Chapter 273

[ 1,647 words ]

Jude’s POV

The mirror in the private suite of Mount Sinai Hospital was lying to me.

It had to be. There was simply no other logical explanation. The reflection staring back at me did not belong to Jude Wolfe—the dashing, immaculate, thrice-crowned darling of the British motorsport press. It belonged to a genetically compromised turnip.

My left eye was swollen into a dark, plum-colored slit. My nose, which had previously possessed a rather splendid, aristocratic bridge, was currently packed with several yards of medical gauze and taped down like a poorly wrapped parcel. My jaw was wired so tightly that even thinking about the word “biscuit” sent a sharp, agonizing throb directly into my temples.

“Uncivilized,” I muttered, the word coming out as a pathetic, wet whistle through my teeth.

I winced, instantly regretting the vocal effort. The nurse had offered me a PCA pump containing a rather generous amount of liquid morphine, but the drugs did absolutely nothing to soothe the wounded dignity currently festering in my chest.

I had never been beaten before.

In my thirty-five years on this earth, I had always been the one delivering the consequences. If a driver stepped out of line, I ruined their career. If a board member questioned my allocation of telemetry assets, I bought out their mortgage and turned their family home into a staff car park. I was a Wolfe. We did not get our clocks cleaned in secondary-market American penthouses by wild, shirt-ripping beasts who didn’t even have the decency to announce their arrival.

And the suit.

My chest let out a ragged, whistling sigh of genuine mourning. It had been a bespoke, three-piece navy wool-and-silk blend, hand-tailored on Savile Row. The trousers were completely ruined, stained with a combination of spilled puddle water from Katia’s kitchen floor and my own highly premium blood. The jacket had been ripped down the seam as if it were nothing but tissue paper.

A beast. An absolute, unhinged, territorial monster.

I leaned my head back against the stiff hospital pillows, my mind frantically trying to calculate the absolute shambles of the morning. Why on earth did Julian Windsor have a key to my wife’s private elevator bay? Who was he to her?

The physics of the encounter simply didn’t add up. The owner of the multi-billion-dollar Windsor Empire Group does not physically storm a residential building, vaporize a solid mahogany double door with his bare shoulders, and proceed to commit first-degree manslaughter over a business dispute. It was entirely un-American. One does not simply beat another billionaire to a pulp because of a disagreement over telemetry licenses.

Unless.

My remaining good eye narrowed in the sterile light of the room.

The marks on her neck. The deep, purple fingerprints on her waist that I had exposed when I ripped back her silk robe. They hadn’t been left by some cheap, desperate street man. They had been left by a giant. A giant with scarred hands and a complete lack of moral boundaries.

Could Katia be sleeping with Julian Windsor?

The mere thought made my swollen jaw twitch with a violent, stinging heat. She was my wife. Granted, our marriage certificate was a highly complicated, seven-year-old administrative blank space that she currently believed was a ghost story, but she was legally mine on the paper I intended to leverage. She was supposed to obey me. She was supposed to stand in front of the cameras, play the doting, grateful spouse, and sign over thirty percent of IG Technologies to my racing division.

When I got out of this hospital bed—when the swelling went down and I could once again consume solid food—I had fully intended to teach her a lesson she wouldn’t forget. A physical reminder of who held the leash.

But if Julian Windsor was the one in her bed p>

I reached for the sleek, encrypted smartphone sitting on the bedside table, my fingers trembling slightly as I dialed.

The line connected on the first ring.

“Alistair,” I whistled through my wire-mesh jaw, my voice sounding like a kettle nearing its boiling point.

“Ah, Mr. Wolfe,” Alistair’s voice came through the speaker, dry, level, and entirely empty of sympathy. He was sitting in the executive lounge of our Manhattan hotel, likely enjoying a perfectly brewed cup of Earl Grey while his employer lay physically dismantled in a ward. “I see you have survived your… introductory meeting with the New York local market p>

“I am in a private room at Mount Sinai, Alistair,” I hissed, holding an ice pack against my swollen left cheek. “My face is an absolute catastrophe. The surgeon had to use four titanium screws just to keep my jaw aligned with my ears. It is a tragedy p>

“Indeed, sir. The communications team in London is currently drafting a press release claiming you suffered a mild concussion during a private squash match. We felt ’physical decimation by a rival executive’ lacked the necessary corporate elegance p>

“Brilliant,” I muttered. “Now, Alistair. I need you to run a highly specific intelligence sweep for me. What is Julian Windsor’s exact relationship to Katia Kensington p>

“According to the public record, sir, they are primary business partners. They have been working side-by-side to integrate her software into the East Coast transit hubs p>

“No,” I whistled, my temper rising. “A business partner does not break a man’s nose in three places because of an integration contract, Alistair. I am a corporate executive; I know the standard protocols. One sends a strongly worded legal filing, or perhaps a minor regulatory audit. One does not use their bare fists to reshape another man’s skull. There has to be something else p>

There was a brief, rhythmic clicking of Alistair’s keyboard on the other end of the line. The silence stretched for five agonizing seconds before he spoke again.

“Ah,” Alistair murmured. “Well, this is rather peculiar. It appears… though my source notes there is absolutely no physical or domestic truth to the arrangement… that Mr. Windsor is her brother-in-law p>

I froze, the ice pack slipping slightly against my cheek. “Her what p>

“Her brother-in-law, sir. His wife is Delia Kensington—Katia’s younger sister. They have been residing in the same estate upstate for one year and some months p>

I sat in the quiet of the hospital room, my brain trying and failing to process the sheer, ridiculous absurdity of the American family structure.

“Her brother-in-law,” I repeated, the whistle in my voice turning into a high-pitched squeak of utter disbelief. “The sister’s husband p>

“Yes, sir p>

“The brother-in-law decided to play knight in shining armor,” I said, my voice dropping to a flat, annoyed mumble. “He physically dismantled me… because his wife’s sister was having a domestic dispute p>

“It would appear so, sir. The Americans do possess a rather… enthusiastic approach to family solidarity p>

“This is rubbish,” I snapped, winced, and held my jaw. “It makes absolutely no sense. If I touch her now—if I so much as raise my hand to Katia to teach her the obedience she owes me—there is a very real, statistical chance that Julian Windsor will find out, storm my hotel, and physically detach my arms from my torso p>

“A highly probable outcome, sir,” Alistair agreed deadpan. “Mr. Windsor’s security dossier indicates a rather extensive background in military combat training and a complete disregard for public relations when provoked. I believe the phrase ’losing your hand’ would be a conservative estimate p>

“Yes,” I muttered, looking at the swollen turnip in the mirror. “I quite like my hands. They are excellent for driving, and they match my watch collection. This Windsor chap is an active hazard to my physical health p>

“Indeed, sir p>

“He is a liability,” I said, my mind instantly shifting into the cold, calculated strategy of a man who needed to clear the board. “If he is standing in my way, then he needs to be removed from the equation entirely. I want Julian Windsor out of the way, Alistair. I want his board of directors panicked, I want his secure network nodes compromised, and I want him so tied up in regulatory litigation that he doesn’t have the time to cross the street, let alone storm my penthouse p>

“I shall coordinate with our legal and intelligence divisions immediately, sir,” Alistair said. “We shall initiate the standard corporate blockade p>

“Excellent,” I said. I looked down at the white sheets of my bed, a sudden, brilliant idea entering my mind. If I couldn’t touch Katia physically without risking a terminal beating from her monstrous brother-in-law, I would have to play the game of shadows. I needed her cooperation. I needed her to believe that I was her savior, not her tormentor. “Oh, and Alistair p>

“Yes, sir p>

“Send flowers to my wife’s office,” I commanded. “A massive, ridiculous arrangement. Something horribly expensive. Lilies, perhaps. Or white roses. The kind of flowers that say, ’I am dreadfully sorry for the slight physical altercation in your kitchen; please forgive my enthusiastic display of marital affection p>

“And the card, sir p>

“Make it come from the heart, Alistair. Write something like, ’My darling Katia, my temper only flares because my love for you is a tempest. I look forward to holding my family soon.’ Be sure to use a very elegant, cursive font. Women love that sort of rubbish p>

“I shall have the florist execute it immediately, sir. Under the name of her devoted husband, of course p>

“Quite,” I said, leaning back into the pillows with a small, highly painful smirk. “Let’s see Julian Windsor fight a bouquet of roses. The beast p>

I hung up, tossing the phone onto the nightstand, and reached for my water cup, gingerly sliding the plastic straw between my wired teeth.

The war was officially active. And I was going to make sure that by the time I was discharged from this hospital, Julian Windsor didn’t have a single company left to protect.

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