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“Where's your head at?” Nikolai asks from his position by the window.

“I'm concentrating on reducing the bleeding,” I lie, reaching for fresh bandages.

“Please,” Dmitri scoffs. “You could suture a wound blindfolded. You've done it before.”

“That was an emergency?—”

“Everything's an emergency with you,” Alexi interrupts. “Remember when I got food poisoning from that sushi place? You practically quarantined me.”

“That sushi was sitting out for three hours in the summer heat,” I argue, taping down the new dressing. “You could have gotten salmonella, E. coli?—”

“See? Medical lecture,” Dmitri grins. “He can't help himself.”

Nikolai chuckles. “You made him take antibiotics for a hangover.”

“Preventative medicine is?—”

“Paranoid,” all three of them say in unison.

I shake my head, checking the tightness of the bandage one more time. The familiar rhythm of their teasing should be comforting, but my mind keeps drifting.

“Yes, doctor,” Dmitri says with exaggerated seriousness.

Alexi snorts. “He loves it when we call him that.”

“I do not?—”

“You literally smiled,” Nikolai observes.

“That wasn't a smile. That was—” I catch the slight upturn of my mouth in the reflection of the IV pole. “Shut up.”

Their laughter fills the medical wing, but I can't shake the hollow feeling in my chest.

The banter continues around me, but the words fade to background noise. My hands move automatically, checking Dmitri's pulse, adjusting his IV drip, and cataloging every detail of his recovery. Years of Spetsnaz field medical training made these motions second nature—one of the few useful skills I brought back from those dark years in Russian Special Forces.

My mind is lost in the kitchen where a woman with defiant green eyes challenged me over breakfast. It's in the library where she curled up with a book, completely absorbed.

“Erik?” Alexi's voice cuts through my thoughts. “You okay?”

I realize I've been standing motionless for a minute, holding a roll of medical tape like it contains the secrets of the universe.

“Fine,” I mutter, setting it down on the medical cart.

But I'm not fine. There's a hole where she used to be, an ache that settles deeper every hour she's gone. I keep catching myself expecting to turn a corner and find her there with that sharp smile that could cut glass.

The worst part is how empty everything feels now. My routine, my room, and even conversations with my brothers feel colorless. Like someone dimmed all the lights, and I'm just going through the motions.

I've never felt attached to a captive before. Honestly, I've never felt a strong attachment to anyone outside my family. But Katarina got under my skin, past every defense I've built. And now she's gone, back to her life where I'm just the enemy who held her prisoner.

“Earth to Erik,” Dmitri says, snapping his fingers. “Seriously, what's wrong with you?”

I force myself to focus on his face, pushing down the hollow ache in my chest. “Nothing. Just making sure you're not about to bleed out on my watch. Nothing's wrong with me,” I say again, more firmly this time.

Dmitri exchanges a look with Nikolai that I pretend not to notice. The kind of look that says they're communicating without words, the way brothers do when they've known each other their entire lives.

“You've checked my bandage four times in the last ten minutes,” Dmitri points out.

“Standard post-operative care requires?—”