Chapter 197

ANDREA’S POV The sight of her was haunting. Even now, hours after our failed raid, sitting at the edge of my bed with the moonlight spilling across my hands, I could still see Natasha’s body—battered, bruised, bones jutting from angles they shouldn't, skin torn in places no one should ever bear pain. Her pain wasn’t mine, but I felt it anyway. Like it had burrowed beneath my skin and made a home in my chest. Bringing her back had felt like dragging a corpse out of a grave, praying it might breathe again. After her few whispered words earlier, she had fallen silent, her wide, sunken eyes darting between us like we were the enemy, cringing every time someone tried to touch her. Seeing anyone like this would have been bad. But seeing Natasha, formidable, grandiose Natasha, who’d only ever known a life of opulence and respect, be reduced to such awful conditions… I shuddered every time I thought about it. Last I’d seen her, she was getting set up in the guest room, attached to different IV