Rainbows & Unicorns, Meets the Don.

Manhattan, 11:47 PM.

The private emergency wing of the hospital was unusually quiet, the kind of silence that seemed to press against the walls and settle into the corners like dust.

Adrian sat on the edge of the examination bed, dressed in an expensive black shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, the fabric clinging to his skin where blood had already begun to dry. A fresh cut ran along his knuckles, another wound cutting across his side, and the blood had already stained the fabric beyond saving. He looked completely unimpressed by the situation, as though the wounds were nothing more than a minor inconvenience in a day already filled with far more interesting problems.

The hospital staff had been nervous around him since he arrived, their voices dropping to whispers whenever they passed the examination room, their eyes darting toward him and then quickly away. Everyone seemed to know his name—or at least enough about it to know they shouldn’t ask questions.

Adrian didn’t care about any of it. He hated hospitals with a passion that bordered on irrational, he hated waiting with a patience that had been worn thin years ago, and he especially hated being touched by strangers who thought their hands on his skin was some kind of privilege.

The door opened, and he lifted his eyes.

She walked in carrying a tray of medical supplies, her movements unhurried and her expression entirely unreadable. She was small—barely five foot two—with a petite frame that made her look almost fragile at first glance. Her features held the distinct, delicate beauty of East Asian descent, most likely Korean or Japanese, with high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes the color of green—a shade so rare for someone of her heritage that it caught Adrian off guard, and to him, it was beautiful.

Her gaze was sharp and intelligent, missing nothing. Her hair, the colour of midnight, was pulled back into a neat, practical ponytail, with a few stray strands escaping to frame her face. There was no nervous glance, no hesitation in her step, and no recognition that made her expression change in any way. She simply looked at him, checked the wound with a quick, professional assessment, and began preparing the instruments on the tray beside her.

Adrian watched her silently, his dark eyes tracking every movement she made, and something stirred in his chest that he couldn’t quite name.

Interesting, he thought. Most people became uncomfortable under his stare, their skin prickling with the weight of his attention until they fidgeted or looked away or started talking just to fill the silence. She didn’t do any of that. She didn’t even seem particularly interested in who he was, which was so unusual that it almost offended him.

When she finally reached for his injured side, Adrian’s fingers closed slightly before she could touch it, his grip firm but not painful. “Careful,” he said, his voice low and calm and edged with warning. His eyes remained fixed on hers, unblinking. “I don’t like people touching me.”

She looked at him then, her gaze traveling over his face with the same clinical detachment she might use to examine a wound, and something in her expression shifted into something that might have been amusement if it weren’t so sharp. “If you do not want someone to touch you while injured,” she said, her voice perfectly level, “I suggest you get your expensive maid or mistress to do it?”

There was a brief silence in which the only sound was the hum of the fluorescent lights overhead. Then the corner of his mouth lifted—not quite a smile, more like the ghost of one. His gaze dropped briefly to the stitches she was about to place before returning to her eyes. “Are you always this fearless, or do you simply have no idea who you’re dealing with?”

She looked squarely into his eyes with no fear at all and spoke in a voice that was calm and steady. “I know who you are, Mr. La Riko. And what you do. You are hardly ignored.” She lifted her chin slightly, a small gesture that spoke volumes. “But as a doctor, I see a patient who needs help. That is all. Even if you are Jesus or Buddha or the devil himself hurt and needed medical attention, I as a doctor would help.”

Something shifted behind his eyes. It wasn’t surprise, Adrian didn’t do surprises but something flickered there, brief as a match strike in a dark room, a micro-fracture in that wall of cold indifference he had spent years constructing. His jaw tightened and then relaxed, the muscles working beneath his skin as he processed her words.

He held perfectly still as the silence stretched between them, his wounded side still closed on the examination table, the fluorescent light catching the dried blood along his knuckles and the dark stain spreading beneath the ruined fabric at his side.

He studied her face the way a man studies a lock he hasn’t yet figured out how to pick, his gaze moving from her eyes to her mouth to the steady set of her shoulders. “The devil himself,” he murmured, almost to himself. His voice had dropped lower—not softer, but closer, as if the words were meant only for the narrow space between them.

The corner of his mouth did something that wasn’t quite a smile and wasn’t quite a threat. He uncurled his fingers slowly and deliberately, offering the wounded hand to her like a concession he rarely made. “Then stitch.” His dark eyes never left hers. “But know this”

He leaned forward, just enough that she could smell gunpowder residue beneath expensive cologne and iron beneath skin, his presence compressing the air around them into something heavier and more intimate. “Most people who claim they aren’t afraid of me are lying.” His gaze traced the angle of her lifted chin and lingered there. “You’re not lying.” A pause. His brow furrowed—barely, a shadow of something he buried before it fully formed. “That’s either very admirable,” he said quietly, “or very dangerous.” He opened his palm wider, waiting.

She turned her head to where he was whispering near her ear and looked at him, speaking calmly with an undercurrent of annoyance that she didn’t bother to hide. “Well, Mr. La Riko, you are right. Most people who claim they are not afraid are lying. But I am not those people. I have met more fearsome people than you. You are just an ant in my opinion.” Her voice didn’t waver. “Even if you decide to take my life because I do not fear you, I gladly hand it over on a gold plated, top it off with diamonds plate. So, before that, I would treat your wounds like any ordinary patients I have treated.” She set the medical tray hard on the table, showing that she meant business.

The metal tray hit the table with a sharp crack that echoed through the sterile room, and Adrian didn’t flinch. But something happened behind his eyes that was far more dangerous than anger. Interest. His head tilted a fraction, predatory, the way a wolf registers an unfamiliar sound in familiar territory, and the muscle along his jaw flexed once. His gaze stayed exactly where it had been—on her face, reading every micro-expression the way other men read contracts.

An ant, he thought, the word settling into his mind like a stone dropped into still water. The silence that followed was suffocating in its intensity, and then Adrian exhaled through his nose—quiet, controlled—and leaned back on the examination table. He planted one hand behind him in a posture that was deceptively casual, his bloodied shirt pulling taut across his chest, the wound at his side weeping fresh crimson from the movement even though he didn’t acknowledge it. “Gold plated,” he said slowly. “Diamond plate.” His tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek, and the ghost of something almost amused crossed his features before it vanished behind ice.

He fixed his stare on her with an intensity that had made powerful men confess things they swore they’d take to their graves. “No one has called me an ant before.” His voice was terrifyingly even. “Most wouldn’t dare.” He watched the overhead light catch the surgical needle between her fingers. “You’re either the bravest doctor in Manhattan—” His eyes darkened. “—or you’ve survived something that makes a man like me look ordinary.” He didn’t ask which. He simply watched her hands begin their work, and for the first time tonight, Adrian was genuinely paying attention.