by Bethany-Kris
“A cover? No.”
“Then what is she?”
Ruslan’s humor faded. “Complicated.”
That explained nothing.
“Oh?” Violet settled on asking.
“It’s all fucking complicated.”
Not offering anything else, Ruslan made a beeline for the bathroom, his hand just grabbing onto the inside doorknob as he froze. Violet only realized her mistake—the tests she’d forgotten sitting on the sink—when Ruslan swore under his breath.
“Did he know?”
That was all he asked.
Violet answered truthfully. “No.”
What else was there to say?
Time always moved slower when a person was waiting for something to happen. It was almost as if the world just knew Violet needed something good—something worthy of hope—and it was willing to torture her just a little bit longer.
The days bled together.
Three, then four.
Five jumped to seven in a blink.
She slept when she felt tired, and that didn’t always mean when the sky was dark outside of Kaz’s windows. She measured days in the number of meals Ruslan shoved in front of her to eat, not the dates scribbled across Kaz’s charts by a different nurse on a new shift.
It was easier that way.
Time didn’t feel so slow.
It seemed like more was happening that way rather than the nothingness there actually was.
Hot chocolate in hand, Violet had just stepped onto the elevator that would take her back up from the cafeteria to the ICU when a hand slid between the closing doors, forcing it to open. At the sight of that hand, adorned by rings she would never be able to forget, Violet took a huge step backward and bumped into the railing attached to the wall of the elevator.
Her father stepped inside with a smile.
He said nothing; simply let the doors close behind him.
When they finally slid shut, he turned his back to her, facing the doors, hitting the top floor button and making Violet curse inside her head. She hadn’t hit the button for her floor, and now, the elevator would just bypass it altogether. Violet’s hand twitched, fear curling hard in her stomach as she reached for one of the few items in her messenger bag hanging down at her side. Her hand just wrapped around the butt of the handgun when her father turned back around.
The elevator began moving upward when Alberto Gallucci said, “You look tired, topina.”
Violet’s throat tightened, threatening to keep her quiet. Still, she managed to say, “Of course, I’m tired.”
She left a hell of a lot unsaid in that statement.
Things she believed her father likely already knew without her saying it for him.
“Unfortunate, what happened to your Russian,” Alberto said softly.
Untrue.
Too caring.
Lilting sympathy coloring the words.
Violet could hear the falseness dripping from her father’s words. “How much of a hand did you have in it all?”
Alberto smiled, cold and cruel. “Very little, actually. Had I of known Vasily’s plans in that regard, I would not have wasted my time with the other nonsense.”
“Nonsense like having me kidnapped and beaten?”
“You don’t look beaten.”
“Now,” Violet snapped back. “And the first thing Ma ever taught me was how to cover a bruise with a makeup brush, Daddy.”
Alberto’s gaze narrowed just enough to tell Violet she’d hit a nerve.
Good.
That was her every fucking intention.
She was done playing her father’s games. Done feeding his whims and wants over her own. She did not belong to this man, and she wasn’t going to let him keep thinking otherwise.
It was over.
“What do you want?” Violet asked.
At first, Alberto didn’t respond.
Violet wondered how he had even managed to get past the men watching the hospital, although if truth be told, she didn’t know exactly where all the men were posted other than the ones on the ICU floor.
“You,” her father finally replied.
“What?”
“You asked what I want—I want you. That's an easy enough answer for you to understand, dolcezza, surely.”
Violet shook her head, her grip tightening around the gun even more, though her father couldn’t see it inside her bag. “I’m not yours to have. You don’t get to come into this hospital where my husband is recovering to make demands or threaten me, Alberto.”
“I have done neither of those things, Violet.”
Yet.
She knew that unspoken word was meant to be tacked on there.
With Alberto, it was always tacked on.
“Your Russian … He’s not doing well, is he?”
Violet forced herself not to respond. She wouldn’t give her father a goddamn thing where Kaz or his current condition was concerned.
“Is he even awake yet?” Alberto asked. “Will he be the same when he is awake, girl?”
Violet’s heart ached. How dare he throw those statements at her as though they were nothing—like they meant nothing—when he had to know how real those possibilities actually were for Kaz.
“Fuck you.”
Alberto didn’t even flinch at her words; he merely smiled again. “This can all go away, Violet. That offer is still there—nothing is unfixable. Don't you remember when I told you that, sweetheart? I meant those words, and I still do.”
“I don’t care.”
“Is that what you want—an invalid for a husband, useless in all things and incapable of caring for you? I’m sure he was wonderful before, but how wonderful will it be when—”
Violet moved fast, pushing past her father to hit the button that would force the doors to open on the next floor. It was one higher than the one she would need to be on, but that didn’t make a fucking difference to her. She’d take the damned stairs as long as she could get away from Alberto and his vileness.
The elevator jerked suddenly as it came to a stop, doors flying wide open to an empty hallway. Alberto’s hand closed tightly around Violet’s arm before she could get out of the elevator, his fingers digging hard enough into her skin that he would surely leave a bruise.
“I’m not finished,” her father snarled.
Too fucking bad.
Violet was done.
The hand that she’d kept hidden inside her messenger bag lifted, exposing the handgun she held as she pointed it right at Alberto’s face without hesitation. There was no loosening of her grip as her father moved back an inch, no shake to her hand as his eyes widened.
No, she just flicked the safety off and pulled the hammer back, letting the click echo between them.
“Let me go,” Violet said quietly.
Alberto’s grip tightened momentarily before it loosened.
It still wasn't enough.
“If you think I’ll come running back to you, wanting your praise and approval in exchange for your love and affection, then you’re sorely fucking mistaken,” Violet told her father, never once letting the gun move even a fraction of an inch. “And if you think for one second that I won’t blow your face off if you don’t let me get out of this elevator so I can get back to my husband’s bedside, then keep touching me and I’ll get to see what kind of art we can make on these walls, Daddy.”
Alberto let her go, and she stepped out of the elevator.
Violet didn’t lower the gun until the doors closed.
Darkness …
It surrounded him, engulfed him to the point that he didn’t know where one thing began, and where it ended. There was just … nothing, until his consciousness came rushing back and Kaz Markovic woke, choking as he tried to breathe.
Barely able to open his eyes, he reached blindly for the contraption covering his mouth, ready to rip the thing free so he could finally breathe, but he was weak, weaker than he had ever been in his life. He could hardly lift his own arms
, let alone try to remove the hose in his throat.
And fuck if his throat didn’t hurt.
Actually, all of him hurt. Every last inch of his body felt like he had been stuffed through a meat grinder and spit back out. Kaz almost wished he could fall back under, anything to escape the agony he was suffering from, but the pain was too great to do anything else but focus on himself.
Beeping machines slowly filtered in, then voices—calm, soothing voices that were telling him he would be just fine—that the doctor was coming in and the tube would be removed.
He tried to listen, tried to reason with himself, but he was lost in the pain, in the darkness that he couldn’t escape.
It felt like he was fucking drowning.
But as quickly as it all threatened to overwhelm him, he heard quick steps, a faint gasp, then a soft hand curling around his own, the dainty thing squeezing tight. “It’s okay. I’m right here, Kaz. I’m right here.”
Violet …
Her voice was enough to calm some of the panic threatening to consume him. He clung to that—squeezed her hand as tight as he could just to remind himself that she was real.
That he was alive.
Everything was still foggy, though he now knew he had to be in a hospital, considering the commotion going on around him. But where he had been … It still felt like he was there.
Like a tangible thing that wasn’t yet ready to let him go.
He could still feel the snow. How that cold bled into his clothes, sinking into his flesh, until it was the only thing he could focus on even as his life’s essence slowly left his body from the savage wound in his neck. As he’d laid there dying, he had almost been glad for it—thankful that, if even for a short period of time, the blood spilling from him had chased the cold away.
But even that small comfort hadn’t lasted for long—not when he was too weak to do anything more than lay there, staring up at the night sky.
Time hadn’t seemed so fluid then. It didn’t speed by in quick flashes. No, he felt every last beat of his heart, the organ working against him even as it tried to save his life. It was slow, and painful, at least until the numbness took him over.
That blessed numbness.
For once in his life, he hadn’t wanted to feel anything.
For once in his life, he had hoped death would take him quickly.
But as quickly as that thought had formed, he thought of Violet. His wife. The person in the world he loved the most.
He could only imagine her devastation at learning of his fate—what would happen to her once he was gone?
He had to live, if only for her.
But what could he do in the wee hours of the morning when there was no one around to hear him? He couldn’t call out for help—Vasily had made sure of that with a flick of his wrist. And with the blood loss, he had been too weak to do anything more than lay on the cold sidewalk as the snow fell all around him.
It would have been a beautiful death …
Until Rus found him.
The sound of squealing tires had jarred him awake, dragging him back to consciousness as treacherous hope flared, but even then, he had been too weak to even raise his hand. But his brother, the big stubborn bastard, hadn’t come alone.
And when he’d found him …
Kaz didn’t think he had ever seen his brother look so devastated. There was no anger, just a profound sadness and fear that told him he was closer to death than he realized.
You don’t get to fucking die! He remembered Rus saying those words low and sharp as his hands covered Kaz’s, as though that could help staunch the flow of blow that had gradually eased.
He clung to those words as his consciousness ebbed, even as Rus continued to shout at him, barking orders at the men who were near.
He’d still been shouting when Kaz had passed out.
How long ago had that been?
Trying to focus his chaotic thoughts on the present, Kaz let Violet’s hold anchor him as he felt another set of his hands on him. The scent of antiseptic assaulted his senses as the man, a doctor he assumed, carefully removed the tube from his mouth and throat.
He gagged, renewed pain assaulting him as it was pulled free. It felt like someone was pulling knives out of him. Once it was gone, Kaz finally dragged in a breath, even with the agony it caused.
Pain only meant he had survived.
Commotion was all around him as the doctors checked his vitals and listed off details to Violet, he thought, since he could barely comprehend what they were saying.
“He’s making good progress,” someone to his left said. “With the extent of his … injury, and the minor case of pneumonia, his recovery time is unknown at this point. Had it only been one or the other, we might have been able to give a more definitive answer, but as of now, only time will tell.”
Not much longer, the room was emptying, and silence returned once more.
Kaz hated it.
But as he tried to open his mouth to speak, the pain flared again, making him groan.
“The doctors said it was going to take a while,” Violet said softly, her voice closer than it had been before. “Don’t try to talk just yet.”
Kaz wished at that moment that he was able to open his eyes, just so he could see her face, but already, he could feel what little strength he had waning—the abyss threatening to swallow him again.
“Sleep,” she said a moment before she touched his face. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
He couldn’t fight it if he tried.
Three days.
Or at least that was the length of time Kaz suspected he was in and out of consciousness since that first day he had woken up. Weaker than he had ever been, it had taken much longer than he would have liked to actually stay awake instead of just drifting off.
When nurses weren’t walking in and out of his private room to stick him with needles, drawing blood, and changing his fluids, there was the doctor that came in and out periodically to update him on his condition.
He was fucking tired of it.
With the wound to his throat, he still wasn’t supposed to try speaking just yet, though they had promised once it healed more, all would be fine. He was just ready to go home. The smell of the hospital was making him nauseous, and the idea of having to stay there for even a day longer made him feel like he was about to lose his mind.
But there was no point in saying he was ready to go home—not with Violet in the room with him, hanging on the doctor’s every word.
Kaz might not have been able to talk, but once he was staying awake longer than just a few minutes at a time, a pad and a pen had been given to him to write down anything he needed.
He only wanted one thing at the moment …
“We can’t take you home yet,” Violet said, glaring at him even as she moved to the head of his bed to fluff his pillow. “The doctor said—don’t give me that,” she said as he rolled his eyes, tossing the pen down. “In case you don’t remember, you were in a coma, Kaz. You’re staying here until you’re discharged.”
For fuck’s sake.
It didn’t matter how many times he told her he was fine—that he could recover at home just as well as he could in the hospital—she wasn’t hearing it. Kaz had to resign himself to the fact that he was going to be stuck there until someone signed off on the paperwork.
Worse, he wasn’t able to bribe anyone into letting him go sooner because Violet made it a point to remain at his side, at least whenever he was awake. At the moment, he couldn’t decide whether he loved her for it or hated it.
“You look like shit,” Rus announced as he strolled into the room with a cup of coffee in hand. “But at least you’re not dead.”
Gone was his usual suit, replaced with jeans and a shirt with a faded logo. He was casual—almost too casual.
He might not have been able to talk, but Kaz’s hands were functioning just fine, and he made good use of them as he flipped Rus off.
“I’ll
take that as a compliment. You look a lot better than how I found you.”
That last statement was a bit somber, his gaze dropping to the floor a moment before he took a seat on the other side of the room. Rus very rarely, if ever, showed emotion. Well, besides anger. He had picked up that trait up from their father, though he would never admit it.
Leveling a look on Rus, it didn’t take long for him to understand the silent message.
“Have you eaten today, Violet?” Rus asked, looking over at her even as he pulled out his wallet.
She frowned, glancing at Kaz. “But he needs—”
“Don’t worry. He’s in good hands. If anything comes up, I’ll let you know.”
Violet was still hesitant, but after looking back and forth between the pair of them—and probably guessing they needed to talk—she finally nodded. Once she had disappeared out the door after accepting the money Rus practically shoved into her hand, Kaz grabbed the little pad of paper and started scribbling.
Finished, he tossed it toward the end of the bed for Rus to read.
Vasily.
Kaz didn’t have to write more for him to understand what he was asking.
“Gone,” Rus said regrettably. “Al—”
Voices sounded just outside the hospital room before Vera suddenly burst through the doors, eyes wide and frantic as she hurried over to Kaz’s side, but more curious was the man casually strolling in behind her.
Alfie Shelby.
He took the seat closest to Kaz, the one Violet had abandoned mere minutes before. But it wasn’t because of Kaz that Alfie chose that one specifically, he knew. This one allowed him not to have his back to the door and was just off from the window.
After everything Kaz had faced over the last nine months, he understood the man’s precaution.
Which was another reason he was ready to get the hell out of this hospital.
“I got back as soon as I could,” Vera rushed to say as she dropped a comforting hand on his shoulder, her eyes dropping to the bandage on his throat.
When she looked at him expectantly, he realized she didn’t know that he was unable to speak—still—so he pointed first to the bandage, then down toward the end of the bed where the pad sat.
