Memorial Hospital : Victor's Hospital Room

The room reeked faintly of iron and medicine. Viktor lay half-propped against the headboard, a pallor spreading across his face like death's shadow.

A wet cough shook his chest, crimson spattering the cloth Damien pressed against his lips .

"Damn it…" Damien muttered, jaw clenched. "He's bleeding more again."

The others stood around the bed, eyes sunken with fatigue and fear. They had thought Viktor's injuries could be managed, that time was on their side.

But the truth was brutal... if he didn't get the medicine in three to five days, he would be gone.

Their initial estimates had been wrong. Horribly wrong.

Panic simmered in the air. Some clenched their fists until the knuckles went white, others paced restlessly in the cramped space.

"Damn that Alex!" Pavel finally burst out, voice trembling with anger and despair. "He fed us false hope! If he really cared, he would have..."

Tears pricked the eyes of some, and others' jaws tightened, knuckles whitening as helplessness threatened to swallow them whole. The room seemed to vibrate with their panic, every breath a struggle against the weight of inevitability.

"Enough." Viktor's hoarse voice cut through the tension like a frayed blade. He struggled upright, blood staining his lips, but his gaze was steady.

"He did not deceive us. If he hasn't brought the medicine… it means they did not give it to him. Even I wasn't certain. But it was our only chance."

The words left them shaken. Anger gave way to silence, but helplessness still weighed heavy in the air. Some looked away, ashamed, others bowed their heads.

Viktor's breathing came shallow, each inhale a battle. He closed his eyes for a moment before speaking again, his voice weaker but carrying authority.

His chest rattled as another cough tore through him, but his eyes snapped open, burning with a fragile, unyielding will.

"If I die…" He drew a ragged breath, each word scraped from his lungs. "…you will work with him. Do you understand?"

The words froze the room. They landed like stones dropped into a still pond, sending ripples of dread through every face present. No one wanted to hear them.

No one wanted to imagine a world without Viktor... but in that moment, they all knew he had accepted what they feared to admit.

Damien's hand tightened on Viktor's shoulder, knuckles white against the pale skin. "Don't say that..." His voice cracked, not from anger but from desperation.

Viktor's gaze cut to him, steady and grim despite the blood at his lips. "I must," he rasped. "You must listen. If I fall, he is your only path forward. Swear it to me."

Around the bed, no one spoke. Their eyes flicked between each other, searching for a denial, for hope, for anything. All they found was Viktor's unblinking stare, heavy with the weight of a dying man's command.

Damien swallowed hard, his throat working. "We… we swear," he said quietly, and the others nodded, one by one, the sound of their assent soft but binding.

Viktor exhaled, a sound halfway between relief and pain. His head leaned back against the headboard, but his fingers dug weakly into Damien's sleeve, still unwilling to release control entirely.

But before Victor could add another word, a sharp knock broke the tension.

Every head turned. The sound echoed unnaturally loud in the suffocating silence .

Damien's eyes narrowed. He glanced at Dimitri.

"Open it."

Dimitri hesitated, then pulled the door wide.

And there he was.

Alex stood in the doorway, calm, tall, the faintest smile tugging at his lips. The light from the corridor framed him, throwing his shadow deep into the room.

For a heartbeat, no one moved. Eyes widened. Breaths hitched. The atmosphere shifted... panic collided with shock, helplessness with sudden, dangerous hope.

Even Viktor, coughing blood, felt his chest tighten at the sight. His men had been drowning in despair.

Now, as Alex stepped inside, it was as though someone had thrown open a window in a suffocating tomb.

"Gentlemen," Alex said quietly, his voice carrying easily through the silence. "I hope I'm not too late."

Alex reached into his jacket with deliberate precision, and what he withdrew made every man in the room freeze.

The vial seemed to capture light that didn't exist in the sterile hospital room. Neither glass nor crystal, it held the luminescence of captured starlight.

The liquid inside shifted colors... from deep gold to silver to hues that had no earthly names... pulsing with its own inner radiance.

The men stared in stunned silence. None of them had ever seen anything like it.

"What is that?" Damien whispered, his voice barely audible.

Alex held the vial up, letting the impossible light dance across the walls. "Your miracle, if you want it."

Viktor struggled to focus on the ethereal container, his eyes widening despite his weakened condition. "That's... that's not possible. Medicine doesn't look like that. It's not... we don't drink healing compounds. They're always injected. Always."

"This isn't like anything your people have," Alex said calmly. "Trust me."

Viktor's trained eye studied the vial with growing disbelief. In fifteen years serving House Blackthorne, he'd seen their most advanced healing serums.

Military-grade compounds that could mend bones in days, neutralize most toxins within hours. But they all came in standard medical containers, with precise dosage instructions for injection.

This... this was something else entirely.

"I've never seen anything like this," Viktor said slowly, his voice carrying both wonder and suspicion. "House Blackthorne don't have technology that produces... this."

He gestured weakly at the vial. "And the administration method... drinking healing compounds is dangerous. The digestive system breaks down most active ingredients before they can reach the bloodstream effectively. It's why everything is injected directly."

Damien stepped closer, studying the impossible vessel. "Viktor's right. This doesn't match any medical protocol we know."

Alex's smile didn't waver. "Because it's not from any protocol you know. This comes from a source that makes your House look like children playing with toy chemistry sets."

The claim was so outrageous it should have been dismissed immediately. But the evidence floated in his hand... liquid light in a container that shouldn't exist.

This comes from a source nobody knows… he decided to keep it a mystery and let them think it was Blackwood.

"And it will be good for you guys to not say a single word about it... or don't even discuss it anywhere, ever," he warned, his tone sharp and measured.

They knew the gravity of it, and each nodded.

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