Rise of a Silenced Wolf

Lawyer-2

July

Gideon flashed a shameless grin, not even bothering to deny it. He turned his puppy-dog eyes back to Enya. "Lovely nurse, for liability reasons, I really must insist on a proper evaluation. Would you do me the honor of escorting me?"

"This is a joke! There is absolutely nothing wrong with him. Throw him out!" Joseph barked.

"Sir," Enya said, "you don't run this hospital. We have a legal and ethical duty to treat anyone who gets injured on our premises. Even an insurance lawyer with a self-inflicted head injury. If I kick him out and he actually has a brain bleed, our facility will be slapped with a massive lawsuit for medical neglect. We certainly can't afford that risk, can we?"

"But—"

"We will make sure your wife isn't disturbed, but we cannot deny this man a brain scan."

"My thoughts exactly," Gideon beamed, looking entirely too healthy for a man claiming to have brain trauma.

"Follow me, Mr. Cross. Let's go get your head examined," Enya said, though her tone suggested she meant it in more ways than one.

"Much appreciated."

"What's your name again?"

"Gideon Cross. Absolute pleasure. And what should I call you, gorgeous?"

"Enya," she said flatly. "And cut the act. You've been staring at my name badge for the last five minutes."

"Well, you’re quite an observant lady.”Gideon drawled. “I did notice your badge. Vance? Same last name as the Chief of Surgery... Let me guess. Killian Vance is your brother? You don't look much alike, but you definitely share the same terrifying aura—"

"Move, Mr. Cross," Enya repeated, her voice warning.

"Right, right, leaving," Gideon muttered, following Enya out the door. Just before crossing the threshold, he clutched his head again, offering me a sly wink. "Get well soon, ma'am. We'll finish our chat next time." With that, the door clicked shut behind them.

The ICU room fell dead silent for a long, agonizing five seconds.

Slowly, Joseph turned back to face me. The panic on his face had evaporated, replaced by a cold sneer. He took two slow paces toward the bed, towering over me, his lips pressed into a razor-thin line.

"You think this is funny, July?" he hissed, his voice dripping with venom.

Only then did I realize that a faint, satisfied smile had crept onto my lips. Gideon's relentless roasting, his ridiculous run-in with the wall, and the way Enya had effortlessly shut Joseph down had actually amused me. But Joseph had caught it. He saw something other than fear on my face, and he didn’t like it.

"That lawyer is a joke," Joseph spat. "A self-righteous, pathetic little clown. He thinks he can throw on a three-piece suit, rattle off a few legal buzzwords, and boss me around? He’s nothing. Do you hear me? Your mate was just humiliated, and you find it amusing?"

I instantly wiped all traces of emotion from my face. I couldn't afford to push him over the edge right now. Gideon had bought himself some precious time in this hospital with his fake concussion. My only job now was to play nice, keep the peace, and wait for my chance to make contact with him again.

"You should be on my side!" Joseph growled, still taking his wounded ego out on me. "I'm your husband. Your fated mate! You're supposed to back me up, not some stranger. That lawyer doesn't give a damn about you. He only cares about his hourly rate and his corporate quotas. To him, you're just a file number on a desk, July. Do you get that through your thick skull?"

I laughed bitterly in my mind. I didn't know what kind of man Gideon Cross truly was, but I knew exactly what Joseph was. A monster who only saw me as a transaction. To him, my only value was the price tag attached to my corpse.

A sharp knock rattled the door again. Joseph whipped around, his face twisting with fury. He marched to the door, grabbed the handle, and yanked it open with enough force to tear it off its hinges. "What the hell do you want now—"

He choked on his words, freezing mid-sentence as if someone had hit pause on his entire body. The raw anger drained from his muscles in an instant, replaced by sheer, childlike relief. "Mom!" he gasped.

"Joseph, my sweet boy—" A woman stepped into the frame, her arms already open wide as she pulled Joseph into a tight hug. She cast a brief, cold glance in my direction before ignoring me entirely, focusing all her attention back on her son. She cupped his face with both hands, examining him from side to side with a look of dramatic sorrow. "Oh, my darling, look at you. You've lost weight, and you're so pale! You've spent days playing nurse to her. You must be absolutely exhausted."

"I'm fine, Mom."

My eyes widened. I had never met Joseph's mother before, and I certainly never imagined our first encounter would play out like this.

"My poor, sweet boy," Isabella murmured, caressing his cheek. She didn't even look at me. Not once. Joseph had warned me before that his mother despised the wolfless, but witnessing her complete, icy disregard for a dying woman in an ICU bed still chilled me to the bone.

But the real blow came a second later. Isabella stepped aside with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Look who I brought to assist you, sweetheart."

A young woman stepped out from behind her. She couldn't have been older than twenty-two. She had a cascade of glossy, raven-black hair falling all the way to her waist, and she wore a simple, flowy light-blue dress. Holding a fresh fruit basket and a travel duffel, she had the road-weary look of someone who had just survived a long-distance ride.

Isabella quietly clicked the door shut. The girl set her heavy bags on the floor, took two steps toward Joseph, and rose onto her tiptoes. She wrapped her slender arms around the back of his neck and pulled him down into a deep, passionate kiss.

My fated mate hesitated for a fraction of a second, just a heartbeat, before wrapping his arms around her waist, kissing her back.