She is whisked away, a special team taking her to a private area of the hospital to give her a transfusion, and I am left to agonizingly wait to see if my wife is going to be okay. But something tells me even if she lives, there is nothing okay about her right now.
My hands, my body, I can’t keep them still, and a weight sets heavy on me. She didn’t get her revenge, not when or how she wanted. I know she is a woman bent on getting what she wants. Her strength comes from the order she commands, and I took it away from her. And then I took all her power, and I caged her.
This is all my fault, and I know if she makes it out of this I can never deny her again, consequences be damned.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rhys
I’m the luckiest man on the fucking planet for getting to her when I did. If it had been a minute later, she might not still be alive. That is what her physician told me and since hearing it, I’m going crazy. I can’t seem to understand why my strong-willed Vera, the fiercest woman I’ve ever come into contact with would do something such as this. What would make her want to end her life? What on Earth would bring her to commit her actions?
I’ve been sitting in this waiting room for over three hours waiting for some sort of update. I know she’s alive, but I’m not stupid enough to believe she’s okay. She’s far from it.
“Mr. Albu?” I hear a man’s voice say my name, and at that I rise, heading straight towards him.
“What is it?”
He flips through a couple papers on a clipboard, “Ah. Okay. Well, I’ve come to tell you that your wife, Vera, is stable. We’ve stitched her up and have placed bandages where her wounds lay. They all seem to be doing well, given the trauma, heartbeat is steady and normal. We’ve taken her blood and see no signs of her being anything but healthy. Though, she did have to have a transfusion for the blood loss”
“What do you mean they all seem to be doing well?” I question, what he’s said makes no sense to me at all. “I only brought my wife in. I don’t know what sort of physician you are, but give me someone else who can tell me about my wife, not about your countless other patients!” I yell at him, unable to believe this man lost his train of thought. My wife could have died, and he’s being so careless. I want someone better, someone who knows what they’re talking about.
“Mr.Albu... I am informing you that your wife and your children are all okay. No harm came to any of them.”
I run my hand through my hair. This old bastard just told me I have children. Jesus. “You mean she’s pregnant?”
“Oh...I assumed that’s what you were babbling on about when you brought her in. Had no idea you weren’t aware. Doesn’t matter, though. She already had you authorized on her paperwork for us to disclose medical information to you. She’s pregnant with twins, but...” While the physician is telling me that his ass is covered and she can’t sue him, I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact I’m going to be a father, and not to one child...to two of them.
The doctor walks away, and I make my way back to the seat I was sitting in just a few minutes ago. I want to be happy that I’m having two children, this is something I’ve always wanted...but I can’t help that I’m worrying about how Vera will take it. Will the news be too much for her? She’s obviously been depressed, and I want her focused on getting better, not on the fear that motherhood will no doubt instill in her. She’s already given me the impression she doesn’t want to be a mother, believing that she’d fail at it like her parents did. What doesn’t click in her head is the fact that she isn’t her parents - she’s so much better.
Before I leave for the day I make it clear that I don’t want the physician to disclose this news to her. She only needs to be concerned about herself, not on the babies. While we’re having this discussion he tells me that he believes I should come back once her psychiatric hold is up and though I want to be here, I know it’s for the best that I give her time.
***
Three days have gone and past much slower than I expected. Countless times I almost left the hotel and burst down the doors to this hospital to see my beloved Vera, but I kept thinking about my children. How they need their mother to stay calm. No doubt, if I came back she wouldn’t be calm in any sense of the word.
I walk up to the receptionist. “Hi. My wife is being released today. Her name is Vera Albu, and I am here to pick her up and take her home.”
“Alright. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll get you back in a room with her while her discharge paperwork is prepared,” the receptionist responds. After a couple minutes of her typing away on the computer, she rises and leads me back down a hallway, opens a door and reveals my wife. What a sight for sore eyes.
“Thank you,” I say to her before I enter the room and take a seat across from Vera. Her wrist is still bandaged. I have a feeling the stitches will stay for a few days and we’ll be back to get them removed.
“How are you feeling?”
Vera doesn’t so much as even look at me. Her eyes are trained on the floor, arms crossed as if she’s trying to do nothing but comfort herself.
“Vera?” I say, my emotions getting the best of me.
“What the fuck, Vera?!” I snap, after waiting a couple of minutes. “You need to talk to me. I’ve been worried sick about you!”
I don’t know how I’m supposed to react, and more importantly, I don’t know what the fuck has happened to my wife.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Vera
I want to blame him for where I am, for not letting me do what needed to be done, but I can’t. The only person I can blame is myself. I ended up in this place because of actions I made, because of actions that I’ve regretted since everything went black. I didn’t want to die. I just thought I did. I thought that everything wouldn’t hurt anymore if I was with the people that I love, with the girls who depended on me more than anything...but I didn’t think about my husband, about what leaving him would be like.
I failed to think of Rhys and how much he loves and adores me, of how I have those feelings for him.
I only felt my pain and loneliness, and worst of all, my failures. I can see how much I screwed up, how much Rhys truly cares. I don’t know how it’s possible that I could’ve been so blind to it, to forget it, to act like it wasn’t even there. I know better than that...and I haven’t been this depressed in years.
“Why did you do it, huh? Why? I’m trying to be as accepting and understanding as I can, but I don’t understand.”
“Of course, you don’t understand. We’re so different! How would you ever understand the type of life I’ve had to survive in? You were born with a spoon in your mouth while I was being starved by my own mother!”
He speaks so quickly that he’s practically spitting on me, “I’m glad we’re on the subject since you’re one now.”
What he says doesn’t make any sense to me. “What do you mean?”
“Put it together, Vera. When’s the last time you had your period?” Quickly, I figure out what he’s telling me, but it’s impossible. I’m on birth control. There’s no way I’m pregnant.
“Not possible, I’m on the pill. I take it every morning with breakfast. You’ve seen me.” I’ve never missed taking it, not once.
“Birth control fails all the time, Vera.”
I shake my head back and forth, not wanting this. I’ve never wanted this, not even as a small child. “This can’t be happening...I’m not ready,” I burst out into tears, all of my compressed emotions come exploding out of me. If I was certain about anything in life it’s that I was never meant to be a parent, and my DNA showed that my bloodline failed tremendously at that.
“Dytyna, I’m not ready either. No one is ever ready to be a parent, but you can rest assured that we’ll figure this out and that these kids will be loved and cared for. You aren’t your parents, Vera. You are so much more than they ever are.”
I take a gulp before asking him something that I’m terrified to find the answer of. “Ki
ds. You said kids. That’s plural…”
“The doctor said you were having twins.” He smiles so bright as he says it, like it’s the happiest news he’s ever heard.
“I’m so scared...I...I never wanted this.”
Rhys looks concerned for a moment, “Do you want to abort?”
The answer spills from my lips before I realize what I’ve said. “What? No! Never!”
It’s now that I realize I have wanted this. Somewhere deep, down inside of me, I wanted to be a mother but have just been so afraid of it. It’s not labor, or the getting fat part, but I am most afraid of failing them.
I can fail in business. I can let myself down, but I will never accept letting down children.
“If anyone can do this, it’s us. That I am sure of,” Rhys tells me, wrapping his arm around my back. He leans his lips down to mine and kisses me, making me forget every traumatic thing that has happened over the last few days.
As his lips envelop mine and we stand in the room in each other’s arms everything settles in our world. We may live in chaos, but we thrive in it. There’s only one place that I want to be. “Romanian, can we go home?” I whisper against his lips, looking up to him with tear filled eyes.
“Words I thought I’d never hear,” he jokes, taking ahold of my hand we head out. I will promise Rhys one thing, I will never do what I tried to accomplish ever again. It’s not just me I have to worry about anymore, but these two little beans growing inside my belly.
The Albu Clan is just getting started.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rhys
I sit on the couch with my wife, looking at her and the tiny bump that has now appeared on her lower stomach where she is carrying my children. I have not necessarily been the paternal type, seeing myself as raising a child, but I can just imagine having a family with this crazy woman I have fallen for against my will. And any child that comes from her DNA is going to be special, strong, the kind of child that can carry on our legacy that we are creating here. And it starts today.
Because today is the deal we make a plan to rid the planet of Glib and this scatter his gang. They will be easy picking after that, if they even dare to stick around. They will know when we are done who rules the Ukraine.
"You look beautiful, dytyna," I tell her, and she rolls her eyes at me even as a smile she can’t escape rises on her face.
Things have been different since New York. We had to start working differently. We have always been a team, but now, we have to be a couple too. After all she had lost, she saw herself as alone, and I didn’t know. I didn’t know her. She had to tell me and be OK with me knowing. And then I became her family.
It is something I treasure because I know she doesn’t give something like that away so easily, but I love her more for it.
But I have seen her toughness returning, and a lot of it is because of this pregnancy. I can see a new determination in her to be someone worthy of motherhood, someone she didn’t think she was before.
"Look, I plan on fucking you later, don’t worry about that, but right now, I am so ready to get to business," she tells me with a familiar gleam in her eye. I know my Vera is back.
"Okay, well, I think we can trick him, but you know best how he operates. He seems a volatile and unpredictable leader, but you have been dealing with him much longer than me. If I ask him to come to a meeting, to make a deal of some kind, a truce maybe, how would he respond?" I ask her.
She looks thoughtful before looking at me. "I don’t think he would accept any invitation from you. He is afraid of you and your resources. It is not so much he is not afraid of me, but he thinks that he can outsmart me or that he can have a bigger network than me to use against me. It would have to come from me. But I know that he does not follow any codes or rules. He has no honor. Even if we ask that he comes alone, he will not."
I nod slowly, thinking if there is a way we can sue that about him to our advantage. "We will not come alone either. I will hide our men well, but they will be there and ready to strike at a moment’s notice," I assure her. "But where do we do this that gives us the advantage?"
"It should be here, in the city somewhere, somewhere we know like the back of our hand," she says with a shrug.
"Would he ever agree to that? Isn’t that too obvious?"
She shakes her head. "He is more likely to think I will honor there being no one else there or that I will only have a few men. He underestimates me...or overestimates, depending on how you look at it. All my men know how to fight, and fight they will. To the death."
"How appropriate," I comment, not liking the sound of such a bloodbath, but it doesn’t mean she isn’t right. "Our men against his, then?" I ask her, and Vera nods enthusiastically.
I sigh because the thought of a pregnant woman...especially one pregnant with my children, getting caught in such a crossfire does not appeal to me one bit.
"You know I will have to ask you to stay behind just in case. You are carrying our children."
She nods. "I know." She doesn’t fight ,me, and this is something I am not sued to. But I also know she cares for those children as much as I do. Maybe it is that simple. "I have a call to make, meet me in the bedroom in ten," she orders me before sauntering off, still as sexy as ever even in pregnancy.
Damn, I am a lucky man, and I intend to find a way where we all make it out of this alive.
All except Glib.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Vera
It’s pointless for Rhys to even think I’m going to sit my ass at home and behave like a good girl. He knows me better than that, and the fact he just left without even leaving so much as a guard here is ridiculous. Did he expect me to just sit tight? Novice.
I make my way to where I’ve overheard Rhys telling his men the meet would be set up, and surprisingly enough, I’ve walked up on a show that’s already started. Our men and Glib’s men are a good bit away, each having a gun trained on the offending side. I stay in the dark, close to where the action is, but my identity hidden. No one has seen me, and I sure as hell don’t plan on them to.
Their voices lower, and I take a few steps forward, still staying out of sight, hidden behind the brushery. Rhys looks up from his direction, and his eyes catch mine. Dammit! Should’ve known the bastard would’ve seen me. Rhys and Gilb met at a small private area outside of the city center, shockingly close to our home. I think Rhys forgets that I know my way in and out of this city like it’s the back of my hand. Of course, I’d show up, and you’d be damn sure I’d stay hidden.
“Let’s make a deal, shall we?” Rhys offers out of the blue. I’m glaring daggers at my husband. We have no deals to offer this monstrosity. “How about you and I settle this man to man. Our men stay out of it and cannot interfere, no weapons. Only our fists.”
Glib cackles, “Romanian, you will fail.” I watch the way Rhys’ face turns to disgust as Glib calls my husband the pet name that I’ve given to him. I guess he only likes it when I call him that. If everything wasn’t so serious, I’d laugh.
There is no verbal agreement of the fight as Glib flies towards Rhys, attempting to use his entire body as a weapon, ultimately failing. I watch Rhys, using his body to his advantage. He moves quick like a jaguar, to the left and the right, missing a punch by ducking out of the way. He’s reminding me of a boxer, constantly moving and offsetting his opponents strategy. If only this was a mere boxing match.
Rhys’ hand flies in Glib’s direction and he pops him straight in the nose. Even from a few feet away I can hear the crunch of bone and watch as Glib wipes his hand across his face, covering his white shirt in crimson red.
The next thing I know, Glib’s fist smacks Rhys in the back of his head. What a dirty move!
Rhys falls to the ground before me, and I know that if I don’t act in this moment, everything we’ve worked so hard to accomplish will fall apart. I simply cannot allow that to happen. I make a rash decision and interject myself in the fight, pregnant and all, comin
g out from the brushery. Glib doesn’t see me coming, heading from the back I use all my force and jolt my foot behind his knee, causing him to hit the ground faster than my husband did. Both bloodied and bruised, I think I’ve given Rhys the opportunity he needed to take Glib out.
I walk around to the front and look at Glib as my husband regains his footing, and sneer down at his face, watching the agony and shock that goes into it once he’s realized what’s just happened. There’s no way that he’ll survive this. Glib’s last moments are upon him, and in his eyes I see one thing - fear. He’s right to be afraid, for he knows what’s coming.
Rhys seems to be pissed that I’ve stepped in, being pregnant and all, but surely he understands that without me our children would have been fatherless. He can drum an argument up with me later, it’s pointless if he does. I’ll still win.
He cranks his fist back and plummets his hand into Glib’s face over and over again until you can hear the wet sound of his fist hitting blood. I watch closely as the blood spatters over my husband. His rage continues on for a few minutes until I grab the back of his shoulder, causing him to come to an immediate stop. “There is no way he will wake up from that,” I assure him, and he nods in agreement.
I know why Rhys continued the way he did, because Glib was the catalyst of my depression. The drugs. Olena. Lana.
All of it.
Rhys stands up and walks over to one of our men, whispering something and the next thing I know, Rhys has a glock raised and fires three shots in Glib’s head. Looking at me, he snickers, “Best to be sure.”
I shake my head at my ridiculous husband, loving every part of him, and yes I mean the paranoid parts too. “We sure make a hell of a team,” I smile, walking over to be entrapped in his embrace.
“We sure do, but don’t think your ass isn’t going to be paying for your little stunt later.”
Anguish Page 55
