Two hours later:
Dominic sat there, unblinking. His shoulders were rigid in the chair that had molded itself around his frame after endless nights.
His hand remained on hers, unmoving, and heavy with the kind of devotion that had long crossed the line between loyalty and obsession.
Machines filled the silence with their cruel reminder. It reminded him that she breathes, she lives, but she does not wake.
He hated them. Every beep, and every steady rhythm mocked him. They were proof that she was alive, yes, but also proof she was trapped somewhere he could not reach, no matter how far his power stretched.
For a man who could summon wars with a phone call, and who could bend empires with a word, this helplessness was a prison worse than death.
He leaned forward, his thumb dragging slowly, and endlessly, over her knuckles. The same motion he'd been repeating for eight nights straight.
