sunrise the next day, the hospital discharged him.

The observers Elena had once stationed around him melted away. For the first time in years, Nicholas could drive wherever the road invited.

He slid behind the wheel of his sedan, engine purring like a caged cat. Yet he had no destination—the city stretched before him as blank as a map without markings.

Somehow, his wandering brought him to the modest complex where Jocelyn had once rented a place.

He knew she now shared a roof with Yannick, yet he cut the ignition all the same, stepped out, and let the door click shut behind him.

Head lowered against a cool breeze, Nicholas walked toward the weather-stained building Jocelyn used to call home.

Voices drifted from farther down the lane, carried on the hush of mid-morning.

"Ma'am, thank you so much. I've been searching everywhere for this necklace. It's the only keepsake my mother left me." Jocelyn bowed deeply before a kindly middle-aged landlady, gratitude bright in her eyes.

The landlady answered with a broad grin. "Think nothing of it. You rented from me, dear-returning your things is the least I could do."

Nicholas' stride faltered. One foot hovered above the cracked pavement, suspended between impulse and restraint.

From across the narrow courtyard,

Nicholas stood utterly still, his

hollow eyes fixed on Jocelyn. A gust of wind ruffled the thinning fabric of his coat yet he seemed not to feel the early-winter bite. He simply stared, as though the sight of her had pulled him clear out of time itself.

Jocelyn finished thanking the

landlord for the keys, tucked the

necklace safely against her

collarbone and turned to leave. The

moment her gaze landed on the

figure in the shadows, her putse

stalled in mid-beat.

"Mr. Nicholas..." Her voice breached the space between them, soft as a prayer yet carrying an unmistakable tremor.

Shock widened her dark eyes, so bright they seemed to reflect every shard of afternoon light.

Nicholas looked worse than when she had last seen him. His cheeks had hollowed into sharp angles, clavicles jutting beneath a

?

threadbare sweater as if there were nothing left beneath the skin but a fragile scaffold of bone.

Startled, he jerked around, intent on slipping away before recognition could finish settling over her face.

"Mr. Nicholas, are you all right?" Jocelyn could not keep herself from stepping forward, worry lacing every syllable.

She had known he was frail, but she had never imagined it was this serious.