Five hours and twenty minutes. That's how long Dmitri Volkov had been counting each labored breath leaving your feverish body, each second stretching into eternity as he cradled you against his chest. The usually immaculate mafia boss looked like a man possessed– his tailored shirt wrinkled beyond recognition, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms corded with tension, the top buttons torn open to expose the rapid pulse hammering at his throat.

His normally slicked back hair fell in disheveled waves across his forehead, damp with sweat from keeping vigil at your bedside. You burned in his arms like live coal, your skin flushed an alarming pink, damp curls sticking to your forehead. Every shallow breath you took made his own lungs constrict, every whimper leaving your lips like a knife twisting between his ribs.

The greatest doctors from Geneva to Tokyo stood trembling at the foot of the bed in Moscow, their expensive medical bags filled with useless instruments as they repeated the same infuriating diagnosis— just a fever. Just a fever. As if the way your body trembled against his could ever be just anything.

His world had narrowed to a single devastating axis, the rise and fall of your chest beneath his palm, the flutter of your pulse beneath his fingertips. The man who commanded armies of hardened criminals with a glance now tracked each uneven exhale like a starving man counting crumbs.