Chapter 2 - The Sunlight That Shook an Empire
“Clara, I am warning you.” His voice wasn’t loud, but it held the deadly weight of a man who had ordered executions over dinner tables. “Drop the cord.”
I turned my head to look at him. His knuckles were gripped into the linen, veins bulging along his forearms. His eyes burned with an intensity that would have sent any sane person sprinting for the door.
“A dark room breeds infection and depression, Mr. Mercer,” I said calmly. “Sunlight kills airborne bacteria and regulates your circadian rhythm. Both of which you desperately need if you want that bone to knit back together.”
“I don’t give a damn about bacteria. Leave the blinds closed.”
I yanked the heavy cord down with both hands.
The thick velvet curtains parted with a loud swoosh of heavy fabric, and the inner wooden blinds snapped open.
A flood of blinding, unfiltered afternoon sunshine poured into the master bedroom. It illuminated every corner of the room: the ornate crown molding, the dust dancing in the air, the dried bloodstains on the edge of the nightstand, and the pale, scarred body of Liam Mercer.
Liam let out a sound that was half-gasp, half-snarl, throwing his left forearm over his eyes as if the light were physical fire.
The heavy bedroom doors burst open with a crash.
Leo stepped in, his right hand already tucked inside his jacket, drawing a semi-automatic handgun with a sleek silencer attached. Two other guards flanked him, their eyes wide with sheer panic.
“Boss!” Leo shouted, his gun sweeping the room before freezing on me. “What happened?!”
The guards stood frozen in the doorway. None of them had seen the master bedroom illuminated in daylight for over two months. They stared at Liam, who was lying in the bright beam of sun, trembling with raw fury.
“Get her out,” Liam hissed through gritted teeth, his arm still shielding his eyes. “Get her out of my house right now.”
Leo stepped toward me, his face grim. “Clara. You need to pack your things. Now.”
I didn't move. I stood right in the center of the sunbeam, folding my arms across my chest.
“If I leave,” I said, looking directly at Leo, “his core temperature spikes to a hundred and four by midnight. That femoral pin tract on the medial side is weeping serous fluid that needs debridement every four hours. You want to do it, Leo? You know how to flush an osteogenic tract without introducing staph into his bone marrow?”
Leo hesitated, the gun lowering an inch. He looked from me to Liam, his jaw clenching.
“She touched the blinds, Leo,” Liam growled, his voice vibrating with suppressed rage. “She violated the only rule I gave.”
“I broke a rule that makes no medical sense,” I snapped, walking right back to the edge of the bed. I looked down at Liam, refusing to yield an inch of ground. “You are hiding in this dark room because you’re ashamed that someone managed to put you on your back. You think lying in the dark makes you look like a phantom, but it just makes you look like a wounded animal waiting to die in a cave.”
The silence that followed was so thick that the only sound was the distant hum of the security generators outside.
Leo looked like he was about to faint from terror. The two guards in the doorway had lowered their eyes, terrified to witness their boss being spoken to in such a manner.
Liam slowly lowered his arm from his face.
His eyes adjusted to the brilliance of the sun. Up close, in the light, his irises weren't just blue—they were the color of glacial ice, flecked with gold around the pupils. His features were stark, brutally handsome beneath the hollow exhaustion of prolonged agony.
He stared at me for a long, agonizing minute. I could see the battle raging behind his eyes—the ruthless warlord who killed men for insolence versus the pragmatist who recognized that I was the only person in five weeks who hadn't cowered before him.
“Leave us,” Liam said quietly.
Leo blinked. “Boss?”
“I said get out. All of you.”
Leo swallowed hard, nodded, and gestured for the guards to back out. The heavy double doors clicked shut once more, leaving Clara and Liam alone in the sun-drenched room.
Liam turned his gaze back to me. The harsh light highlighted the deep hollows beneath his cheekbones and the dark circles under his eyes.
“You have a death wish, Clara,” he said, his voice flat.
“I have a brother who needs two hundred thousand dollars for a T-cell transplant,” I answered, picking up the antiseptic wash and a fresh roll of sterile cotton. “That makes me far more dangerous than someone with a death wish. Roll onto your left side. I need to check the lumbar drain.”
Liam didn't move for three seconds. Then, with a low, guttural grunt of agony that he couldn't entirely swallow, he braced his upper body and shifted his weight onto his uninjured hip.
As he moved, the sheet slipped further down, revealing a network of older scars across his broad back—knife marks, bullet entry points, and burns that told the violent story of a lifetime spent in the underworld.
“Who did this to you?” I asked before I could stop myself, gently cleaning the area around the drain tube in his lower back.
“People who thought they could bury me,” Liam murmured, his forehead resting against the pillows as he breathed through the sharp pain of the movement. “They missed by two inches.”
“Well,” I said, securing the sterile dressing with medical tape, “their bad aim bought you enough time to meet me. Lie back down.”
He settled back onto the pillows, breathing hard, a thin sheen of sweat covering his forehead. But for the first time since I had arrived, he didn't demand that the curtains be closed.
He simply stared up at the high ceiling, watching the golden light wash over the carved plaster, feeling the warmth settle over his chilled skin.
“What is your brother’s name?” he asked quietly.
I stopped wrapping the used gauze. I looked at him in surprise.
“Tommy,” I said softly. “His name is Tommy. He’s nine.”
Liam turned his head toward the window, looking out over the sprawling green lawn of the estate for the first time in sixty days.
“He must be a fighter,” Liam whispered.
May you like
“He is,” I replied. “He doesn't give up. And neither do I.”
Liam didn't reply, but as I sat back down in the armchair with my book, I noticed that his hands were no longer clenched into fists.
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