Chapter Text
The smell of antiseptic and quartz lamps had long become more familiar to Charles than the aroma of fresh coffee or home-cooked food. It was too quiet at the Saint-Denis private clinic today, but this silence was deceptive. It was sterile and heavy. Charles tiredly adjusted the collar of his medical coat, feeling the fabric rub unpleasantly against his neck. His fingers, which only an hour ago had been delicately placing sutures on a patient's torn tendon, were now trembling slightly from exhaustion.
He sat down at his desk to fill out reports. The image of Arthur flashed in his mind. His brother was likely already home, trying to cook something edible or, more likely, buried in his textbooks again, ignoring his fatigue. Charles involuntarily gripped his pen tighter. Thoughts of home always brought not only warmth, but also a sticky, cold fear. For the last year and a half, this feeling had been constantly dogging his heels.
The office door opened without a knock. Charles flinched, instantly straightening his back, but it was only Nurse Carol. She looked worried, her gaze constantly shifting toward the hallway.
"Doctor Leclerc, there... in the hall. They are asking for you."
Charles felt his heart skip a beat and then begin to throb in an accelerated, uneven rhythm. He knew that tone. He knew what this sudden bustle of staff meant.
"Get it, thank you. Go to your post, I will be out in a moment."
He rose slowly, straightened his coat, and took a deep breath, trying to regain his mask of professional calm. Stepping into the reception area, he immediately noticed the change in the atmosphere. The patients sitting in line tried not to look up, and the receptionist behind the desk frantically shuffled through papers, afraid to even breathe. In the center of the hall, defiantly sprawling in one of the designer chairs, sat Zayn. He wore a leather jacket that, in this realm of cleanliness and whiteness, looked like a dirty spot on a fresh sheet. Beside him stood two of his guys, bored, massive alphas who literally crowded the oxygen out of the room with their presence.
Zayn raised his head and smiled widely, baring his teeth. In his scent, sharp, with notes of cheap cologne and tobacco, there was nothing pleasant. Charles felt irritation boiling inside him, mixed with the usual bitterness.
"Charles, darling!" Zayn stood up, heading toward him. "You are as polished as ever. White suits you, it highlights your... innocence."
Leclerc nodded toward one of the offices, silently inviting him to follow. He felt the gazes of his colleagues and knew that by tomorrow, whispers would be crawling through the clinic again. Charles never commented on what was happening, but his colleagues had decided for themselves that Zayn was his crazy ex who simply could not let him go. Although that was not the case at all, it was easier for Charles if they invented their own story than if they knew what was actually going on.
As soon as the office door closed, Charles turned to him, leaning his back against the desk to hide the trembling in his legs. The alpha walked deeper into the room, unceremoniously seating himself in the chair intended for patients. He picked up a stethoscope from the desk, twirling it in his fingers like some curious toy.
"I asked you not to come here," Charles began, tired and a little irritated, crossing his arms over his chest. "This is a medical facility. You are scaring my patients and interfering with work. If you have business with me, you know where I live."
"Oh, I know where you live. But at home you are so busy, always hiding your brother behind your back. Here, you are more... accessible for a conversation."
Zayn rose abruptly and stepped almost flush against him, violating all boundaries of personal space. He was taller, and his alpha essence pressed down, trying to force the omega to submit, to lower his eyes. But Charles only clenched his jaw tighter. Zayn reached out and touched a lock of hair on the doctor's forehead. Charles jerked his head, evading the touch, and irritation flared in the alpha's eyes. The smile vanished for a moment, replaced by something predatory and cold.
"Let's get to the point," Charles's voice sounded firm, even though everything inside him was tightening into a hard knot. "What do you want?"
Zayn grunted, pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket and twirling it in his fingers.
"I need punctuality, Charlie. You are a doctor, you should understand the importance of schedules. You haven't paid for two months now. Your late father's debt isn't going to disappear on its own, and interest, as you know, is a very ravenous creature."
"I transferred part of the sum last month," Charles countered, feeling a lump rise in his throat. "Arthur had issues with his tuition fees, I warned you there would be a delay."
"Part of the sum?" Zayn laughed. "We aren't a charity. My boss is losing his patience. Two months of silence is an insolence we usually punish."
He took another step forward, this time so quickly that Charles did not have time to react. Zayn grabbed his forearm, his fingers digging into the soft fabric of the coat and the skin beneath it.
"You are beautiful, smart, and I am still kind to you only because I like you. But the debt is growing. And if the full amount for the missed months isn't in the account in three days... well, I can't guarantee that Arthur will return home from college without extra casts on his body. And you are a trauma surgeon, right? It would be ironic if you had to set your own brother's bones."
Charles turned pale, his breathing faltering. He tried to wrench his arm away, but the grip only tightened.
"Don't you dare touch him. Just give me time."
Zayn huffed, looking Charles up and down as if appraising merchandise in a display window. His gaze lingered on the omega's neck, hidden by the collar of his coat.
"Time is almost up," Zayn finally let go of his arm. "One week, Charlie. And don't make me come here again. Next time, I might decide that your body will do quite well instead of money. As moral compensation."
Zayn turned and left the office without saying goodbye, slamming the door hard. Charles remained standing in the silence, feeling the room begin to spin before his eyes. He slowly lowered himself into his chair, covering his face with his hands. His fingers smelled of latex and soap, but he still felt Zayn’s sticky presence on him.
The rest of the shift turned into an endless race against time and his own thoughts for Charles. When the anxiety subsided, the omega forced himself back to work with a frightening, almost mechanical diligence. He took on any small tasks he usually delegated to the nurses, he rechecked the medicine supplies in the treatment room himself, rewrote old patient charts, and pedantically sorted X-ray films. He needed to drown out this sticky fear, to keep it from paralyzing his will.
The clock on the wall ruthlessly counted down the time, and the clinic gradually emptied. The day shift had long ended, giving way to the night staff whose footsteps only occasionally broke the ringing silence of the long corridors. Charles was so deeply immersed in the paperwork routine that he didn't notice the deep twilight thickening outside the window, or when night eventually fell. His eyes burned unbearably from the bright light of the desk lamp, and his neck was so stiff that every movement echoed with a dull pain between his shoulder blades.
Finally, Charles set down his pen. The office was in absolute silence, interrupted only by the hum of the ventilation. He glanced at the phone screen, it was already well past midnight. Arthur was surely already asleep, leaving a cold dinner on the stove. At the thought of his brother, his heart squeezed painfully. Charles rubbed his face with his palms, feeling the skin dry from fatigue under his fingers, and heavily rose from his chair.
Packing up didn't take long. He took off his perfectly white coat, which by the end of the day felt as heavy as a knight's armor, and hung it neatly in the locker. Changing into a simple gray hoodie and worn jeans, Charles caught a glimpse of himself in the small mirror on the door. An exhausted young man looked back at him, with shadows settled under his eyes and a dull gaze. Not a trace remained of the morning confidence of a successful doctor. Now he was just a cornered boy with a massive debt and a threat to the life of his only relative hanging over his shoulders.
Turning off the light in the office, Charles walked quietly down the dim corridor, nodding goodbye to the security guard dozing at his post, and pushed the heavy glass door of the main entrance. The cool night air instantly hit his face, crawling under the thin fabric of his hoodie and making him shiver. After the stuffy clinic, smelling of antiseptics and medicine, the street seemed hostile, but at the same time sobering. Charles took a deep breath, trying to fill his lungs with oxygen. The city was asleep. Rare streetlights cast long yellow shadows on the asphalt, wet after recent rain, and lonely cars occasionally passed in the distance.
The omega adjusted the backpack strap on his shoulder and began walking slowly toward the bus stop. The route home lay through several quiet streets and narrow alleys. Usually, Charles was not afraid to walk here at night, as this area was considered relatively calm, and his thoughts were always drifting somewhere far away. He walked, lost in calculations, how many extra shifts he needed to take, who he could try to borrow at least part of the sum from, what to say to Arthur if Zayn still decided to show up at their home.
Charles was just passing one of the narrow alleys between two office buildings when his ears caught something strange. It was not the sound of the wind or the rustle of a stray cat. The sound was heavy, wet, and... human. A dull thud, as if something heavy had slumped to the ground, followed by a ragged, painful wheeze. Charles stopped instantly. His heart skipped a beat, and his survival instinct literally screamed at him to quicken his pace and get out of there as soon as possible. His legs jerked forward on their own, but he froze. A medical habit, etched under his skin, fought with primal fear. The person in the darkness was in pain. In great pain. And judging by the sounds of the weak, ragged breathing, it could be a matter of minutes.
Charles swallowed the lump in his throat. He slowly took his phone out of his pocket, turned on the flashlight, and, trying to step as quietly as possible, took his first hesitant step into the darkness of the alley. The flashlight beam caught dirty brick walls, overflowing trash cans, and glistening puddles from the darkness. Charles moved deeper into the alley, feeling cold sweat break out on his back. With every step, the air became thicker. Added to the familiar smells of dampness and rotting garbage was another, much sharper and more alarming scent. The smell of iron. The smell of fresh blood.
Then a wave of someone else's pheromones crashed into him. Charles instinctively froze, nearly dropping his phone. It was the scent of overwhelming, wild power, a mixture of frozen pine and something acrid, like gunpowder. The scent of an alpha that would make any omega's knees buckle, urging them to submit or run without looking back. But this scent was distorted by pain, it pulsed, betraying the critical condition of its owner.
"Hey... is someone there?" Charles called out in a trembling whisper, pointing the light into the darkest corner.
The beam brushed over black fabric, glinted on metal, and finally illuminated a man. The man sat on the wet asphalt, leaning heavily with his back against the brickwork. One of his legs was stretched out, the other bent at the knee. He was pressing his left hand to his side, and blood was seeping through his fingers in spurts. Charles gasped quietly, rushing forward. Medical duty instantly overrode all survival instincts. He knelt right in the dirty puddle, about to examine the wound, but didn't even have time to reach out. The man reacted with frightening speed. His healthy hand shot up, catching Charles's wrist in an iron grip. The omega cried out in pain, as the stranger's fingers squeezed so hard that the bones almost cracked.
"Get out," the alpha rasped. His voice was low, broken, and absolutely ruthless.
Charles looked up and met eyes of a blue color. There was no plea for help in them, only the icy rage of a cornered predator. The man's face was smeared with dirt and blood, his blonde hair was matted, and on his left cheekbone was a small but noticeable tattoo in the form of a straight vertical line with horizontal bars at the top and bottom. The tattoo resembled a Roman numeral one.
"Let go, you are breaking my arm!" Charles tried to pull away, but the grip only grew tighter. "I'm a doctor, I just want to help."
"I don't need your help," the man spat, breathing heavily. With every word, a pinkish foam bubbled on his lips, which was a very bad sign. "Get out before I break your neck."
He tried to push Charles away, but the movement was too much for him. The alpha groaned dully, his eyes rolled back for a second, and the grip on the omega's wrist loosened. He slumped sideways, almost hitting his head on the asphalt, but Charles managed to catch him by the shoulders. The man turned out to be incredibly heavy, made of solid muscle and heavy bone. Charles barely held him, feeling someone else's hot blood soaking his own hoodie.
"You are bleeding out," Charles spoke quickly, letting go of his fears and switching completely into work mode. He placed the phone on the ground so the light fell on the wounded man and began to quickly feel his side. "If I don't stop the bleeding right now, you will die here in about twenty minutes. You might have a damaged lung or a torn artery."
"Then I'll die," the alpha exhaled, trying to brush Charles's hands away, but he had no strength left. His eyelids were drooping heavily. "Don't touch me."
"As if," Charles stubbornly pursed his lips. He pulled off his backpack and quickly unzipped the man's jacket to assess the scale of the catastrophe. A deep, jagged wound just below the ribs looked horrifying. "I won't let you die in front of me."
Charles's mind raced. Call an ambulance? This man looked like official medicine and the police were the last things he needed in this life. If he had trouble with the law, the cops would arrive with the paramedics. Charles didn't want to get involved in someone else's criminal problems any more than he was already stuck because of his father, but he simply couldn't leave a man to die on the cold concrete. The clinic was literally two hundred meters away. There were sterile instruments, powerful painkillers, blood for transfusion, and an empty operating room. The guard at the main entrance was surely already dozing, and Charles could open the inconspicuous back door with his magnetic key.
"My clinic is around the corner," Charles leaned close to the alpha's face, forcing him to open his eyes. "I am going to help you stand up now, and we will go there. Try to lean on me."
"Are you an idiot?" the man smirked weakly, but the chuckle turned into a painful, wet cough. "Leave me."
"I said we are going, so that is how it will be," Charles's tone suddenly became stern, authoritative, the way he only used with panicking or unruly patients in the emergency room. He was surprised himself at how confident his voice sounded against the background of the overwhelming smell of pine and blood. Charles threw the man's heavy arm over his shoulders, wrapped an arm around his waist, trying not to touch the wound, and strained all his strength. "Come on, on the count of three."
It took an eternity to get up. Charles thought his back would break in half under the weight of the alpha. The man let out a low growl through clenched teeth when his feet touched the ground, but by some miracle, he stayed upright, leaning heavily on the omega. Every step was a struggle. Charles breathed heavily, feeling his own heart pounding, while the stranger's feverish heat burned through his clothes. The alpha was silent, only occasionally drawing in breath in ragged gasps. They moved slowly, merged into one clumsy shadow, away from the saving light of the streetlamps, heading toward the back entrance of the clinic where Charles was about to make the most insane mistake of his life.
The way to the clinic's backyard seemed endless to Charles. Every step echoed with pain in his own aching muscles, and the alpha's raspy breathing in his ear served as a gruesome metronome, counting down the ebbing minutes. When they finally reached the inconspicuous service door, Charles had to lean the man against the wall so that with trembling, blood-stained fingers, he could pull the magnetic pass from his pocket. A green light flickered in the dark, and the electronic lock clicked quietly.
"Come on, just a little further," Charles whispered, ducking back under the stranger's heavy arm and throwing it over his shoulder.
They stumbled into the dim corridor. The familiar smell of bleach and medicine hit his nose reassuringly, but the alpha's pheromone, thick and bitter with pain, instantly filled the space, ruthlessly suppressing the clinic's sterility. Charles prayed to all the gods that the security wouldn't decide to do a round in this wing. Slowly, trying to step as quietly as possible, he dragged the man toward the small operating room, which was used for emergencies that didn't require a large team.
The alpha tripped over the threshold of the office, nearly dragging Charles down with him onto the tiled floor, but the omega miraculously braced his feet and, with a dull groan, hoisted the heavy body onto the metal table. The man exhaled convulsively, his head fell back, and his face twisted into a grimace of pure, uncontrollable agony.
"Lie still," Charles commanded briefly, rushing to the sink to wash his hands. "I'm going to turn on the light now. It will be bright."
The click of the switch flooded the room with the ruthless white light of surgical lamps. The alpha closed his eyes painfully, letting out a low, warning growl when the rays hit his eyes. Charles was already pulling on latex gloves, his movements becoming fast and precise, honed by years of practice. The sticky street fear had vanished somewhere, giving way to cold professional composure. Before him was not a frightening predator from a back alley, but a patient with critical blood loss who would die right here if he didn't act quickly. Charles grabbed special medical scissors from a tray and stepped close to the table.
"What are you doing?" the man rasped, trying to push himself up on his elbows as the cold, blunt blade slid under the thick fabric of his jacket.
"Cutting your clothes," Charles replied unruffled. "If I start undressing you, you will die of pain shock faster than I can unbutton your shirt."
The alpha's fingers twitched, instinctively trying to catch the doctor's wrist, but this time Charles was quicker and easily dodged, firmly pressing his healthy shoulder to the table surface.
"Calm down. Your struggle is working against you right now. Your heart is beating too fast, you are pumping the rest of your blood out of yourself."
The man measured him with a heavy, clouded gaze from under half-closed lids. In that look, one could read a burning contempt for his own weakness and absolute distrust of someone else's hands. For him, accustomed to surviving alone and never asking for mercy, lying like this, completely open and vulnerable before some omega, was unbearable. But his body was betraying him with every passing second. He clamped his jaw so hard his teeth ached and dropped his head back onto the table with a thud, breathing heavily.
Charles quickly cleared the wound area of the rags of fabric. The picture was frightening, a deep, jagged cut, most likely from something long and serrated, had passed tangentially, miraculously missing the internal organs but clearly damaging a large vessel. Dark blood continued to pulse. Charles grabbed a stack of gauze pads and pressed them firmly to the open wound. The alpha arched his back, a choked, raspy cry escaped his throat, which he tried to suppress by biting his own lip until it bled.
"Sorry, sorry, I know it hurts like hell," Charles spoke quickly, not relaxing the pressure on the wound. "I need to stop the bleeding mechanically before I can inject anesthesia. Just endure."
With his free hand, he reached for the instrument tray, while casting a careful look at the face of his strange patient. Under the bright, unforgiving light of the lamps, Charles was able to examine him properly for the first time. Sharp features, deathly pale skin covered in a sticky sweat, and that same black line on the left cheekbone. Upon closer inspection, it really did turn out to be a neat Roman numeral one. Quite a strange choice for a facial tattoo, flashed through Charles's mind, but who knows what whims people from the streets have. Right now, he was only concerned that the alpha's pupils were beginning to dilate unnaturally, and his breathing had become intermittent.
"Hey, don't you dare pass out, do you hear me?" Charles gave him a noticeable pat on his undamaged cheek with his gloved palm. "What is your name?"
The man opened his eyes with difficulty. His clouded gaze focused on Charles's face, slowly sliding over the tense line of his lips, over the green eyes full of sincere, unfeigned concern. In his cruel world, no one had ever looked at him with such a desperate desire to save him. Only with fear or hatred. This care seemed wrong, confusing.
"Go... to hell," he exhaled barely audibly, and his eyelids closed slowly but inevitably.
This time he lost consciousness for real, his body went limp on the metal, and the humming tension in the room subsided slightly. Charles exhaled loudly, feeling a cold drop of sweat roll down his temple. There was no more time for talk and persuasion. He quickly grabbed a pre-prepared syringe with a powerful local anesthetic, laid out the needles for suturing, and completely immersed himself in the work, praying to himself that this stubborn, rude jerk would live until morning.
The silence of the operating room pressed on his ears, interrupted only by the steady hum of the ventilation and the heavy breathing of the man on the table. Charles completely tuned out the outside world. His hands, which had recently been trembling with fatigue and fear, now moved with absolute confidence. This was his element. He generously treated the edges of the wound with antiseptic, wincing at how badly the tissues were damaged. The blade, whatever it had been, had gone deep but miraculously slid along a rib without piercing it. Charles took a needle holder and began to apply the first stitches. Stitch by stitch, he pulled the edges of the wound together, noting out of the corner of his eye the frightening picture revealed under the cut jacket and T-shirt of the stranger. The alpha's body was like a map of combat actions. The pale skin was slashed with old scars of various shapes and depths. A long whitish trace crossed his collarbone, a round scar resembling a burn or a bullet wound darkened on his right shoulder. This man lived by violence, it was ingrained in every cell of his body. Charles swallowed, realizing that he had brought a real criminal into his clinic. But there was no turning back now. He tied the last knot, neatly trimmed the thread, and applied a thick sterile bandage, securing it firmly with wide medical tape.
Finished with the wound, Charles quickly gave the man an IV with saline and broad-spectrum antibiotics to replenish fluid loss and prevent infection. The needle entered the vein on the muscular arm easily, and transparent drops tapped rhythmically in the plastic reservoir. Only then did the adrenaline begin to recede. Charles recoiled from the table, leaning his back heavily against the cold tiled wall, and slowly slid down it until he was sitting on the floor. He pulled off his blood-stained gloves, tossing them into the hazardous waste bin, and covered his face with his hands. He was shaking. The fatigue accumulated during the day, multiplied by the stress of meeting Zayn and this insane surgical venture, crashed down on him like a stone wall.
Charles sat there for an unknown amount of time, listening to the alpha's stabilized breathing. The scent of frozen pine and gunpowder in the enclosed space became thick, almost palpable, but it no longer held that cutting note of pain and deathly panic. Now it was just the heavy, dominant aroma of a strong alpha who was temporarily asleep.
The rustle of the sheet made Charles open his eyes instantly. He snapped his head up and saw the alpha's fingers on his healthy hand clench into a fist. The man did not groan or thrash about as many patients do when coming out of anesthesia. His awakening was quiet and frighteningly controlled. Charles quickly rose to his feet and stepped closer, stopping at a safe distance from the table. The stranger's eyes flew open. There was no haze or disorientation in them, only a cold, calculating glint. He instantly assessed his surroundings: the white ceiling, the blinding lamps, the IV needle in his vein, the tight bandage on his side. Finally, his gaze focused on Charles, who stood nearby with his arms crossed over his chest to hide the trembling.
"Why the hell am I still alive?" the man asked, his voice raspy but surprisingly even. It scratched the ears with low overtones.
"Because I am a doctor and not a gravedigger," Charles replied tiredly, surprised at his own audacity. He had no strength left for fear or politeness. "You lost a lot of blood, but the vessels are stitched up. If you don't make any sudden movements and tear the stitches, you will live."
The alpha slowly glanced at the IV tube and then turned his gaze back to the omega. Suspicion sat in his eyes, heavily mixed with hostility. He was used to the fact that every favor had to be paid for, and for a saved life, the price was usually impossible.
"Who else knows I'm here?" the man tried to push himself up on his elbows, but Charles took a step forward, instinctively reaching out his hands to stop him.
"No one. The clinic is empty, only the night security is working on another floor. I brought you through the back entrance," Charles tried to speak calmly, though everything inside him tightened at the alpha's cold tone. "Lie back down. You might get dizzy, and I have absolutely no desire to pick you up off the floor."
The man ignored the advice. He sat on the edge of the table, wincing from a flash of pain in his side, and heavily lowered his legs. His broad, scar-streaked chest heaved from the effort. He looked at Charles as if trying to read his thoughts, to find a catch or a hidden motive in this act of mercy.
"Why did you do it?" he asked, and there was not a drop of gratitude in his voice. Only a cold interrogation. "Why did you drag me here, risking your clean little job? Omegas like you cross to the other side of the street when they see people like me."
Charles smiled bitterly. The alpha's words hit a sore spot. If this rude man, soaked in violence, knew that the life of the perfect Doctor Leclerc had long been hanging by a thread due to criminal debts, he would not be talking about a clean job.
"Consider it a professional deviation," Charles walked to the sink and began to wash his hands thoroughly with antibacterial soap, rinsing away the remnants of blood. "I took an oath to treat people. You were bleeding out on my way home, and my brain wouldn't let me pass by. Believe me, I already regret this decision deeply, so there is no need to look for a hidden meaning in my actions."
Charles dried his hands with a paper towel and turned to the alpha. The man continued to bore into him with a heavy gaze from under furrowed brows. The Roman numeral on his cheekbone seemed even darker against his unnaturally pale skin.
"I'm pulling the IV, and I'm leaving," the man declared flatly, reaching for the needle in his arm.
"You aren't going anywhere," Charles's voice suddenly gained steel notes that made the alpha freeze for a second. The omega walked right up to the table, looking directly into the stranger's eyes. "You have a severe wound. One sudden move, the stitches will tear, and you will die in the nearest alley. I didn't spend my last strength on you just for you to die like a stray dog two blocks away. You will stay here until morning, until the IV is finished. This is not a request. It is a medical order."
The man narrowed his eyes incredulously. No one had raised their voice at him for a long time, and certainly no one had dared to order him around. Especially not some tired omega who smelled of tea and anxiety. It was so absurd that the alpha, to his own surprise, slowly lowered his hand, leaving the needle in the vein.
The air in the operating room became so thick that it seemed it could be cut with a scalpel. Max slowly, almost reluctantly, unclenched his fingers, allowing the arm with the IV needle to fall helplessly onto the white sheet. It was not submission in its pure form, but rather a cold, pragmatic calculation. His body was on fire, every breath echoed with a pulsing pain under his ribs, and dark spots kept swimming before his eyes. This stubborn omega was right: if he tried to get up and leave now, he would die of blood loss in a neighboring alley without ever reporting the completion of the mission to Christian.
He was also hooked by that tone. Authoritative, desperate, and devoid of the usual slave-like submissiveness Max was used to seeing in people. He measured Charles with a heavy, unreadable gaze, mentally noting every detail: the disheveled brown hair, the dark circles under his eyes that betrayed chronic sleep deprivation, and the stubbornly set lips. The scent of white tea, honey, and lavender coming from the doctor was now mixed with acrid notes of stress and fatigue, but strangely, it did not irritate him. On the contrary, it seemed to be trying to pacify the adrenaline raging in Max's blood.
"Your hands are shaking," the alpha noted hoarsely, breaking the long silence. His voice was quiet, but it filled the entire room.
Charles, who at that moment had reached for a plastic bag for medical waste, froze for a second. He looked at his palms. His thin fingers were indeed trembling slightly.
"It's from exhaustion," the omega replied dryly, scooping up the cut, blood-soaked jacket and T-shirt from the floor. "I've been on my feet for over sixteen hours. And also because I have to cover up a crime right now, hiding bloody clothes so my clinic doesn't turn into a crime scene for the police in the morning. So, be a doll and spare me your observations."
Max huffed, but the sound immediately turned into a painful cough. He closed his eyes and waited out the flash of pain in his side.
"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already," he said when his breathing leveled out a bit. "You have nothing to fear from me."
"I'm not afraid of you," the words escaped Charles before he could bite his tongue. He tied the neck of the thick black bag with force and threw it into the corner, away from sight. "I'm afraid of what you brought with you. The people who did this to you. Problems that I absolutely do not need."
Charles went to the locker, took out a clean cotton sheet, and threw it on the edge of the operating table, right onto the alpha's legs.
"Cover yourself. Body temperature drops after blood loss, and it's not the tropics in here."
Max did not move. He only opened one eye, watching the omega bustle around the office, wiping accidental drops of blood from the tiles and disinfecting a metal instrument tray. There was something deeply broken in this guy, but at the same time, he held himself with striking persistence. Max was used to omegas in his world being either expensive toys or victims broken by circumstances. Но this omega was saving his life, while scolding him like a naughty boy.
"What's your name?" Max asked suddenly. The question sounded sharp, as if he himself was dissatisfied with asking it.
Charles stopped near the sink, leaning his hands heavily on the cold porcelain. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, then turned his gaze to the man. Medical ethics required establishing contact with a patient, but his survival instinct screamed that the less they knew about each other, the better. However, there was something in the alpha's piercing gaze that made Charles answer.
"Charles. Doctor Charles Leclerc."
He waited for a return courtesy. He expected the patient to give at least a fictional name. In the criminal world, people rarely throw around their passport data to the first person they meet. The alpha looked at him for several long seconds, weighing something in his head.
"Max," he threw out shortly, turning away to the wall and wincing from the pulling pain in the stitches.
It was his real name, forgotten, buried under years of blood and other people's orders. He himself didn't understand why he had said it. Perhaps because this omega deserved at least a drop of truth for not letting him die in the dirt.
Charles nodded, taking this short answer as a given. He turned off the upper, blindingly bright light, leaving only a dim pilot lamp burning over the door. The office plunged into a soft twilight, making Max's features seem less harsh. The omega pulled a heavy rolling chair closer to the table, but kept it out of reach of the alpha's healthy hand. He sank heavily into the seat, stretching out his aching legs, and crossed his arms over his chest.
"You need to sleep," Charles said quietly but firmly, looking at the steadily dripping saline. "The IV will run for about three more hours. I'll sit here. If a fever starts or the bleeding opens again, I'm right here. But if you try to run before the bag is empty, I swear I'll call the police myself."
Max didn't answer. His eyelids were already growing heavy under the effect of the painkillers Charles had generously added to the solution. The scent of white tea in the semi-darkness seemed thicker, it enveloped him, drowning out the phantom smell of blood in his nose. For the first time in many years, Max closed his eyes near a stranger without clutching a knife handle in his hand. It was stupid, reckless, and completely unlike him. But falling into a heavy, medicinal sleep, he caught himself thinking that Charles wouldn't go anywhere. And for some reason, that thought made it easier to breathe.
The neck was so stiff that the first movement echoed with a sharp, shooting pain all along the spine. Charles groaned quietly, struggling to open his heavy eyelids. His mouth was dry, and his eyes stung from the bright morning light that ruthlessly forced its way through the narrow gaps of the horizontal blinds. For several long seconds, he just sat there, staring blankly at the toes of his sneakers, trying to gather his thoughts and understand why his body ached as if a truck had run over it, and why he was sleeping on a hard office chair instead of in his warm bed. Then the memories of the past night crashed over him like an icy wave. Charles snapped his head up, nearly falling off the chair. His gaze instantly darted to the surgical table in the center of the small operating room. His heart, which had just been peacefully beating a sleepy rhythm, went into a frantic gallop.
The table was empty. The omega jumped to his feet, ignoring the protesting crunch in his knees, and crossed the distance to the metal structure in two steps. There was not a drop of blood on the smooth surface, no crumpled cotton sheet, only the IV stand stood nearby, and an empty plastic saline bag lay on the medical tray. The needle was neatly closed with a protective cap.
"It can't be," Charles whispered, looking around as if a huge, buff alpha could hide behind a glass medicine cabinet.
He rushed to the corner where, in a fit of irritation and fatigue yesterday, he had thrown the black bag with the cut, blood-soaked clothes of the stranger. The bag was gone. Charles checked the trash can, but it was empty too. He looked under the sink, checked the locked doors of the sterilizer. Nothing. Max had left absolutely no trace behind. He didn't just leave; he methodically and professionally erased the very fact of his stay in this room, like the morning mist dissolving with the first rays of the sun.
The only proof that Charles had not gone mad from overwork was the scent lingering in the stale air of the office. The heavy, tart aroma of frozen pine and gunpowder had seeped into the walls, overpowering even the sharp smell of antiseptic. This alpha pheromone agitated his nervous system, reminding him of the primal danger that just a few hours ago was at arm's length.
Charles closed his eyes, exhaling loudly. Two completely contradictory feelings fought in his chest. On one hand, he was washed over by a colossal relief. He wouldn't have to escort a dangerous criminal out of the clinic, wouldn't have to invent lies for the morning shift of nurses, or tremble with fear that the police would show up on an anonymous call. Max had left on his own, sparing him the trouble. But somewhere deep inside, under the crust of rational medical duty, Charles felt a strange, painful prick. A man with a severe wound, with blood loss that would have killed another in the alley, just got up and vanished into the darkness, risking tearing his fresh stitches with every step. It was madness. It was suicide.
Charles's gaze fell on the wall clock, and the remnants of sleep finally evaporated from his head. Half past six in the morning. The cleaners and the first shift of receptionists would appear at any moment. Acting on pure adrenaline, Charles rushed to the sink. He grabbed a bottle of strong disinfectant and began to frantically wipe the surgical table, flooding the metal with the acrid liquid to kill even the smallest molecules of the strange scent. He threw the empty IV bag into the special plastic container that was taken out once a week, and he safely hid the used syringes and painkiller ampoules in his jeans pocket to dispose of them later in another wing of the building. He would write off the lack of saline and suturing material as the evening bustle in the trauma department—there was always a bit of chaos there, and a couple of missing ampoules would not arouse suspicion. Charles rolled his own gray hoodie, which had dark brown spots of someone else's dried blood on the sleeves and stomach, into a tight roll and pushed it deep into the very bottom of his backpack, covering it with a medical encyclopedia and a lunch container. Left in just a thin T-shirt, he threw on a light jacket.
Scanning the office one last time with a critical eye, Charles turned off the lamp. The room looked perfectly sterile, as it should. No one would ever know what happened here tonight. Stepping into the corridor, Charles walked quickly toward the service exit. His steps echoed loudly in the morning silence of the clinic. The magnetic lock beeped, and the heavy metal door let him out into the street. The morning air was bitingly cold and fresh. The sky over the city was painted in pale pink and gray tones, foretelling a cloudy day. Charles shivered, pulling the sleeves of his jacket over his frozen fingers. He pulled his vibrating phone from his pocket. Two messages flashed on the screen. The first was from Arthur: "You didn't come home to sleep. I left sandwiches in the fridge. Hope everything is okay at work. Take care."
Charles smiled warmly with the corner of his lips, feeling the icy lump of anxiety inside thaw a little. He quickly typed a reply, apologizing for the double shift and promising to come soon. But as soon as he closed the chat with his brother, his eye caught a second, unread notification from an unknown number. There was no text in it. Only one digit: "6". Charles stopped in the middle of the sidewalk as if he had run into an invisible wall. His breath caught. It wasn't a mistake. It was a countdown. Zayn had given him seven days to find the money. Six were left. The illusion of saving someone else's life, which had given him a brief respite during the night, shattered to pieces against the brutal reality of his own life. He had no money and no plan. And he only had six days left before his familiar world turned into hell.
The way home took longer than usual. Charles felt as if his bones had turned to lead, and every movement required an incredible effort of will. He tried not to attract attention on public transport, pressing the backpack with the bloody clothes to his chest. It seemed to him that everyone around could sense this heavy, metallic smell of death and gunpowder coming from his things, though in reality, passengers just saw a tired young man returning from a night shift.
Their apartment building was in a neighborhood that had once been considered decent but was now slowly falling into decay. The peeling paint on the entrance walls, the dim light of flickering lamps, and the eternal smell of dampness — it was a far cry from the luxurious mansion they had grown up in since childhood. Charles went up to the fourth floor, trying not to make noise, and carefully turned the key in the lock. The apartment was quiet, but a faint aroma of cheap coffee came from the kitchen. Charles froze in the hallway, first thing shoving his backpack into the furthest corner of the shoe cabinet behind some old winter boots. He didn't want Arthur to see this. He already had enough reasons for nightmares.
"Charles? Is that you?" his brother's quiet voice made him flinch.
Arthur came out into the hallway, rubbing his sleepy eyes. He was wearing an old stretched T-shirt and sweatpants. At nineteen, he looked older than he should. The delicate facial features that once glowed with lightheartedness were now frozen in an expression of constant alertness. Being a beta, he didn't feel pheromones as sharply as Charles, but he was perfectly able to read his brother's state from the smallest details.
"Yes, it's me. Sorry I woke you," Charles walked past him, trying not to look him in the eye.
"You didn't come home at night and only wrote this morning. I was worried sick," Arthur followed him into the kitchen where a plate of dried-out sandwiches sat on the table. "Another emergency surgery?"
Charles nodded, pouring himself a glass of water from the tap. The water was icy and tasted of chlorine.
"Something like that."
The younger brother sat at the table in silence, interlacing his fingers. He knew when Charles was lying or withholding information, but he also knew it was useless to press him now. Charles looked like he was ready to collapse and not get up for a week.
"Did Zayn come yesterday?" Arthur asked suddenly, and his voice became hard.
Charles froze with the glass in his hand. Hiding it was pointless, since Arthur saw his messages and sometimes the collectors themselves when they waited for them by the entrance.
"Yes, he came to remind us about the money."
"And how much time do we have left?" Arthur looked up at his brother. Fear was readable in his eyes, which he tried so desperately to hide behind a mask of bravery.
"Six days," Charles exhaled, sinking into the chair opposite. "Just six days to find a sum we don't have."
A heavy, suffocating silence hung in the kitchen. They both knew how they had ended up here. It wasn't their mistake, but they were the ones who had to pay. Their father, Hervé Leclerc, was a man of honor but too trusting. When the family business began to sink, he couldn't admit defeat. He wanted to provide a future for his sons, wanted Charles to finish medical school and Arthur to want for nothing. In desperation, he turned to people one should not turn to. That money seemed like a salvation until the interest began to grow exponentially. By the time of his death from a heart attack, the debt was already unbearable. The creditors showed no compassion for the grieving family. They took the house, the cars, all the accounts. And even that turned out to be not enough. Now the debt hung on Charles, and Zayn and his people were their personal wardens.
"I can take more delivery shifts," Arthur said quietly. "My manager said that if I work nights, the tips will be bigger."
"No," Charles cut him off, covering his brother's hand with his own. "You are already barely sleeping. You need to study, Arthur. I won't allow you to drop out of college because of this crap."
"Charles, look at yourself! You are a surgeon in an elite clinic, but you look like a ghost. I'm not going to stand aside while they break you."
"You don't understand who we are dealing with," Charles's voice trembled. "Zayn... he hinted yesterday that if the money isn't there, he'll come for you."
Arthur turned noticeably pale but didn't look away.
"We'll think of something," Arthur whispered, although he didn't believe it himself. "We always thought of something."
Charles closed his eyes. The face of that alpha from the alley suddenly flashed before his mind's eye. Max. A man made of scars and violence. Charles had saved his life, spending precious hours on him that he could have used to find a way out of his own situation. And what did he get in return? An empty operating room and the smell of pine on the walls. In this world, no one saves you just because. Charles did it out of habit, because of his damn kindness, which in their current situation was an unaffordable luxury.
"Go sleep a bit more," Charles gently nudged his brother. "I need to take a shower and... think."
"Promise me you won't do anything stupid," Arthur lingered in the kitchen doorway. "Don't deal with them alone."
"I promise," Charles lied, looking out the window at the gray city.
When Arthur left, Charles took out his phone and looked at the number 6 again. That message seemed like a sentence. He felt the walls of the apartment closing in on him. He had exactly six days before Zayn decided that the time for persuasion was over.
Charles stood up and headed to the bathroom. He needed to wash off this endless day and the smell of the clinic.
Dawn found Max in the back seat of an unremarkable black sedan located three blocks from the clinic. He had reached it on sheer stubbornness, clutching his side with one hand and trying to take shallow breaths to avoid disturbing the fresh stitches. Every step had echoed through his body with a dull, grueling pain, but his consciousness remained crystal clear. The cocktail of painkillers and antibiotics that the strange omega doctor had injected into him was working properly, keeping him just on the edge of functioning.
The car braked gently at a tall building of glass and concrete that served as the official headquarters of the Monolith. There were no signs with names here, only strict minimalism and armed guards in impeccable suits. Max got out of the car, adjusting a new jacket he had managed to grab from his cache along the way. It was zipped to his chin, hiding the bandages.
The ascent to the top floor in a silent elevator took only a few seconds. Max walked down the corridor, keeping a steady pace despite the fact that everything inside him was burning. He could not afford to limp or show weakness in front of subordinates.
The doors to Christian Horner's office slid apart. Inside, dim light reigned, broken only by the panoramic view of the city and the light of several monitors. Christian sat at a dark wood desk, looking through some reports. He did not look up when Max entered.
"You are late, Max," Horner said calmly, not looking up from his work. "You were supposed to report on the mission three hours ago."
Max stopped in the center of the room, standing straight as a string. The Roman numeral one on his cheekbone looked like a black brand in the lamp light.
"There were unforeseen circumstances during the extraction, so I had to lie low to ensure there was no tail."
Christian finally looked up. His eyes, perceptive and devoid of emotion, slowly scanned Max's figure. Christian was the one who had found Max in the slums, who had scoured everything human out of him and turned him into the perfect tool. He knew his protégé too well.
"The target?" the boss asked briefly.
"Eliminated. Confirmation was sent to the archives during the night. The contract is closed," Max's voice was flat, devoid of any intonation.
Christian leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together. He remained silent for a long time, continuing to study Max. He did not need to see the wound to understand that something was wrong. He felt the smell of medicine coming from Max, which the latter was trying to mask, and the subtle stiffness in his movements.
"You are wounded," it was not a question, but a statement of fact.
"A scratch," Max replied without even blinking. "It's not worth the attention."
"A scratch that caused you to drop off the radar for half the night?" Horner narrowed his eyes slightly. "Where were you, Max? I was informed there were no safe houses in that area that you could use."
At that moment, the scene from the clinic flashed through Max's mind: Charles leaning over him with a syringe, his warm fingers on his skin, and a quiet, soothing voice. If he told the truth, if he mentioned the doctor, Christian would immediately send people there. He would wipe the clinic off the face of the earth and make Charles disappear simply because he had seen too much. Or, even worse, he would decide to use him as the Monolith's personal medic, turning the omega's life into the same hell Max himself lived in.
"In one of the old basements on the edge of the industrial zone," Max lied, looking straight ahead. "I bandaged myself up and waited until the patrols dispersed. No contacts and no witnesses."
Christian bored into him with his gaze for a few more seconds, as if trying to find a crack in his armor. Max did not look away. In this standoff, he always came out the winner because he had nothing to pay with.
"Fine," Christian finally said, returning to his papers. "You are dismissed. You have forty-eight hours to get yourself in order. After that, there will be a new assignment."
"Understood," Max nodded briefly and turned to leave.
Once in the empty corridor, he finally allowed himself to exhale and wince slightly from the pain. Taking a few steps toward the elevator, he brought his hand to his face and secretly inhaled the scent on his wrist. Tea. The pure aroma of an omega. Max knew he had made a mistake by hiding the truth from Christian. He knew that in their world, trust was a luxury he could not afford. Но remembering how Charles had stubbornly pursed his lips while applying the stitches, Max felt for the first time in a long while that he wanted to leave this small piece of normal life untouched. Even if it meant lying to the most dangerous man in the city.
Max's steps on the marble floor of the corridor sounded heavy, but he tried to maintain his usual rhythm, not allowing himself to fall into a limp. Every breath was short and careful; he felt the fresh stitches pull under the bandage, reminding him that his body was still made of flesh and blood, not steel as everyone around was used to thinking. The peace of home, a cold shower, and a few hours of unconsciousness seemed like the ultimate reward right now, but the path to the elevator was blocked by a figure Max wanted to see least of all.
Matt stood by the window with his arms crossed over his chest, and judging by how quickly he turned at the sound of footsteps, he had been waiting specifically for Max. He always looked impeccable — a pricey suit, perfectly styled hair, the predatory smile of a man who was sure the world owed him recognition. Matt had been in the organization since Max was a nameless teenager in the alleys, and that knowledge poisoned him every day. To Matt, Max was an upstart, a favorite who got everything too easily, despite the fact that for every step in the hierarchy, Max had paid with his own blood.
"Going far, One?" Matt's voice sounded mocking, with a subtle note of venom. "The boss said you did the job, but you look like you've been through a meat grinder."
Max stopped a couple of meters away from him, his expression unchanged. He looked through Matt as if he were an annoying obstacle in the road rather than the second man on the council.
"I am heading home. You should know better than anyone that after a successful hunt, one needs rest," Max answered coldly.
Matt took a step forward, invading Max's personal space. He was slightly taller, and his alpha pheromones rolled over Max in waves, trying to suppress him, to force an acknowledgement of seniority. But Max stood motionless, his own scent, though muffled by the injury, remained icy and impenetrable.
"A successful hunt?" Matt narrowed his eyes, his gaze sweeping over Max's figure, lingering on how unnaturally straight he held his back. "Rumor has it that this time you barely made it out alive. The boss may forgive your delays because he sees you as his heir, but I... I remember this place since before that number was tattooed on your face. I know what weakness smells like, One."
Matt suddenly sniffed the air, and his lips curled into a disgusted smirk.
"You reek of a hospital and something sweet. What is it? Tea? Did our great hitman decide to stop by a cozy cafe while bleeding out in a gutter? Or did you find yourself some bedmate to lick your wounds?"
Max felt a dull rage boiling inside him. The mention of Charles, even indirect and filthy, caused his fingers to involuntarily clench into a fist. The flash of pain in his side from this movement was sharp as a knife strike, but he didn't even flinch.
"My wounds are none of your concern. Your job is to make sure your people don't fail the shipment at the port next week. Christian is very dissatisfied with the past results."
Matt's face twisted with anger for a moment. The blow to his professional ego hit its mark. He leaned even closer so their faces were a few centimeters apart.
"Enjoy your position while you can, pup," he hissed. "You only became the best because the boss wanted it so. But luck is fickle. The moment you stumble once, the moment you show you aren't a machine, I will be the first one to rip your throat out. And believe me, I will do it with great pleasure."
Max met his gaze without blinking. In his eyes was a void that frightened Matt much more than any open aggression.
"To rip my throat out, you would have to reach it first," Max said quietly. "And for now, you are just standing in my way. Move."
It was an order. Quiet and devoid of emotion, but it held the power of a man who had returned from the dead more than once. Matt struggled for a few seconds with the urge to break into a scream or a strike, but hierarchy was above all else. He slowly stepped aside, clearing the path, but his eyes continued to burn with hatred.
"We aren't finished with this conversation."
Max walked past, not even nodding. As soon as the elevator doors closed and he was alone in the mirrored cabin, he allowed himself to lean heavily against the wall. His forehead was covered in sweat, and for a moment, circles swam before his eyes. Matt was dangerous not because he was strong, but because he was observant and resentful. Max looked at his reflection in the mirror. He needed to disappear for these forty-eight hours, get himself in order, and make sure that no one else felt anything from him except coldness and death.
Max's apartment was just as cold and functional as he was. No cozy trifles, no photographs on the walls, only concrete, glass, and muted gray tones. This place was not a home in the conventional sense; rather, it was a fortified bunker on the thirtieth floor of an elite residential complex where he was the only living being.
Entering, Max threw the keys onto the console without looking and first of all checked the security system monitors. All clear. Only after that did he allow his shoulders to drop slightly and his face to twist from the pain he had so carefully hidden for the last two hours. Stripping off his jacket, he went to the bathroom mirror and froze. The clean white bandage had already begun to soak through with blood, but the stitches were holding. Max cautiously touched the edge of the plaster. In his mind, the doctor's thin fingers, his focused face, and that ridiculous, desperate order reappeared: "You will stay here until morning."
Max had never lied to Christian. Horner was the only person he trusted (as much as was even possible in their world). He might withhold a minor detail or downplay the severity of an injury so as not to be suspended from work, but he had never created an entire legend to hide someone's identity. Until today.
Why did he do it? Pity? Compassion? Those feelings had been burned out of him as a teenager when Christian taught him that emotions were ballast that pulls you to the bottom. Max had seen thousands of deaths, he had been the cause of them himself. He was used to the smell of blood, to the cries for mercy, to the cold gleam of weapons. Mercy was not in his arsenal.
"It is just a calculation," he thought, opening the first aid kit and taking out fresh bandages. In his world, everything had its price. Charles Leclerc had saved his life, spending his time on him and risking his career. Max did not know how to say thank you. Those words seemed foreign to him, devoid of meaning. But he knew how to pay his bills. By hiding Charles's existence from Christian and, more importantly, from Matt, Max had effectively given the doctor his life. If the Monolith found out about the clinic, Charles would have become either their tool or a corpse. Now he remained free.
Max believed he had settled the score. A life for a life. Charles would not even know what risk Max had taken by keeping his name a secret from Christian, and that suited Max just fine. He did not need gratitude or new meetings.
Max turned on the shower, taking care not to get the bandage wet, and put his head under the icy streams of water. The cold helped to dull the throbbing pain in his side, but it could not wash away the strange aftertaste of this meeting. His job in the group was simple: eliminate obstacles. He was the sword in Christian's hands. His life consisted of training schedules, cleaning weapons, and studying the dossiers of new victims. In this life, there was no place for omegas with the scent of tea, honey, and lavender.
And Max had no intention of changing that.