Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Amy
“So,” the doctor said, but I barely heard him. My eyes were glued to the closed blue curtain where an hour ago Alexei had again rushed off to be with his Violet. I couldn’t help but look in that direction every time there was a noise outside.
I hadn’t wanted to see him, I still didn’t, but—but—
Mrs. Cole’s hand squeezed mine, and I shook myself, giving my attention back to the doctor standing next to the bed. “Sorry, doctor,” I apologized quickly.
His smile was a little lopsided. “It’s perfectly understandable that you’re a little out of it, Mrs. Petrovov.”
I winced back at that anew. “Please call me Amy,” I whispered. “Is my baby—” I gulped down a sob. I couldn’t even bring myself to say the word baby because if I did, I would break down completely.
“Has a strong heartbeat.”
I did a double-take. “What?”
“Oh, sweetheart, that is the best news.” Mrs. Cole’s grip on my hand became almost painful. When I looked at her, there were tears in her eyes. “I told you that everything would be fine. Do you want me to get Alexei?”
I shook my head. “No, I think,” pausing, I tried to gather my thoughts and make sense of them.
Every part of me wanted him to come back, but he had gone to her.
He could have stayed at my side or outside like Micah had done.
He could have waited to make sure our child was alright. He had chosen to go back to her.
She nodded her head and sank back into her seat. “I don’t want you to be alone, Amy, so I’m going to stay by your side. But I’m going to send Micah back to get us all a change of clothes.”
“Thank you. But I don’t expect you to stay with me. You have a house to run.”
“Not anymore. I gave my notice. I can’t work for Alexei any longer. Not after the way he has treated you. He will lose most of his staff because of this.”
I stared at her in shock. “I can’t ask you to do that. It’s your job.”
“You didn’t ask me to do anything. Violet brings out a side of Aexei no one likes.” Her lips twisted. “She’s a poison he can’t get rid of. But—”
Her words were cut off as the curtains were ripped back. My heart leaped out of my chest. I lifted my head, expecting to see Alexei.
Instead, I came face-to-face with one of the nurses who took care of my sister. Any hope I had evaporated.
“I’m sorry, Amy,” she whispered.
The world around me tilted. “No,” I croaked. “No, no, no.” My voice rose to a deafening pitch. “Please, no.”
I didn’t know who I was begging, anyone who listened.
“Is she?” Mrs. Cole’s voice was a hiss. “Is Alessia?”
“They are working on her now, but—” the nurse’s eyes met mine, and my heart shattered into a million pieces. “I’m sorry, Amy, but you need to come now.”
Shoving the blankets off my legs, I tried to stand. The doctor pushed me back. “You can’t walk anywhere.”
“It’s my sister.” I screamed it in his face, my spit flying. I shoved at him. “She needs me,”
“Here.” Micah appeared, a wheelchair in front of him. “She won’t be walking, doc, but she will be going to say goodbye to her sister. Even if I have to carry her.”
Two seconds later, I was being wheeled towards the elevator. Mrs. Cole and the nurse rushed by my side as Micah pushed, and it seemed to take an age before the elevator doors opened and we were speeding up the building to the ICU.
As usual, it was eerily quiet.
It made the thundering of my heart even louder, and my breath sounded heavy in my ears.
“Please, please, please.” The words ran together. A mumbled prayer to a God I didn’t believe in, but I would believe in him if he just gave me my sister back.
He couldn’t save my child and take my sister. That’s not how it was meant to work.
“Amy,” my sister’s room opened, and the doctor stepped outside. His face was tight. “I am so sorry.”
I wailed like a wounded animal. No. This couldn’t be happening. I refused to believe it.
“Is she?” Micah’s voice shook.
“The machines are keeping her alive right now, but she’s brain-dead.”
I lifted my head. “What does that mean? She isn’t dead?”
“Amy.” Crouching down, he took both of my hands gently.
“Alessia is gone, her heart gave out, and the lack of oxygen to her brain means she won’t ever wake up.
The machines are keeping her alive, technically.
” His voice was full of tears. “You have a decision to make, and it’s not going to be easy. ”
“Can I see her?”
Stepping back, he allowed me to be wheeled inside. My sister was right where I had left her, in the middle of the room, surrounded by wires and tubes. And she looked peaceful. She didn’t look like she was in pain anymore.
A sob ripped out of my throat. “She’s not here anymore, is she? She’s already gone.”
“I am so sorry, Amy.” Mrs. Cole was crying as well. “I am so sorry this is happening to you.”
“Can I stay with her? When are the machines turned off?” Tears ripped their way out of my eyes, but the sobbing had quietened. I swallowed hard. “Can I hold her hand so she’s not alone?”
“Of course, Amy. You can sit with her for as long as you want.”
“Thank you.” My voice was almost normal.
“We will be right outside, Amy,” Micah said firmly. “If you need anything, then call for us.”
“Thank you,” I told them, and I meant it from the bottom of my heart. Alexei’s staff has done more for me than he ever had. Someone pushed me towards my sister’s bed. I didn’t see who, and I took her hand as the door closed quietly.
Finally, leaving me alone with the shell of my sister, I brought her cool hand to my face and rubbed it against my cheek.
“I don’t want this to be real, Alessia,” I whispered. “I want you to open those eyes and scream surprise at me like you used to when we were kids.”
Alessi’s face remained blank, her eyes closed.
She wasn’t going to wake up ever again. I knew that. But deep down, I couldn’t help but hope that this was all just a nightmare that I could wake up from.
“I’m having a baby, you know,” I said softly. “I meant to come and tell you, but, well, I’m here now. I’d like you to wake up and get better so you can meet them. Please, Alessia.”
It was pointless begging. I knew she couldn’t hear me anymore. I took a deep breath, my chest rising and falling heavily. But it still felt like I was suffocating. There was not enough air in the world to fill my lungs now.
My sister didn’t look peaceful this close up. She looked empty. The doctor was right. She was already gone.
“If I have a baby girl, I’m going to call her Alessia,” I promised. “And I hope she is just like you. I’ll tell her all about you and how great you were. I’ll make sure she knows what a cool aunt you would have been.”
The door opened, and the doctor appeared, hesitating when he saw the tears wetting my cheeks.
I knew why he was here, nodding. I went back to talking to my sister as he moved from machine to machine. Slowly, minute by minute, the beeping and whooshing of those machines fell silent.
I continued talking, filling the heavy, painful silence with the sound of my voice as I reminisced about all the fun times we’d had together. I filled the quiet room with the sound of my heartbroken giggles, and I didn’t let go of her hand. Time passed, but I wasn’t sure how much time.
“Do you remember the board we had growing up, where we cut out pictures of all the places we would visit one day?” My voice broke as memories flooded me—us sitting cross-legged on the floor between our beds.
“This.” Alessia flattered a crumpled page from a brochure with her palm and beamed up at me. “This is where we will start our adventure, Amy. We will gaze up and then ride the elevator up and gaze down, and it will be a whole new start for us.”
Whole new start? I wanted to roll my eyes, but my older sister was a dreamer. She never changed that and, honestly, I never wanted her to. Life was tough, but she made it bearable.
“We will get a cute apartment close by and eat croissants in view of—”
I glanced downward. We had never had a croissant once in our lives, but she made them sound delicious. The creased picture filled my eyes, and my smile was replaced by a frown.
“Vegas?” I asked. “You want to start our travels in Las Vegas?”
“No dummy.” She heaved a pillow at my head. “Not Vegas.”
“Don’t they have one of those tower things in Vegas, though?”
Alessia groaned. “I’m talking about Paris. Home of love. Maybe we will meet some handsome French men.”
It was my turn to groan. That was my sister all over. The hopeless romantic, but I loved that about her. I might not believe in love and romantic walks and croissants, whatever they are, but she did, and I wanted her to experience it all.
Reaching down, I hugged her tightly. “Then we will go. And you can eat all the croissants you want and fall in love every other day. All of it.” I squeezed her tighter. “You are going to experience it all, Alessia. I promise.”
My sister’s hand turned cold in mine, and the memory evaporated to be replaced by cold, hard reality.
“I’ll take her, so we can all go together.
You’ll get to see all those places through us, I promise.
” I sucked in a breath, my chest so tight it was burning.
“I love you,” I said finally. My vision was so blurry with tears that I could barely see her. “I am sorry I failed you.”
Placing her hand on her side, I forced myself up onto my feet and pressed my lips to her forehead. “I am so sorry, Alessia, but you can rest now. You can sleep.”
I collapsed back into the chair with a gulping cry. The door flew open, Mrs. Cole barreling in first, followed closely by one of the nurses.
Seeing my distraught face, Mrs. Cole engulfed me in her arms. “I am sorry, Amy, so sorry. Micah has gone to get clothes, and as soon as he gets back, we will take you home.”
I couldn’t help it. I glanced back at the bed. I wasn’t sure I was ready to leave her yet.
“I’ll take good care of her, Amy.” The nurse said quietly.
I knew that. They had taken such good care of her when she was alive. I knew that they would do the same now.
“I know.” Lifting my head to Mrs. Cole, I sucked in a breath. “Can I borrow your phone?”
For a second, she looked confused, and then she handed it over. “Who are you calling Amy?”
“Alexei. I need him.”
Opening his number quickly, I waited for him to answer.
“Mrs. Cole,” Violet’s voice was loud and hissing. ”You’d best get your old, wrinkly ass home now. I’m starving.”
Violet had his phone. Not only that, but he had taken her home and left me alone.
My heart hardened. “It’s Amy.”
“Ohhh,” she sang to me. “Not dead then? Shame.”
“I need to speak to Alexei. My sister—” I gulped in a steadying breath. “My sister, Alessia, died.”
“Good riddance, I say. It should have been you, though. You know that, right?”
God, she was an evil cow.
“Put Alexei on the phone,” I said coldly. My heart wasn’t hard anymore. It was made of pure ice. “Now.”
“He’s not here. He’s gone to ask his grandfather for his permission to marry me. You should see the ring on my finger, Amy. it was once his grandmother’s.”
I cut the call off before she could finish the sentence. So, Alexei was going to ask his grandfather permission to divorce me. I should have been heartbroken. And maybe before I would have been, but now? Now I had lost too much in too short a time to feel anything at all.
I was completely and utterly numb.
My sister was gone.
My marriage was over.
The only thing I had left was my child, and I was going to protect that baby with everything I had.