Chapter 82
**Torin POV**
The doctor rests the stethoscope around her neck.
“So we’re all good?” I ask the lady doc.
“I’m fine,” Hadassah interposes, annoyance ringing in her tone.
“Do you have a medical degree?” I ask with matched annoyance. “No, okay, so I’d like to hear that from the person that does.”
“Torin.” Even though my name is lathered with aggravation, my heart is still aflutter. “You have had Doctor Bashar come in here, almost every day. It doesn’t take a medical degree to prove that my condition has improved,” she says, gesturing to her face.
The swelling has gone down to reveal that unsurpassed bone structure. The bruises that tarnish her skin are yellowy and well faded. Doctor Bashar watches us with an amused expression, smiling amiably.
“Her vitals signs are good, and the cracked rib is healing nicely,” she reports.
She gives me a pointed look. “I’ve had many of them to know when they are.”
That fact tugs at a foreign place inside me.
On cue, Abu swaggers inside, matching his headgear with a billowy, virgin-white garment. He sweeps his arms open in a welcoming motion. Doctor Bashar collects her bag, exchanging a smile with Hadassah before she moves to meet Abu in the entranceway of our chalet. They trade curt but courteous words before Doctor Bashar bows her head to him, almost in deference before she departs.
“Miss Moor, are you ready?”
She pins an alarmed look on me. “For what?”
Abu hands me an exasperated sigh, irritated but not surprised. “Of course, he’s going to make me tell you. He booked you for an island extravaganza tour, including a full body spa treatment, retail shopping and a lavish dinner cresting the high hill. A day every woman would envy.”
Hadassah’s face ferments, contorting into a look of hideous loathing.
“My best friend is missing. I am being hunted by two criminal syndicates and intelligence agencies worldwide are likely branding me a traitor.” She levels me with a violent glare. “And you want me to go shopping?”
My hands fly to my shoulders. “I only want to help you unwind—”
She grabs the nearest object and hurls it at my head. I duck and it explodes on the wall behind me, shards scattering everywhere. Abu pulls a panicked look before he swivels around and silently tiptoes out of the chalet, leaving me alone to survive this myself.
“I can’t believe you!” she screams at me. “Can you take anything seriously in your life? Don’t you get that you can just throw money at shit and it’ll just go away. No lavish treatments that can mend what can never be restored—or heal what is forever broken. So stop treating me like I’m delicate—the pieces are already shattered!”
“Can I take anything seriously?” I repeat, my mind still dwelling on the depth of that inconsideration. Anger grabs me, its grip blistering. “You know what I took seriously: when you got shot, when you got assaulted, and when you got taken,” I list in a litany. “I have to look out for you because you can’t seem to do it for your fucking self!”
She whips back around with enlarged eyes brimming with outrage.
“Because I brought this on myself, yeah?” She launches herself at me with a shocking force that sends me back stumbling. “None of this would have happened if you never took me.”
Rage ripples through me and I meet her force in kind. “If I hadn’t, you would be dead twice over. The perils orbiting you are that of your own choices. Your own making. So don’t blame me for trying to save you from your biggest threat,” I yell back with the cords in my voice strained. “You.”
She gapes at me, her hands balling, fingers itching for a fight.
“What, you're going to hit me?” I ask way too provokingly. “Just like Orian, always resorting to violence. Why don’t you sit down before you hurt yourself again.”
I turn my back on her.
“Torin,” she says ruefully.
I sigh jadedly, turning back around. “What?”
An explosive moment later, I’m on one knee with my head whipped to the side, the one side of my face stinging. My head straightens and my eyes glide up slowly to meet her wrathful gaze.
“You should worry more about yourself getting hurt. Speak to me like that again and the name ‘Torin Moon’ becomes an afterthought.”
My brows quirk at the bravado. I shoot up to propel her in the air with her half on my shoulder before I pound her onto the armchair that scrapes against the floorboards. Her foot strikes my stomach and I fumble back, and in that span—she rushes back to me and unleashes a barrage, fluid and fatal as I almost struggle to keep up as unbridled, boundless fury fuels her force.
“The name ‘Torin Moon’ is etched on the tablet of your destiny,” I say in half-gasping sentences, evading her flurry of attacks. “As it is in mine. Your name that summons a faceless fear, a name that unravels the heavens, a force that makes the ends of the earth tremble.”
She holds back to ask one question. “Then why? If I’m so much trouble, why don’t you just cut your losses and feed me to Santos.”
I don’t know if I want to kiss her or kill her.
“You are infuriating,” I say with gritted teeth, anger pulsing with every breath. “Not even you cannot be that thick-headed. Why have I done any of it?” I throw back. “Why did I first salvage you from Gaza? Because the moment you strutted into my office. I knew that you were worth saving. Fuck, do you want to spell it out of you? Orian took a bullet for you, but I have gone against the world for you. Anything to see anything other than revile and resentment in your eyes when you look at me.”
A touch of softness before her face hardens once more. I brace for another attack. She lashes out and she grabs the collar of my jacket, wrenching me close. On their own while, my hands slide down the sumptuous sides of her body as our bodies are drawn close in a heated flush.
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