The early morning sun had barely pierced through the shutters of the Grefo estate when Dorrent stepped out into the corridor. His tall, massive frame was trapped in a disorganized state—his shirt unbuttoned, hanging loosely off his broad, muscular shoulders, and his dark hair fell messily across his forehead, his eyes still cloudy from the lingering weight of a restless sleep. He had been plagued by her defiant words all night, his pathways constantly processing the maddening biological puzzle of her lineage.

As he walked past Jannah’s bedroom suite, a faint sound from inside caught his attention. It was a rapid, shallow, and agonizing wheeze.

Dorrent’s instincts instantly spiked. He threw the door open, his eyes narrowing into sharp slits as he marched toward the bed. The sight that met his gaze completely shattered the remnants of his morning grogginess.

Jannah was curled into a tight, desperate fetal position beneath the sheets, her entire body shivering and shaking with a violent, uncontrollable tremor. Her skin, which had shown a promising, healthy progress just yesterday evening, was now a sickening, translucent shade of gray-white. Her pale lips were split and parched, and a layer of sweat coated her forehead. She was clawing at the blankets with her left hand, her chest heaving as she let out low, broken whines of physical discomfort.

"Jannah!" Dorrent growled, his deep voice dropping into a panicked register as he instantly stepped to the edge of the mattress. He slammed his palm against her forehead, and his hand recoiled slightly from the volcanic heat radiating from her skull. Her fever had skyrocketed. "What the hell happened to your system? You were perfectly stable twelve hours ago."

Jannah didn’t answer. Her dark eyes were rolled back slightly, her consciousness entirely submerged in a sea of delirium as the violent tremors continued to rack her fragile, broken frame.

Dorrent didn’t waste a single micro-second. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his smartphone, frantically dialing the private number of Miss Belle.

"The subscriber you are trying to reach is currently switched off. Please try again later."

"Dammit!" Dorrent cursed fiercely, a dangerous growl ripping from his chest as he violently shoved the device back into his pocket.

Without a shred of hesitation, Dorrent bent down and ripped the heavy blankets away. He slid his powerful arms beneath Jannah’s shivering, naked legs and upper back, hoisting her fragile frame up in a sudden bridal carry. He didn’t even care that he was half-dressed, his unbuttoned shirt billowing behind him as he kicked the bedroom doors open and ran down the marble corridor toward the adjacent luxury wing.

"Shadron! Get your pathetic ass out here right now!" Dorrent roared, his voice booming across the grand architecture of the mansion like a localized thunderstorm.

A split second later, the door to the neighboring suite flew open, and Shadron Valerius stumbled out into the hallway, hastily pulling a designer robe over his shoulders, his silver hair completely uncombed. "What the fuck, Dorrent?! Why the hell are you screaming at—"

Shadron’s voice cut off instantly as his eyes locked onto the shivering, half-dead girl cradled inside Dorrent’s iron grip. The heavy, sweet smell of her omega distress pheromones was suffocating, filling the hallway with the scent of burning floral nectar.

"We are heading to the Upper District Hospital this exact second," Dorrent commanded, his silver eyes flashing with a predatory light that made his S-tier Alpha authority expand down the corridor. "Go to the lower garage and start the armored transport. Now!"

Shadron didn’t ask a single stupid question. Recognizing the lethal, volatile state of his billionaire friend, he spun on his heel and sprinted down the grand staircase toward the lower levels of the estate. Dorrent followed right behind him, his shoes pounding against the steps, his arms tightening around Jannah’s trembling frame as he fought to keep her internal temperature from completely cooking her organs.

The drive through the districts was a blur of high-speed violence. Shadron tore through the automated traffic grids, the armored transport’s engine roaring as it swerved past luxury sedans, eventually slamming to a violent halt right in front of the emergency bay of the Upper District Hospital.

The moment the vehicle stopped, Dorrent kicked the passenger door open, sprinting through the glass sliding doors with Jannah in his arms.

"Get your chief of medicine out here this exact second!" Dorrent barked at the intake desk, his frame radiating such a suffocating, terrifying wave of winter-frost pheromones that the automated security droids and clinical staff instantly froze in biological terror. "If this girl’s heart stops under this roof, I will personally pull my entire funding from this district and dismantle this facility piece by piece!"

Within thirty seconds, a full trauma team of surgeons and specialists rushed into the lobby with a high-tech mobile stabilization gurney. They carefully transferred Jannah’s shivering, sweat-soaked frame onto the padding, immediately hooking her up to portable automated diagnostic monitors that began to beep in a series of chaotic, red-alert frequencies. Dorrent stood like an immovable, furious titan in the center of the corridor, his unbuttoned shirt stained with her cold sweat, his silver eyes tracking the gurney until it completely disappeared behind the reinforced, double-sterile doors of the intensive surgical theater.

Two hours crawled by in absolute, suffocating silence. Dorrent refused to sit down, pacing back and forth across the pristine tile floor like a caged panther, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fists in his pockets. Shadron stood lean against the far wall, his expression serious and calculating as he watched his best friend spiral deeper into a toxic, possessive madness.

Finally, the electronic seal on the surgical doors hissed open, and the Chief of Medical Trauma, a senior Beta doctor with decades of experience, stepped out into the hallway. His face was entirely pale, his brow furrowed in a line of extreme confusion as he pulled off his surgical gloves.

Dorrent instantly closed the distance, his massive frame completely crowding the doctor’s space. "What is her baseline metric?" Dorrent demanded, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that carried a dangerous edge. "Why the hell did her system collapse after showing progress yesterday?"

The doctor swallowed hard, adjusting his glasses as he looked up at the tech tycoon. "Alpha Grefo... we have successfully stabilized her internal temperature for the next few hours, but the reality of her condition is exceptionally critical. When we opened her bandages to inspect her surgical site, we discovered that her bullet wound has become infected. Her tissue is undergoing a rapid, cellular degradation."

Dorrent’s jaw tightened until a sharp muscle twitched against his cheek. "An infection? She was under a sterile home care protocol with a premium specialist. How the hell does a standard entry wound develop an infection that fast?"

"Because it is not a standard bacterial infection, sir," the doctor explained, his voice shaking slightly as he held up a digital tablet containing Jannah’s cellular blood scans. "Our deep molecular analytics have just revealed that the bullet that struck her body was coated in a highly sophisticated, slow-acting synthetic toxin. It is a specialized, military-grade chemical agent designed to remain dormant within the host’s bloodstream for the first forty-eight hours, mimicking a standard recovery, before completely activating to melt the surrounding internal organs from the inside out." 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

The doctor let out an exhausted, terrified sigh, shaking his head. "The most catastrophic part is... we absolutely cannot tell what specific kind of poison it is. The chemical structure is completely anomalous—it has been engineered to mask its molecular footprint. Our laboratory teams are running every single diagnostic script to identify the base compound, but as of this second, we do not have a match. And without a precise identification, it is completely impossible for us to provide a targeted cure or synthesize an antidote. If the toxin finishes its replication cycle, her omega biology will suffer a system failure within twenty-four hours."

Dorrent’s eyes swamped with an absolute, terrifying void of fury. He reached out, his fingers clamping onto the doctor’s shoulder with enough strength to make the man’s bones groan.

"Listen to me perfectly clear," Dorrent hissed, his voice dropping into a flat, demonic register that froze the air in the corridor. "You will deploy every single resource, every automated lab script, and every high-district scientist under your payroll to keep her system breathing. Do everything you can to make sure she comes around. If her monitor goes flat, your career ends along with her."

Without waiting for the doctor’s response, Dorrent spun on his heel and marched down the hospital corridor, his footsteps echoing with finality.

"Where the hell are you going, Dorrent?!" Shadron shouted, sprinting down the hallway to keep pace with the tycoon’s aggressive strides.

"To find the source of the virus," Dorrent barked, his face a mask of execution as they reached the elevator bay. "We are heading down to the lower sectors right now."

Twenty minutes later, the vehicle tore out of the exclusive high districts, diving straight into the dark, crumbling concrete gridlock of the lower slums. The car crossed the borders into the crime-ridden territory, its tires kicking up loose gravel and trash as Dorrent directed Shadron straight toward the impoverished sectors of the Third Street.

The vehicle slammed to a screeching halt directly in front of a small, dilapidated concrete building displaying a faded, flickering neon sign: Third Street Charity Medical Clinic.

Dorrent kicked the door open before the vehicle had even fully stopped. He marched into the small, crowded waiting room, entirely ignoring the impoverished lower-district omegas and injured betas who shrank back in terror from the suffocating, aggressive wave of winter-frost pheromones that rolled off his massive frame. He kicked the wooden swinging doors leading to the private examination rooms clean off their hinges, his silver eyes flashing with a lethal, murderous light as he scanned the interior.

In the central bay, Damian Boren was standing over a stainless-steel counter, manually sorting through a box of antibiotics. His white lab coat was immaculate, his eyes calm until the sudden, violent destruction of his front doors made his entire posture go rigid.

Damian slowly turned around, his eyes narrowing as he recognized the towering, furious billionaire standing in his clinic. "What the hell is the meaning of this invasion, Alpha Grefo?" Damian asked, his voice dropping into a defensive register. "This is a sanctified medical facility for the poor. You have absolutely no legal right to—"

Before Damian could finish his sentence, Dorrent launched his massive torso forward. With a sudden, terrifying burst of speed, he closed the distance between them, his hands shooting out like striking vipers. He brutally grabbed Damian by the collars of his shirt and white lab coat, lifting the young doctor off his feet and slamming his spine violently against the heavy steel medication cabinets behind him.

CLANG!

The metal doors rattled from the immense impact, several glass vials crashing to the floor and shattering into tiny pieces. Damian let out a gasp of air as his breath was knocked out of his lungs, but his eyes immediately flared with an intense, stubborn defiance as his own Alpha pheromones exploded in the small room to counter Dorrent’s suffocating pressure.

"You speak to me right now, you pathetic gutter-doctor!" Dorrent roared, his face mere inches from Damian’s, his jaw clenching with an absolute, dangerous fury that vibrated through the entire clinic. "What the hell did your people do to that bullet?! What did you coat the metal with?!"

Damian’s face went tense with a mixture of shock and burning anger. He reached up, his fingers clamping around Dorrent’s iron wrists, trying to pry the billionaire’s bruising grip off his coat. "What the hell are you talking about, you lunatic?! Loose your grip on me!"

"Don’t play dumb with me, Boren!" Dorrent hissed, his voice a low, terrifying rasp that carried a chilling finality. He shoved Damian harder against the steel cabinet, his knuckles digging into the doctor’s throat. " I know that bullet was fired by your father’s syndicate enforcers! And I just found out from the hospital that the bullet was coated in a slow-acting, synthetic poison that is currently melting Jannah’s internal organs! Tell me exactly what poison was on that metal, or I will paint the walls of this clinic with your blood!"

The exact millisecond the words left Dorrent’s lips, Damian’s entire frame went rigid. His eyes widened in shock, the defensive anger vanishing from his features, replaced by a sudden, terrifying wave of genuine horror as he processed the information.

"What... poisoned?!" Damian gasped out, his voice cracking with a sudden, raw panic as his mind flashed to his father’s chilling words from the night before about the absolute necessity of ruthlessness in the underground. "No... no, that’s impossible! Are you crazy, Grefo?! How the hell could I ever orchestrate a hit like that? Jannah is my girlfriend! I love her with everything I have! Why would I ever shoot my own woman with a poisoned bullet?!"

"Because your monstrous father Bellero doesn’t give a damn about your feelings!" Dorrent countered instantly, his silver eyes flaring withmadness as he tightened his grip around Damian’s throat, cutting off his oxygen. "He deployed those hitmen to eliminate me from the picture, and he utilized his chemical arsenal to ensure complete execution! I don’t care about your family drama, Boren! Jannah has less than twenty-four hours to live! Tell me exactly what poison your father uses for these contracts, and tell me where the hell the antidote is right now!"

Damian’s chest heaved violently as he fought for breath against the billionaire’s ironclad leverage. He looked into Dorrent’s bloodshot silver eyes and recognized the terrifying truth—the tech tycoon wasn’t bluffing. Jannah was dying.

"Listen to me, Grefo... let go of my throat and calm down!" Damian choked out, his eyes flashing with a sudden clarity as his medical brain kicked into overdrive to save the woman he loved. He stopped struggling against Dorrent’s wrists, his voice dropping into an intense, desperate plea. "If she is under a synthetic agent from the Boren syndicate, my father’s lab is the only place on this earth that holds the genetic key. If you actually want to save her life, if you need that antidote before her system collapses... you need to calm the hell down right now, loose your grip, and let us have a talk."