Seraphina POV
I had just closed my work computer when the door was pushed open with such force that the frame shook. The noise alone made my heart beat faster, but what I saw next made me freeze.
A man tall, with wide shoulders, and good-looking in a scary way stumbled into the room. His shirt was completely red with blood. New blood. My brain took in the details before I could react: breathing steadily but getting weaker, skin getting paler, one hand pushing hard against his left side.
A bullet wound.
He wasn't supposed to be here. No one who needed medical help came in like this. No regular person should be bleeding like this. But when he looked up, our eyes met blue meeting blue and something inside me just knew what to do. Not fear. Not panic.
A natural reaction.
"Sit," I said, moving quickly before I even thought about helping him.
He made a quiet noise but didn't fight it, falling into the chair by my desk. I locked the office door with shaky hands, grabbed my first-aid kit, and knelt down next to him. I wasn't officially allowed to practice medicine not really but I knew enough to know what to do. Enough experience to save his life.
"This is going to hurt," I told him.
His lips curved slightly. "Do your worst… Seraphina."
I stopped moving.
I never told him my name.
Before I could ask him anything, his eyes closed. The hand that was holding his wound fell away, and he leaned forward. Unconscious.
"Great," I mumbled, making myself focus. "A stranger knows my name and is bleeding all over the place."
I treated the wound fast cleaning it, taking out a bullet that thankfully hadn't hit anything important, carefully stitching the skin back together. My hands moved on their own, my breathing steady even though I had so many questions. Criminal? Victim? Killer? How did he know me?
I got no answers.
When I finally finished with the bandage, I felt completely drained. My knees felt weak, my body buzzing with leftover adrenaline. He moved a little, his head falling against my shoulder.
Up close, he looked younger. More gentle. Almost like a… boy. Like the hardness he showed disappeared when he was asleep. I shouldn't have stared. I really shouldn't have followed the sharp line of his jaw with my eyes or looked at the dark eyelashes on his high cheekbones.
But I did it anyway.
And somehow, with his weight warm against me and the office lights getting dimmer, my eyes closed as well.
I don't know how long I slept.
But I knew exactly what woke me up.
BANG!
A gunshot.
I sat up quickly, my heart pounding. Another shot rang through the silence. Then another one. I gasped as I moved without thinking I pulled myself and the stranger behind my desk, crouching down low. The small wooden desk wouldn't stop a bullet, but it made me feel safer.
Men's voices echoed in the hallway. Loud footsteps. The sound of metal weapons.
Too close.
I put my hand over my mouth, trying to be quiet as figures went past the blurry glass of my office door. Three. Or maybe four figures. They were moving fast. Like they had a plan.
Looking for someone.
Looking for him.
The door swung open with force.
I stopped breathing as things went crazy on the other side of the desk fast, rough movements, bodies hitting things, the quick sound of a knife or a quiet gunshot. I looked just enough to see something unbelievable:
The man I was just holding was on his feet awake fighting with deadly, practiced skill.
Two men with guns attacked him at the same time.
Two men with guns fell to the ground.
He didn't even seem tired.
The men struggled back to their feet again, and he didn't waste time lunging at them.
The first man tried fixing something on his own gun and didn't realize when the man I had just helped clean his wound, sent a punch his way, finally knocking him out.
The second attacker noticed this and tossed his weapon away and instead relied on his own hands and tried sending a couple of punches his way, but they were all parried away.
I covered my mouth harder, shocked by what was happening. Who was he?
When the last attacker fell, it finally became quiet. My heart wouldn't slow down.
Then… he turned around.
His blue eyes looked right at me like he knew where I was hiding the whole time. He spoke quietly, strangely calm for someone who just killed two men in less than a minute.
"Seraphina," he said softly. "You can come out now."
A cold feeling went down my back. "How do you know my name?" I whispered, slowly standing up from behind the desk.
His lips moved a little like he was amused and like this was going to happen. "Because I picked you a long time ago."
I gasped quietly. "Picked me for what?"
He walked closer. Too close. He was all around me in the office, taking up the air, the space, and my ability to think clearly.
"Ranon Vescari," he told me, his voice smooth, strong, not bothered by the bodies on the floor.
The name hit me hard one I'd heard before. In whispers. In crime reports. In rumors that no one talked about. The Vescari family was more than just powerful.
They were very dangerous.
My heart was pounding in my ears. "Why are you here?"
He smiled more, and something scary showed in his eyes. "Because you're going to help me, Seraphina. Whether you wanted to or not."
He got his phone, called someone named JK and told him to "clean up the mess."
And as I stood there, with blood and chaos all around, one thing became very clear to
me:
My life had just changed.
And absolutely nothing would ever be the same after meeting Ranon Vescari.