Paying My Father's Debt

Chapter 17:

Mary woke in silence.

The soft light filtering through gauzy curtains made the room look surreal, like she was floating somewhere between sleep and the world she no longer trusted. Her body ached in strange places — not from pain, but from exhaustion so deep it felt like it lived in her bones.

She shifted slightly.

Felicity sat beside the bed, as poised as ever, a tray of untouched tea on the side table. Her hands were folded in her lap, her expression unreadable.

Mary blinked at her. “Where is he?”

Felicity’s eyes met hers. No hesitation. “In the hospital. His condition is critical.”

The words were knives — clean, precise, and buried deep.

Mary didn’t wait. She was out of the bed before Felicity could stop her. She pulled on a coat over her ruined wedding dress — the bloodstained silk clinging to her legs — and demanded the car. No guards. No questions. Just the destination.

When she entered the hospital room, her breath caught in her throat.

William lay still. Too still.

The crisp white sheets were stained with red beneath him. Tubes and wires snaked out of his arms. Machines beeped rhythmically, keeping a fragile thread between him and the other side.

His face was pale, more boyish than she remembered, stripped of power, control, menace. His jaw slackened in sleep. No mask. No fire. Just a man who nearly died for her.

He didn’t look like a monster.

He looked… peaceful.

And it unsettled her more than any threat he’d ever whispered.

Mary stepped closer, drawn to the contradiction of it — the man who had dragged her to hell and then used his own body as a shield to keep her from harm. She stared at him, torn in two, heart stuttering.

She remembered the way he’d looked at her at the altar. Like she was something sacred. Something real.

But that wasn’t the same man who had touched her like she was a possession, a punishment.

So which version of him was real?

What did he actually feel for her?

Did he even know?

Mary reached out, barely touching his hand — the knuckles still bruised, the skin rough from a life built on violence.

“I don’t understand you,” she whispered.

Behind her, the door creaked open. She turned and stifled a scream.

Ben stood in the doorway, eyes hollow, suit wrinkled, gun in hand.

“It’s time, my dear Mary,” he said quietly. “Now we kill the bastard and you’re free.”