2. Dimitri
2
DIMITRI
I t took me forty-seven days to find her.
Forty-seven days and three hours, to be exact.
I sit by her side now, waiting for her to wake up. Waiting for her to open her eyes. Waiting for her tosay my name again.
I can’t take this silence any longer.
“Can you scooch over?”
I glance up at Chloe, Briar’s sister. She’s holding a little bottle of pink nail polish in her hands.
“Is that really necessary?” I ask her.
“It’s what Briar would have wanted,” Chloe says.
I move over, letting her paint the nails on Briar’s right hand.
“Maybe you should have started thinking about what Briar wanted before it was too late,” I say.
Chloe pauses for asecondbut then continues applying the pearl-pink polish.
“How many times are we going to have this conversation?” she asks.
“Someone has to call you out on your bullshit,” I say. “And I don’t see anyone else doing it.”
Chloe sighs. “Dimitri, I know you’re hurt. We all are, but?—”
“You knew the truth about your stepmother the whole time, and you left Briar alone with her anyway. And now you’re back, acting like you care about her. It just pisses me off. That’s all.”
“She’s my sister ,” Chloe says. “Of course I care about her.”
“If that’s true, you wouldn’t have abandoned her when she needed you most,”I say.
“Is this about the nail polish?”she asks.
“No, it’s about you acting like painting her nails will change everything.”
Something flares in Chloe’s eyes. She looks up at me.
“Look, I know that you guys dated for a couple of months or whatever, but she’s still my sister. I know what she likes and doesn’t like. When she wakes up, she will be happy to see that I’m doing her nails and hair when she can’t. And you can say whatever you want about me, but it won’t change the fact that I love her with all my heart.”
There’s a lot of poison in my heart. And I know it’s wrong of me to take it out on Chloe.Apart from me, she was the only one who religiously stayed by Briar’s side after we found her.
I know she means well. The three sisters grew up in a stressful environment. I know that Chloe, being the eldest sister, did the best she could.
She starts on the second coat of nail polish.
“I can act like your words don’t bother me, but they do,”she says, looking at me. “Don’t you think I beat myself up over it every time I look at her face?”
Her eyes fill with tears.
“I’m sorry,”I grit out. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did,”she says, not meeting my gaze now.“Leaving my sisters is the one mistake that haunts me to this day.”
She glances over at the window. The second those tears land on her cheeks, the door flies open.
I close my eyes and pray for patience.
“What the fuck did you say to her?”Chloe’s Italian fiancé enters the room with storms brewing in his eyes.
“Max, it’s not important,”Chloe says, standing up and rushing to her fiancé’s side.
“If you weren’t going through something already, I would have given you something to cry about,”he growls.
“Good to know,” I say.
“Come on, let’s go get a coffee,”Chloe says, resting her hands on her fiancé’s chest and pushing him toward the door before things escalate.
“If you make her cry one more time, I will gut you open like a fish,”he warns.
“Noted,” I say dryly.
“Max, I’m hungry,”Chloe says, finally getting her fiancé’s attention.
The two of them look at each other. An ember of jealousy glows in my heart, ignitingintoa fire that sweeps over all of me.
Max Montgomery isthe reasonwhy it took me forty-seven days to find Briar. Instead of sticking to the plan, the Italian motherfucker decided to be the knight in shining armor for his girl. And because of that, we lost Briar.
I take Briar’s slender hand in mine, reminding myself that she’s right by my side. I won’t let anythingbadhappen to her ever again.
“Dimitri, we’ll be back in a few minutes,”Chloe says, walking toward the door.
“Please take your time,” I reply.
Max’s head whips in my direction. I give him a sweet smile.
His gray eyes flash with unexpressed wrath. But he remains quiet for the sake of his woman.
The door closes shut behind them.
It’s just Briar and me in the room now. I clutch her pale hand tighter. For not the first time, I find myself wishing that I could give her some of my strength. Some of my vitality.
Being careful not to smudge her freshly painted nails, I lift her hand and kiss it.
Every time I look at her face, a fresh wave of disappointmentwashes overme.
She’s been in a coma for over two months now.
Her toxicology reports still show remnants of the drip feed ofchemicalcocktail her mother was giving her. She was sedated so often that it led to temporary brain damage. Her MRI scans show that her brain function isn’t optimal. We don’t know if she’ll ever open her eyes. Even if she does, she may not be her old self again.
“Please come back, solnishko ,”I say. “The world isn’t the same without you in it.”
I call her my “little sun”because that’s exactly what she has always been for me.
In a world where everything seemed dark and hopeless, she was the first rays of the sun. She banished darkness and brought warmth. And when we were together, she shined a little brighter.
The door opens once more.
I swallow a curse.I thoughtI told the lovebirds to take their time.
Instead of finding Chloe and Max by the door, it’s the doctors.
I stand. The attending physician, a tall, balding man, looks straight at our intertwined hands. I don’t release her even as the team gathers around Briar’s bed.
“Hello, Dr. Sanchez,”I say to the attending.
“Hello, Dave ,” he says.
He pronounces “Dave”like he doesn’t believe for a second that it’s my real name.And I’m gladbecause I need someone intelligenttreatingmy girl.
“Are her lab reports back yet?”I ask.
He exhales.
“Yes, the antibiotic course we put her on is working,”he says, motioning for one of the interns to manually take her blood pressure. “Her CRP has come to a normal level. There are no longer any signs of infection in her body.”
I watch the intern like a hawk as she places the cuff around her arm.I let go of Briar’s hand.
“And what about the coma?”I ask. “When is she going to wake up?”
“I’m going to tell you the same thing I told you last time,”he says. “I can’t give you any information on that yet.”
I focus on my breathing to keep from snapping at the team. I know they’re doing their best. I made sure of it.
“And while I have you here, I must ask you to stick to the visiting hours,”he says. “It’s hospital policy.”
“I thought I already told you how I feel about hospital policy,”I say, folding my arms over my chest. There’s no way in hell anybodywillseparate me from Briar now.
“It’s for the safety of the other patients,”he says.
“I’ll speak with the administration,”I say.“I’m sure they can make an exception.”
A tinge of color appears on the neurologist’s cheeks. He knows that I have the hospital management wrapped around my finger.
He’s a proud man. He went through a decade of education and even more years of practice. He doesn’t like that I’m calling the shots in his territory.
But he’s heard stories about me.
Which is why he turns and walks toward the lightbox by the wall. He switches the light on and holds one of the recent MRI scans against it. He points things out to his team, explaining what everything means.
I listen to their discussion, but the medical jargon mostly goes over my head. But then I hear something that makes the breath rattle in my lungs.
I think I heard him say something about “increased brain activity.”
I wait until he finishes speaking.
When the team is about to leave, I pull him aside.He checks his JLC watch and mutters something about having other patients to see.
I get right to it. “I overheard you saying something about increased brain activity?”
He watches me. “And?”
“Isn’t that the kind of thing you’d want to tell me?”
“If it were something I wanted to tell you, I would have,”he says.
I can see by the hardness in his eyes that his ego is still hurt by the whole visitinghoursthing.
“Please,”I say. “She means everything to me. Please tell me what you saw on the MRI scan.”
He sighs. “I really shouldn’t be discussing this with you. Not until I know for certain what it means.”
“You’re one of the most respected neurologists in America,”I say, stroking his ego. “You must have a theory.”
He glances over at where his team is waiting for him.
And then he sighs. “Miss Thorne hasn’t shown any definitive signs of improvement yet, but I have reason to believe that her coma isn’t as severe as we previously thought. Her brain waves show a prevalence of beta wave activity. Normally, theta and delta wave activity are more prevalent in comatose patients.”
“Okay, so what does that mean?”
He glances over at Briar. “It means that it’s possible Miss Thorne may be aware of her surroundings. Her senses are possibly active, and she may be able to listen and pay attention to what’s happening in her environment.”
My heart trips over itself as I process this.
“Are you saying she can hear me?”I ask.
“It’s possible, yes,” the attending says.
I rush back to Briar’s side. I’ve been talking to her on and off, but if I knew she was listening the whole time, I wouldn’t have stopped talking.
I take her hand again.
And this time, I dare to look at her face. Her blonde waves are fanned out on the pillow, framing her perfect marble face.
The doctor’s words are like shards of light that break through my gloom.
“I should warn you, though,”the doctor adds. “Even if she gets better, the person whocomes backto you might not be the same person you once knew.”
Before I can ask him what he means by that, he leaves the room.
I press another kiss on Briar’s hand.
“If I knew you could hear me this whole time, I would have been nicer to your sister,”I tell her.
And then I take a deep breath.
I can talk to her now, but I don’t know what to say. The last time we saw each other, we left things on a sour note.
Briar saw something she shouldn’t have.
And it led to her telling me she never wanted to see me again. She made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with me.But that’s allin the pastnow.
“I’m so sorry I let this happen, solnishko ,”I say. “I’m sorry I ever let you go. You never told me how bad you had it at home. You never told me how cruel your mother was. Letting you walk away from me that night was my biggest mistake. I thought I could love you from a distance, but I was only deluding myself. I’m sorry I didn’t fight harder for you.”
My heart feels like it’s the only organ in my body right now. It expands, growing larger and larger until it takes up all the space inside my rib cage.
It’s filled with so much love for this girl that I feel like I can’t contain it within me.
The door opens.
Chloe steps inside the room. I don’t look up at her as she takes her seat opposite me.
“Hello, Chloe,” I say.
“Um, hello?”she says. “I got you a sandwich. It’s hospital food, so don’t expect much, but Ihad it heatedup for you.”
“Thank you,”I say, accepting the wrapped-up sandwich.
She gasps. “What did you say?”
I remain quiet, keeping my eyes on Briar.
“Are you being nice to me?”Chloe asks. “I swear I just heard you say thank you.”
“There’s no need to be dramatic,”I say.
She purses her lips and watches me. “I saw the doctors leaving. What did they say?”
I shrug.
Her voice rises an octave. “Is something wrong?”
“The opposite,”I say. “The neurologist just said that Briar might be able to hear everything we’re saying.”
Chloe sucks in a breath.
“Does that mean that she’s getting better?”she asks.
“They didn’t say that,”I say, not wanting to give her false hope even though that was the first thought in my headtoo.
“But that’s what it means,”Chloe says. “If Bri can hear us, she’s not really in a coma.”
Her eyes fill with tears. I sigh, glancing out the window to find her fiancé watching her. He glares at me and then storms into the room.
“What is wrong with you?”he growls at me. “Why do you fuck up every time you open your mouth?”
“It wasn’t him,”Chloe says, wiping the tears from her cheeks. More tears instantly take their place. “The doctors said that Briar is getting better. She can hear us.”
“Come on, let’s get some fresh air,”Max says, gently wrapping his arm around her shoulder.
“No, I want to stay here,”Chloe says. “Briar can hear me. There’s so much I need to tell her.”
“ Dolcezza , you’re hyperventilating,”Max says. “We’ll be back in a few minutes. Some fresh air will help.”
Chloe nods. But before leaving, she presses a kiss against Briar’s cheek.
“I love you so much,”she tells her.
Max ushers Chloe out the door. Once again, it’s just Briar and me in the room.
“She took good care of you,”I tell Briar, glancing at the bedside table. Along with the medication are bottles of nail polish, toners, moisturizers, and serums. There’s even a fancy blow-dryer.
My eyes catch on the cherry lip balm. Chloe keeps applying ittoBriar’s lips. I reach for the small tube now and open the cap.
I twist the lip balm up and smooth it on Briar’s lips. It’s a plumping lip balm that makes her lips look bee-stung. I rub my thumb over her bottom lip.
The need to kiss her is almost overwhelming.
I glance back up at her closed eyelids.
It’s those eyes that I miss the most. They haunt every dream I have.
“Please wake up, Briar. This world doesn’t make sense without you in it,”I say.
The monitor over her head starts beeping louder. I glance up at it to find that her heart rate is higher. I consider alerting the nurses, but I think about what the doctor said.
She can hear me.
I wonder if any of her other senses are working.
I wonder if she’ll be able to feel thingstoo.
Her lips are all plump now.
Ready to be kissed.
I lean down.
Right as I’m about to brush my lips against hers, the door opens. I lean back as a nurse enters.
She glances between Briar and me. She freezes at the threshold, unsure of whether to enter. I school my features to look as nonthreatening as possible. It only creeps her out even more.
“I’m here with her breakfast,”she says, waving a feeding bag in front of her like a weapon.
I stand, giving her space to do her job.
I head to the window and look at the dawn sky. It’s in hues of pink, purple, and red. But instead of stopping to admire thebeauty of the world, I check my phone.
The threat is still out there.
Chloe claimed to have stabbed her stepmother in the chest, but the body was never found. Their miserable witch of a mother is the one who put Briar in this position in the first place. And until Ifindher body, I’ll remain on guard.
I won’t rest until I find her.
My men are looking for her, but there’s no trace of her so far.
She’s always been good at staying hidden. She has powerful connections all over the world, so it doesn’t come as a surprise.
I scroll through my phone, but there are no updates yet.
A loud beeping noise from behind me makes me turn around.
“Her heart rate is higher,”the nurse observes.
“The doctors said that she can hear us,”I say. “Is that why her heart is beating faster?”
“Ican’t say for sure,”the nurse says, pursing her lips as she makes some notes on the case file. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
The moment the nurse exits the room, I return to my seat by Briar’s side. I take her hand in mine.
“I wish you’d talk to me, solnishko ,” I say.
I can feel her pulse against my fingertips. She’s so close to me, yet so far away.
I need to bridge the distance between us.
I lean down and finish what I started the last time.
Pressing my lips against hers, I taste the cherry lip balm. I fist her soft blonde locks and kiss her harder.
I’ve needed this reassurance for a long time, but I didn’t let myself do it until now. I drink from her lips like I’m a man stranded in a desert, and she’s my only source of water.
Her heart rate skyrockets now, the relentless beeping of the monitor reassuring everything that’s agitated inside me.
She’s right here.
She’s still mine.