Chapter 51

Dolly, who had been observing in silence, suddenly roared, “Who asks before hugging someone?”

Cherriot’s sobbing stopped instantly at the unexpected shout.

Ah. Thank God. Unlike Yuri, Dolly apparently knew exactly how to comfort him. Yuri looked at her with visible gratitude, but Dolly only met his eyes and furrowed her gray brows as though he were utterly hopeless. Ignoring her, Yuri turned his attention back to Cherriot.

I never imagined watching you cry would hurt this much.

Facing a despair and pain unlike anything he had ever experienced, Yuri continued stroking Cherriot’s shoulders. Cherriot, his tears briefly halted, spoke with the petulance of a child. “Aren’t you going to hug me?”

Yuri belatedly understood that permission had been granted, and his face brightened. His rigid expression softened as he carefully wrapped his arms around Cherriot’s shoulders, taking care not to press their upper bodies fully together because of the blood.

“If I pull you too close, I might lose control of my strength like before and hurt you,” Cherriot murmured. “You have to be the one holding me.”

Within Yuri’s embrace, Cherriot wrapped his arms around Yuri’s back with desperate care, his voice cracked from crying.

Yuri found the sound so pitiful that he nodded, agreeing automatically. “All right.”

“It hurts terribly, doesn’t it? There’s far more blood than when your forearm was injured,” Cherriot wept. “I’m sorry, Yuri. I’m so sorry. You were hurt because of me. This happened because I dragged you into it.”

“No.” Yuri could not agree to that. “This was my choice. You have no reason to blame yourself.”

“But… ” Cherriot sighed painfully and reached out, touching only the tips of his fingers to the bloodied wound before instantly pulling them away. His breathing grew ragged, on the verge of panic. “It looks so painful… ”

Sensing something was wrong, Yuri pulled back slightly to study him. Cherriot had gone unnaturally pale, his eyes slipping out of focus as raw fear filled his green irises. Yuri’s heart dropped.

Because Cherriot always smiled or recovered quickly enough to tease him again, Yuri had failed to notice the deep terror his partner harbored—like the way he waited anxiously outside whenever Yuri spent too long in the bathroom. Though Yuri didn’t know exactly how the two things connected, they had to be tied to Cherriot’s loathing of criminals. Frowning, Yuri hurried to move Cherriot back and cover the wound.

At that moment, the door to Cherriot’s room flew open. “Dolly, what happened?”

Yuri raised his head toward the unfamiliar male voice, glaring at the stranger with open hostility. The man emerging from the room stopped and glared right back. The thick, aggressive pheromones flooding the space made it immediately clear that he, too, was an Alpha. With curly red hair swept partly backward, he looked older than Yuri but shorter than Cherriot.

“What the hell is this?” the man demanded, surveying the living room with a deeply displeased expression before striding toward Cherriot.

Yuri tightened his hand around Cherriot’s trembling shoulder, drawing him defensively into his own arms. The stranger glared viciously at him. “Cherry, close your eyes immediately. Dolly, what were you doing while Cherry reached this state? You know he has attacks when he sees severe wounds.”

The man appeared entirely accustomed to managing this. At the word attacks, Yuri’s grip instinctively loosened. The moment Yuri released him, the man stepped in to support Cherriot from behind, covering his eyes. Seeing someone else soothe Cherriot with such practiced familiarity ignited a territorial fire inside Yuri. Having never seen another person touch Cherriot so intimately, a dizzying rage filled his mind. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to snatch Cherriot back. He had just learned that his own wound was the catalyst for Cherriot’s instability—how could he hold him now?

Yuri hadn’t known. He had never imagined Cherriot would react so severely to injuries. Because Cherriot was a professional athlete who wrapped bandages with practiced, steady hands, Yuri had never guessed wounds could affect him this way. A heavy wave of self-loathing struck him at his own carelessness.

While Yuri stood frozen, unable to touch him and staring down the intruder instead, Dolly clicked her tongue from behind them. “Benji, Cherry is no longer a child who requires your protection. That was a moment you should not have interrupted.”

“Why? What kind of moment was it?”

The man, it seemed, was named Benji.

As Yuri silently turned the name over in his mind and decided he thoroughly disliked it, Cherriot recovered his senses. He pulled Benji’s hand away from his eyes. “Dolly is right. Stop. I’m fine.” Because Benji was shorter, Cherriot had been stooping slightly to accommodate him. He straightened to his full height, pushed the man away, and stepped free.

Benji frowned, looking between Yuri, Cherriot, and Dolly. “What kind of moment?”

“Yuri was injured because of me, so I should be the one treating him,” Cherriot explained, his voice stabilizing. “He was acting according to my wishes, and my reaction just now was completely involuntary. So relax, Benji.”

“He was hurt because of you?” Benji processed Cherriot’s words, then shot Yuri a contemptuous look. “Is this the bodyguard you mentioned?”

Yuri realized that this man, like Dolly, must be one of the trusted guardians who had protected Cherriot since childhood—the backup expected within ten days. Their premature arrival was unsettling, but Benji’s immediate hostility posed a much sharper problem. For some reason, he seemed…

“The bodyguard with the criminal record you were explicitly told to stay away from?”

…exactly like a man who saw straight through the ugly past Yuri had desperately tried to conceal.

“Then you especially cannot allow yourself to be manipulated by someone like that,” Benji pressed. “Cherriot, of all people, you should know better than to pity a criminal. Think about me, dropping everything and taking a leave of absence because I heard you hired a man with a suspicious past. Think about your mother, who can’t sleep a single peaceful night without Dolly nearby—”

The instant Benji raised his voice, all expression vanished from Cherriot’s face. A violent wave of angry pheromones rolled off him like a storm. Benji apparently realized his mistake and shut his mouth.

Tension settled over the living room like a sheet of thin ice.

Cherriot spoke into the sharp silence. “I know you care about me sincerely, Benji. But Yuri is not someone you may speak to in that manner. Beyond everything else, I don’t see how being rude to a man who was injured protecting me helps anyone. What do you think?”

Yuri didn’t know the exact nature of their relationship, but Cherriot spoke to Benji with the familiarity of an older brother, and the man’s red hair resembled Cherriot’s mother’s from the photograph. They were almost certainly blood relatives.

Benji released a frustrated breath, raked a hand through his hair, and looked toward Yuri. Knowing now that this man was precious to Cherriot, Yuri stopped glaring with his initial hostility. He still felt uncomfortable and wary, but it wasn’t just because Benji openly loathed him. Yuri didn’t want Cherriot quarreling with lifelong family on his account. Anyone precious to Cherriot mattered to Yuri, too.

And Yuri… Yuri simply wasn’t worth that degree of conflict.

Even so, Cherriot defending him brought an unexpected surge of happiness. The gentle touch of Cherriot’s fingers on his wound overlapped with the image of him turning fierce on Yuri’s behalf. For the first time in his life, Yuri felt respected.

Respected.

He turned the unfamiliar word over in his mind. Perhaps he had never recognized the feeling before because contempt and dismissal had always felt natural, while respect remained a completely foreign concept.

“I’ll treat the young man,” Dolly intervened. “You two go outside and talk. Whatever else is true, he was injured because of Cherry. Benji, what you said was out of line. Apologize.”

Benji scowled at her, then turned and stormed out of the cottage, slamming the door behind him.

Watching him go, Cherriot stepped closer to Yuri, apologizing on his cousin’s behalf. “I’m sorry, Yuri. Benji is… ” Though they had just clashed, Cherriot didn’t seem truly angry with his relative; his expression was torn. “He’s my cousin on my mother’s side. After my father died, my uncle moved from Canada to the United States to stay close to my mother. Benji grew up watching over us. To him, both my mother and I are people he is personally responsible for protecting, so he overreacts. I’m sorry again.”

Yuri shook his head. His features had stiffened from the confrontation, but they softened the moment he looked at Cherriot. The atmosphere was too grim for a smile, but his voice was remarkably gentle.

“I’m fine. Go after him, Cherriot.”

“What part of this is fine? You’re bleeding like this—” Cherriot’s expression darkened, and moisture instantly welled in his green eyes.

Yuri narrowed his eyes, slipping into the commanding tone he used to rely on. “Go, Cherriot.”

But it didn’t have the same chilling effect anymore. Cherriot merely pressed his lips together, looking at Yuri with aching concern. Finally, swallowing a ragged breath, he turned away. Once Cherriot had followed Benji outside, Dolly approached Yuri.

“Young men. Both of you are overflowing with temper, wouldn’t you agree?”

“It appears so.”

“But you’re unnaturally calm for your age, young bodyguard. You might be older than Cherriot, but you look much younger than Benji. Benji is thirty-eight and still lets his sense of justice run miles ahead of his judgment. He refuses to act his age. At this rate, a promotion will take him an eternity, and he calls himself a police officer.”

After offering the complaint—which wasn’t entirely a complaint—she sat down in front of Yuri. She deftly sliced through the medical tape Cherriot hadn’t dared to cut away firmly. Clicking her tongue, she brought an antiseptic swab to the poorly treated wound.

Sharp pain stung through him.

“If you tear this off carelessly, you’ll rip the flesh wide open,” she muttered. “No wonder your body is covered in scars if this is how you treat yourself.”

Dolly glanced up at Yuri, who merely narrowed his eyes against the agonizing sting, and carefully peeled back the makeshift bandage with practiced hands. The sensation of the raw wound pulling open made his breathing hitch briefly. Yet, compared to the pain he had endured throughout his life, it was trivial. His body was simply reacting strongly because it had been a long time since his last injury.

After inspecting the laceration, Dolly searched through the first-aid kit and clicked her tongue again—evidently an unconscious habit whenever she encountered something she disliked.

“The cut is deep enough to require stitches. There’s no needle here, so I’ll have to use a medical stapler. Is that acceptable?”

“It makes no difference.” After a moment’s thought, Yuri reached for the kit himself. “I can do it. You may stop here.”

“Ha!”

Dolly let out a disbelieving laugh remarkably similar to Benji’s and slapped the back of Yuri’s hand away. “You butchered the wrapping like this and you still want to handle it? If I leave you to your own devices, Cherry will have another fit. Sit still. I’m doing it.”

After ordering him to stay put, she walked over to the kitchen and rummaged through a drawer, returning with a medical stapler. Yuri couldn’t imagine why an ordinary vacation cottage kept surgical equipment on hand, but he waited without comment. Dolly had found an unused, sterile one. It looked as aged as the first-aid kit Cherriot had retrieved, but the seal was intact. She tore open the cloudy plastic packaging and removed the device. Before she began, she asked, “Want a drink? There’s probably whiskey in the cupboard.”

“No, thank you.”

Cold sweat beads had gathered across Yuri’s pale forehead as exhaustion finally caught up with him, but he declined calmly. Dolly grunted, looking dissatisfied. Without warning, she pinched the open edges of his flesh together and began stapling.

Click.

Yuri endured the sharp sting of metal biting into living tissue, deliberately pacing his breaths. As his body adjusted, it seemed to recall old muscle memory from past traumas, and his breathing gradually steadied.

Yes. It makes no sense to suffer over a mere laceration. A minor wound like this wouldn’t even hinder his movements. Yuri didn’t let out a single groan as the steel staples clamped into his flesh. Dolly watched his unreadable face, her expression suggesting she found him viciously, stubbornly resilient. She clicked the final staple into place. “You have quite a history, don’t you?”

She stood, went briefly to the kitchen, and returned with clean, damp gauze. After wiping away the excess blood, she layered fresh gauze over the closed wound and wrapped a clean bandage tightly enough to maintain steady pressure. Once finished, Dolly’s gaze drifted down to the older laceration on Yuri’s left forearm. Because Yuri had left the bandage Cherriot applied days ago untouched, his upper body was now a patchwork of old and new dressings.

Dolly sighed heavily at the sight. “How many bullets and blades has that body of yours survived? Cherry has gotten himself involved in something dangerous, hasn’t he?”

Yuri offered a single nod but remained silent. He was weighing whether he could trust this woman with what he had discovered when Dolly cut through his hesitation.

“Benji is hopelessly unobservant and probably hasn’t noticed a thing, but you can’t fool an old woman’s eyes,” she said knowingly. “Something happened between the two of you, didn’t it?”

The sudden mention of their relationship made Yuri narrow his eyes uncomfortably. They had just spent Cherriot’s rut together. While Yuri wanted to believe their morning conversation signified real progress, nothing felt certain yet.

“If Cherry told you about me, then he surely told you about his father, too,” Dolly continued. “That means he trusts you. For now, I’ll extend that same trust. So tell me—what are you hiding?”

Yuri hesitated. Connecting Heather’s findings with the intelligence Marty had shared made it almost certain that someone within Cherriot’s inner family circle wanted him dead. Dolly clearly cared for Cherriot. But traitors historically kept the closest proximity to the backs they intended to knife. Yuri didn’t want to suspect her, but she was still a fixture of the family that had surrounded Cherriot for years.

As the silence stretched taut, Dolly burst into a sharp, disbelieving laugh. She stared at Yuri for a few long moments, then abruptly stood up. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

“…I apologize, but I do not,” Yuri answered directly.

Dolly raised both hands in a defensive mock-surrender, then marched into the kitchen toward the upper cupboards. Before Yuri could decide whether to assist her, she took care of it herself. She dragged a heavy island stool across the floor with a loud scrape, climbed onto it, and retrieved a bottle.

Only then did Yuri realize Dolly was far shorter than he had initially assumed—barely over five feet tall. Her long limbs and impeccably straight posture masked her small frame well. She hopped down carrying a half-empty bottle of Jameson and set two glasses on the table. After pouring generous measures into both, she thrust one toward Yuri.

He accepted it.

Offering whiskey to a freshly stapled, bleeding man, Yuri thought. Dolly was clearly no ordinary old woman.