[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my":3,"chapter-bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-299":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","[BL] Bound to My Enemy: The Billionaire Who Took My Girl",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1735733,2219,"Chapter 299: The numb surgeon pt 2","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-299",299,"\u003Cp>NICK\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t yell. I didn’t have to. I took him apart. I used my words like a blade, cutting through every assumption he had about his own intelligence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I laid out his failure in cold, simple terms, stripping away his pride until there was nothing left but the sound of the heart monitor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It wasn’t personal. It was worse. It was a complete deconstruction of his worth as a doctor, delivered without a single flicker of emotion on my face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The room stayed silent for a long time. No one breathed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Harlow didn’t say a word. He just stared at the floor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I continued the surgery as if nothing had happened. Because for me, it hadn’t. I was a professional.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But thirty seconds later, the realization hit me. I had overreacted. By my own standards, I had used a sledgehammer to kill a fly. I understood it and redirected the anger back inward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lila called me four times before noon. I watched the screen glow on the desk, her name flashing like a warning light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t answer. The fifth call came while I was in a consult. I watched it go to voicemail without a second thought.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lila apparently thought that being persistent was the same thing as having something worth saying. She was wrong about that, too.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I told myself I was going to see Cassian because I had professional oversight. The attending doctor was junior; a second set of eyes was just good practice. It was a logical, clinical decision.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The truth was that I had checked in on him every day at the same time. And it had nothing to do with him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Cassian was still unconscious, lying there with that same dramatic commitment he brought to everything. Even in a coma, the man was an event.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Noah was in the chair beside the bed. It was the same chair he sat in every day. He looked like he was trying to solve a math problem that had no answer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He also looked like he had been subtracting sleep from a total that had run out a long time ago.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He looked terrible. He looked like someone who was crumbling because the person he loved was absent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t allow myself to think that I knew how that felt. I didn’t allow myself to feel any sympathy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I stood in the doorway, not fully entering the room. \"You look like you haven’t slept,\" I said. I made the words sound like a weapon, sharp and cold. \"I don’t need another patient in this wing. Go home and sleep.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I meant for him to take care of himself. I meant that he was the only one left to watch over his boss and he couldn’t afford to break.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the way I said it made it sound like he was just a nuisance I wanted out of my sight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Noah said something, but I didn’t wait to hear it. I was already looking at the chart. My eyes were on the medical data, but my peripheral vision was doing that traitorous thing again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Scanning the room. Scanning the hallway. Looking for pink. Looking for purple eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I stayed for four minutes. It was longer than I needed to be there, but I couldn’t admit why I was lingering.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When I left, the hallway scanner in my brain stayed on. Every elevator door that opened, every person in a waiting area, every figure at the end of a long corridor... I looked at them all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t find what I wasn’t looking for.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I walked into the break room for a second cup of coffee. I needed the caffeine to keep the shaking in my hands at bay.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There were two doctors by the sink. They were mid-sentence when I opened the door.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"—completely snapped at Harlow, in front of everyone—\" one of them whispered.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"—I’ve never seen him like that,\" the other replied. \"He’s been weird these days. It’s like he’s not even—\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They saw me. The silence that followed was thick and awkward. They looked at each other, trying to decide if they should pretend they weren’t just talking about me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I didn’t look at them. I walked to the pot, poured my coffee, and grabbed a small packet of biscuits from the shelf. My face didn’t change. I didn’t give them the satisfaction of a reaction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Riveting, I thought. The hospital’s gossip circle has noticed a change in the weather. I’m sure they feel very clever for spotting the obvious. They aren’t.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I left without saying a word. It was colder than any insult. I ate the biscuit in the hallway, but I didn’t taste it. My mind was already miles away, drifting back to that empty couch.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By the afternoon, the headache had upgraded itself. It was no longer a dull throb; it was a pulsing, rhythmic beat behind my eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I knew what it was. Stress, lack of sleep, and high blood pressure. My body was finally starting to scream because I wouldn’t let it speak.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I felt a slight fever burning in my cheeks. My joints felt heavy and sore, the way they do right before you get sick. But I wasn’t... Not yet at least.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I took two ibuprofen from the bottle in my pocket. I noticed the bottle was almost empty. I had been taking them like candy for three days.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During an afternoon consult with a patient’s family, I was explaining a surgical plan. Three sentences in, my mind simply walked out of the room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It didn’t go to the surgery. It didn’t go to the patient. It went to a color. That irritating, bright shade of pink.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It went to a pair of eyes that caught the light in a way that was medically unnecessary and yet, somehow, burned into my memory.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I recovered mid-sentence. I smoothed over the pause so quickly that the family didn’t even notice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But I noticed. I noticed that I had just spaced out in the middle of my own professional life.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Excellent, I sneered at myself. Now I’m losing my mind in front of witnesses. This is what progress looks like.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Late in the day, after a long procedure, I stood in the scrub room. I held my hands out in front of me. They were trembling. Just a little. A fine, high-frequency vibration that I couldn’t stop.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I stared at them for eight seconds. Then I turned on the tap and let the cold water drown them out.\u003C\u002Fp>",1088,"2026-06-06T16:23:43.455Z",1,"novelbin.me","9793982b4b5f149f4184a4a8181fe628c310734a85d4e8563b41d0506cd4802a","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-300","bl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-chapter-298",307,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fbl-bound-to-my-enemy-the-billionaire-who-took-my-cover.jpg"]