29. Evelyn
29
EVELYN
I remember telling Dimitri that it wasn’t that bad. Somewhere, in the fog of pain, I think he told me he loved me. But when I wake up, my mind blurry with painkillers and the bright, too-clean scent of the hospital filling my senses, I feel sure that I imagined it. That it couldn’t possibly have been real.
It all happened so fast. Bits and pieces of it come back to me, as I fade in and out of consciousness, the painkillers dragging me under as fast as I wake up, and back again. I remember gunshots, and hands grabbing me, pushing me into a car. I remember those same hands sliding where they shouldn’t, jokingly groping me before the men were warned away. I remember being dragged into a room, a heavy hand cracking across my face, and more gunshots. More blood.
The painkillers come with the unfortunate side effect of turning those memories into nightmares, the scenes playing over and over again, as I feel myself struggling to wake up and being dragged back under again. I don’t know how long that goes on for, how many cycles of barely coming back to consciousness before falling asleep again that I go through, before I open my eyes and see sunlight streaming into my room, and Dimitri sitting next to my hospital bed.
For a moment, I think I’m hallucinating it. That I’m imagining this. “Are you real?” I croak, the pain in my too-dry throat making me wince, and Dimitri is on his feet in an instant, reaching for a cup at my bedside.
“Ice chips.” He fishes one out of the cup, gently pushing it between my lips, and even in my current state, the feeling of his fingers against my lips makes me shiver. “Easy. You’ve been out for almost two days.”
“Two—” My voice is a scratchy rasp. “What happened?”
“The bullet went through your shoulder. It missed anything vital, but they had to do surgery to reconstruct some of what was damaged.” Dimitri hesitates. “It might be a while before you’re able to draw or sew again. But we’re going to get you the best physical therapy money can buy. The surgeon said you’ll make a full recovery, as long as you take it slow, and stick to?—”
“And the baby?” I blurt it out as soon as I feel like I can speak, the water from the melted ice chip coating my throat and blurring the pain. Fear pounds in my chest, making me feel numb, my throat tightening. “Our baby?—”
Dimitri’s face goes momentarily blank, as if hearing me say our baby made him briefly lose everything he was thinking. “The baby is fine,” he says quickly, recovering. “Our baby is fine.”
For a moment, I can’t speak. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, when I can form words again. “I’m sorry I was going to keep it a secret. I’m glad you knew, just in case?—”
“Don’t say that.” Dimitri reaches out, his hand wrapping around mine. “Don’t even think it. I was never going to let anything happen to you, Evelyn. Never in a thousand years—every man there is dead.” His jaw tightens. “Barca Valenti, all his men, if I have to hunt any of them that are left down, every man who ever threatened you is a dead man. You’re my wife, and I—” He pauses, his gaze fixed on mine with an intensity that makes my heart start to race in my chest. “And now that you’re awake…”
“What?” My fingers wrap around his without my thinking about it, fear winding its way through me.
Dimitri draws in a slow breath. “My father was behind this,” he says quietly. “I don’t know why, exactly, although I suspect it has something to do with his deal with Nicci’s father. But he put out the hit on you. He promised the Crows part of our territory, if they took you out. Nicci was in on it.” He swallows hard, his throat working, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I was waiting for you to wake up. And once I knew you and our baby were safe…” He pauses. “I’m going to go and find out why. And then I’m going to make sure no one threatens you ever again.”
I blink at him, stunned into silence, trying to figure out if he means what I think he does. “Your father…Dimitri, you can’t. You can’t?—”
“I can,” he says flatly, his voice hard. “You’re my wife , Evelyn. My father tried to have you killed. In our world…I can’t let that go unpunished. I won’t . I knew he’d been slipping, that he was losing sight of what we should be as a family, as Bratva…but I didn’t know he’d go this far. Now that I do, I can’t let it go.”
His fingers tighten around mine. I don’t know what to say. The thought of Dimitri killing his father, even for trying to kill me, seems unthinkable. But at the same time?—
This is a world I don’t understand. But I remember what I felt, when I was grabbed. When I was dragged away. When, for a terrifying stretch of time that seemed incredibly long and short all at once, I thought I might die—when I didn’t know what might happen to me before that eventually came to pass.
I look at Dimitri, and I can see that no matter what I say, his mind is made up. And I wonder if he’s entirely wrong, to feel that way. What I would do, if he was threatened that way. If our child was threatened.
“I won’t let him live in a world where he could try to come after our child,” Dimitri says, almost as if he heard my thoughts. “This is what needs to happen, Evelyn. Vik has him under guard. And now that I know you’re safe, I can go and take care of business.”
I nod, my mouth dry. “And then what?” I whisper, and Dimitri hesitates, his thumb stroking over my knuckles.
“Do you remember what I said to you?” he murmurs, and I press my lips together.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I remember…some things. But some of it I thought I might have imagined. Like you saying?—”
“I love you.” He says it simply, as if it’s a fact that he should have stated a long time ago. “I should have told you before it was almost too late, Evelyn. I should have told you instead of pushing you away, again and again. Seeing you get hurt was the worst moment of my life. I thought I was going to lose you, and all I could think was that I should never have let you walk away a year ago. I should have known that you would matter more to me than anything else in the world. I should have known that you would be the only woman who could ever make me feel like this.”
Every word he says washes over me, filling my heart, making me want to reach for him, pull him into me despite all the wires and cords in the way. But something stops me. A fear that this might not be real, that this might not be right. That I might not be made to love a man who lives in a world where death can always be around the next corner. Where duty sometimes demands that he deal out that death to his own father.
“I—” I see the flash of hurt in his eyes, his gaze shuttering, and I almost don’t say what comes to my lips. But it has to be said. I have to tell him the truth, now of all times, after everything that’s happened.
“I feel something for you, too,” I whisper. “And it might be the same thing…but I can’t say it yet. I need time?—”
“Evelyn—” There’s something desperate in his voice, and it digs at my heart, but I cling to what I know I need. I have to be sure, before I say the words. I don’t want to ever take them back, once I do.
“I was just shot.” I brush my fingers over his hand. “I don’t know if I can handle this—this world that you’re a part of. That you’re about to run . If you’re going to do what you’re saying—you’ll lead your family, Dimitri. You’ll be the pakhan . And I don’t know…I don’t know if I’m ready to be the wife you need.”
“You are?—”
“You can’t make me stay.” I shake my head, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “If I decide to leave. You can’t force me to stay, not unless you want me to hate you. It has to be my choice.”
I see everything that Dimitri was about to say, every argument he was about to make, fading away. “I know,” he says quietly. “But I don’t think I can bear it, if you leave.”
“It has to be my choice,” I whisper. “And I need time. If you love me, you’ll give me time.”
Dimitri hesitates, and then he nods. His hand closes around mine, and he leans in, his lips brushing against my forehead.
“Go do what you need to do,” I whisper, as his mouth lowers to mine. “And come back to me when you’re done.”
“I will,” Dimitri says softly. “I love you, Evelyn Yashkova.”
His lips brush against mine, gently. And then he straightens, his eyes meeting mine just once, before he turns and walks out of the room.