Claiming His Own

by Olivia Gates

  She exchanged a few words with Rosa, setting up the day, then turned to her men, delight dancing on her lips at the sight they made together.

  Leo was popping up and down with arms stretched up for his daddy to pick him up. Maksim was standing above him, looking down at him.

  Her smile faltered. The sense of something wrong hit first. What it was registered seconds later.

  It was the way Maksim was looking down at Leo...as...as if...

  As if he didn’t know him.

  Even worse, it was as if Maksim wasn’t even aware what Leo was, where or who he was...

  A bolt of ice froze her insides wholesale. Her heart exploded from the rhythm of serenity to total chaos.

  “Maksim...?”

  His eyes rose to her and what she saw there almost had her heart rupturing. Horror. Helplessness.

  Then he collapsed...like a demolished building. As if every muscle holding him up had snapped, every bone had liquefied.

  “Maksim!”

  Her scream detonated in her chest and head, its sheer force almost tearing them apart. Hurling herself across the room, she barely caught him, slowing down his plummet before he keeled over Leo, desperation infusing manic strength into her limbs.

  Shuddering, she crumpled with Maksim’s insupportable deadweight to the ground, barely clearing Leo, who’d frozen to the spot, eyes stricken, fright eating through his incomprehension by the second. Any moment now he’d realize this was no game. Any moment now Maksim would...would...

  She screamed for Rosa, a scream that must have rocked the mansion, bringing Rosa barging into the suite in heartbeats.

  She heard herself talking in someone else’s voice, rapid, robotic. “Get my phone, take Leo away, keep everything from Tatjana for now, get Sasha. Go.”

  She’d lived through a dress rehearsal of this catastrophe a thousand times in her mind. Leaving nothing up to chance, Maksim had coached her in the exact measures she’d take in case the worst happened. This constant dread had been the only thing polluting her psyche, eating away at her stamina. But the more time that had passed without even the least warning signs, the more she’d hoped it would never come to pass.

  But it had. It had.

  His aneurysm had ruptured.

  Keeping her dry-as-rock eyes on Maksim’s wide-open, vacant ones, she speed-dialed Maksim’s emergency medical hotline. As per the plan, they assured her a helicopter would be there within minutes. The specialists he’d elected to handle his case would be waiting at the medical center of his choice.

  Then she waited. Hit bottom, went insane over and over, waiting. Her heart had long been shredded, but it kept flapping inside her like a butchered bird only because Maksim’s heart still beat powerfully beneath her quaking arms. The rest of him was inert. Feeling his vigor vanished, his very self extinguished, was beyond horrifying. Those eyes where his magnificent, beautiful soul resided had emptied of everything that made him himself. Then it got worse.

  At one point, something came across them, something vast and terrible spreading its gloom, eclipsing their suns. Something like anguish. No...regret. Then his lips moved in a macabre parody of their usual purpose and grace. His voice was also warped, sending more gushes of terror exploding through her.

  She thought he said, “Izvinityeh.”

  Forgive me.

  Then his eyes closed.

  And she screamed and screamed and screamed.

  * * *

  She didn’t stop screaming, she thought, until the medics arrived. Once there was something to do, solid steps to be taken, a switch was thrown inside her, shutting down the hysteria of powerlessness. And the rehearsed drill took her over once again.

  She talked to him all the time they installed their resuscitation measures on the short flight to the state-of-the-art medical center he’d erected in the city. She told him all the good news she could—that his vitals were strong, that he had gone into shock and his whole body was flaccid, but he wasn’t exhibiting any hemiparesis, which would indicate neurological damage. She told him she was there and would never leave his side, that he had to fight, for Leo, for his mother. But mainly for her.

  She couldn’t live without him.

  Then they arrived at the hospital and the perfectly oiled machine of intervention he’d put in place months ago took over. She ran beside his gurney as he was taken to the O.R., but the doctors, as per his orders, wouldn’t let her scrub in or watch the surgery from the gallery.

  Unable to waste time arguing, she succumbed, but wouldn’t be convinced to go to the waiting area. She collapsed in front of the O.R. where the man who embodied her heart and soul would be cut open, where he would struggle to stay alive. She had to be as close as possible. He would feel her, and she would be able to transfer her very life force unto him to keep him alive, to restore him.

  And she wept. And realized that she’d never truly wept before. This was weeping, feeling her insides tearing, her psyche shattering, her very being dissolving and seeping out of her in an outpour that could never be stemmed. Only Maksim, only an end to his danger, could stop the fatal flow.

  In the unending torment of waiting, she registered somewhere in her swollen, warped awareness that Aristedes and Selene had come. Their very presence reinforced the horror of what she already knew, counting the minutes since Maksim had been taken into the O.R. He’d been in there for over twelve hours.

  After failing to make her get off the ground, they’d sat down there beside her, respecting her agony, trying to absorb it in the solidarity of their silence.

  “Mrs. Volkov.”

  That voice. She’d know it among a million.

  Maksim’s neurosurgeon.

  She shot up to her feet. But her legs had disappeared. With a cry of chagrin, she collapsed back down. Aristedes caught her, Selene shooting up to help him support her.

  The moment she could feel her legs again, she pushed them away and staggered to Dr. Antonovich. This was hers alone to hear, to bear. Just like Maksim was hers alone.

  Dr. Antonovich talked quickly as she approached him, as if afraid she’d attack him if he didn’t. “Mr. Volkov made it without incident through surgery. He’s in intensive care now, where he will stay for the next two weeks as we monitor him.”

  Alive. He was alive. He’d survived this catastrophe that had been casting its dreadful shadow over their lives.

  But... “What—what is his condition now?”

  Dr. Antonovich attempted to take her arm, to support her as she swayed. She shook her head, needing only answers, facts.

  Nodding with understanding, he began quietly, “During his last checkup six months ago, the aneurysm had still been located where attempts to approach it would have caused serious brain damage or even death. But in the interim, it had expanded downward, which at once caused it to rupture, and enabled us to try a new kind of treatment through a noninvasive, endoscopic trans-nasal approach. I’m happy to report the aneurysm has been totally resected and the artery fully repaired.”

  She absorbed the information rabidly. But it still didn’t tell her what to expect next. “What about prognosis?”

  “Since his aneurysm was posttraumatic, Mr. Volkov has no underlying weakness in his vessels, and the possibility of recurrence is nil. While that is great news, it was the rupture of the original aneurysm that we had worried about. To tell you the truth, with Mr. Volkov’s general condition in the months after his accident, I had little hope he�
�d survive a rupture. The last time he came in six months ago, he’d shown little physical progress. But the man I operated on today was the most robust person I’ve ever seen. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say you’re the reason behind his miraculous improvement.”

  Maksim had said that. That she and Leo were a magical elixir, that being with them—with her—had revitalized him, gave him new capacities and limitless strength. It had been why she’d let her guard down, believing nothing would happen to him.

  “What does his general condition have to do with his prognosis?” she choked out.

  “Everything. Apart from the neurological condition after rupture, it’s what decides the prognosis. As a surgeon who deals almost exclusively in cerebral accidents, I almost never give optimistic percentages. But with Mr. Volkov in superb physical condition, if the next two weeks pass without incident, I believe he has an over ninety percent chance of making a full recovery.”

  She pounced on him, digging her shaking hands into his arms. “What can I do? Tell me there’s something I can do.”

  He extricated himself gently, took her arm. “You can keep on doing exactly what got him to this state of superb health. And once he clears the sensitive postoperative period, both of you can forget about this uncertain phase of your lives.”

  She stopped, the tears that hadn’t slowed during their conversation flowing faster. “Wh-when can I see him?”

  The surgeon ventured a faint smile. “Mr. Volkov has instructions firmly in place about every possible development of his condition. You and anyone you indicate are to have full access to him, night or day, as long as there is no medical reason not to. You can even stay with him in ICU.”

  She grasped his arm again. “I—I can?”

  The man nodded. “He funded the whole hospital, and keeps upgrading it at our request with the latest technology. The only thing he ever asked for in return was that, if he ever needed our services, we would arrange for you to stay with him while he recuperates, if that was what you wanted....”

  And she broke down, the agony of loving him and fearing for him, demolishing her. “I want... God, oh, God... I want...I want nothing else in the world...please.”

  * * *

  The first three days, Cali stayed by Maksim’s side around the clock, counting his breaths, hanging on to the exact shape of his heartbeats and brainwaves. There was no change whatsoever. His vitals remained strong and steady, but he didn’t regain consciousness.

  The only reason she didn’t go berserk was that the doctors insisted he was sleeping artificially. He’d been sedated to give his brain the chance to recover during this sensitive phase, when awareness would tax it. Dr. Antonovich was being extra careful, as she’d begged him to be, even if it freaked her out of her mind to see her indomitable Maksim so inert.

  It was amazing how perfect he looked. The noninvasive technique had left his hair untouched, and it appeared as if he were sleeping peacefully, whole and healthy.

  On the fourth day, they let him wake up. For one hour in the morning and another in the evening.

  That first time he opened his eyes, she almost died of fright. The blank look he gave her had nightmares tearing into her mind. Of amnesia...or worse.

  Then his gaze filled with recognition. Before jubilation could take hold, gut-wrenching emotion surged to the surface and the tears that constantly flowed gushed. She kissed him and kissed him, telling him she loved him, loved him, loved him, that she’d always, always be beside him, would never, ever leave his side, and that it was only a matter of time before they had their perfect life back.

  He made no response as she talked and talked until she was terrified he couldn’t talk. At last he told her he was just tired, then listlessly turned his head away and closed his eyes. She didn’t think he slept, just kept his eyes shut. Until they’d come and put him under again.

  When she’d pursued Dr. Antonovich with her report of his first weird waking episode, he said it was natural for Maksim to wake up groggy and not all there. When she insisted he’d been neither, just...blunted, he’d gone on to explain the obvious, that the brain was an unpredictable organ and she’d have to play it by ear, let him go through his recovery in his own pace and not worry, and mostly not let him feel her anxiety.

  Determined to take the surgeon’s advice, she told herself that anything she felt was irrelevant. Hard facts said Maksim was neurologically intact. And that was far more than enough. If it took him forever to bounce back from this almost lethal ordeal, it would be a price she’d gladly pay.

  And he did bounce back, faster than his surgeon’s best hopes. The two weeks in ICU became only one, with everyone, starting with Tatjana and Leo, coming to visit during his waking hours at his request. He was transferred to a regular suite and the sedation was confined to the night hours; then even that was withdrawn. By the next week, the surgeon saw no reason to keep him in hospital, discharged him with a set of instructions for home care and follow-ups, but gave him a clean bill of health.

  But Maksim was subdued, only exhibiting any spark around his mother and son. With them he was almost his old self. Cali kept telling herself she was imagining things, and that even if she wasn’t, there was a very good reason for this.

  He was depleted, out of sorts, had just survived a near-fatal medical crisis and must be shaken to the core. But he couldn’t show any of this to Tatjana and Leo. He hadn’t even told his mother of his condition in fear of worrying her, and would now do anything to reassure her of his return to normal. He also wouldn’t risk scarring Leo’s young and impressionable psyche by allowing any of his post-traumatic stress to rise to the surface around him.

  But around her? He could let his true condition show without having to bear the effort of putting on an act, and he could count on her to understand.

  And she did understand. She only missed him. Missed him.

  He was there but not there. He talked to her, especially when others where around, and she did feel his gaze on her sometimes, but the moment she turned to him, starving for connection, he looked away and sent her spiraling back into deprivation.

  But she would persevere. Forever if need be. That was her pledge to him.

  For better or for worse. For as long as she lived.

  * * *

  Three months after Maksim’s discharge from the hospital, Cali’s resolve was starting to waver.

  Instead of things getting better, if even slightly, they only got worse.

  The proof had come two weeks ago, when Dr. Antonovich had given him the green light to resume all his normal activities without reservations. It was as if he’d released him from a prison he’d been dying to break free of. He’d hopped onto a plane and gone on a business tour...alone.

  He had called regularly during the past two weeks to reassure them, but called her own phone only when his mother didn’t pick up. Even when he did, he said nothing personal, let alone intimate, just asking about Leo or asking her to put him through.

  On the day he was supposed to come back, she’d run out of rationalizations. There was no escaping the one possible conclusion anymore.

  He was avoiding her.

  And for the first time since she’d laid eyes on him, she dreaded seeing him, meeting his gaze. Or rather having him escape meeting hers again.

  Just minutes later, he walked into the living room, where they were all gathered waiting for him. And the sight of him felt like a stab through her heart.

&n
bsp; He’d lost weight since his crisis, understandably. But it wasn’t only that his clothes hung around him that hurt. It was what felt like a statement that he’d withdrawn his emotional carte blanche to her.

  He’d cut his hair.

  It was now even shorter than when she’d first seen him across that reception hall—almost cropped off.

  She felt catapulted back in time, only worse. Back then his eyes had smoldered with hunger; now they only filled with heaviness.

  She still rushed to join in welcoming him, only to feel the white-hot skewer in her gut turning when he slipped away from her embrace, pretending to answer Leo’s demand for his attention. She sat there with the talons pinning her smile up for Tatjana’s and Leo’s sake, sinking into her flesh and soul with every passing moment, until Leo fell asleep and Tatjana excused herself for the night. With just a curt good-night, Maksim walked out, too.

  And she reached breaking point.

  She had to know what was wrong or she’d lose her mind.

  Forcing herself to follow him, dreading another brush-off, she approached the suite he’d moved to since he’d gotten out of hospital, with the excuse that he was suffering from bouts of insomnia at night and didn’t want to disturb her.

  Tiptoeing in, she found him sitting on the edge of a chair in the sitting area, his elbows resting on his knees, his cropped head held in his hands, his large palms covering his face. His shoulders, now looking diminished, were hunched over, his whole pose embodying the picture of defeat.

  Her heart did its best to tear itself out of her chest.

  A burst of protectiveness welled up inside her, had her running toward him, desperately needing to ward off whatever was weighing him down. His head snapped up at her approach, and for moments, she saw it. The unguarded expression of...torment.