49. Chapter 49
49
Konstantin
I t’s nearly two in the morning when I enter the hospital wing in my home.
The corridor stretches before me—sterile, white, and humming under too much light. A sharp contrast to the dark thoughts circling my mind like vultures.
Three days. Three fucking days of hell—tracking pieces of this betrayal while she fights for every breath.
I pass my father’s room. A nurse walks out, chart in hand. Through the open doorway, I catch the old man’s chest rising and falling steadily in the dim light.
He’s getting better. Managed to join the children for dinner tonight. Alya was practically vibrating with excitement, bragging about her new backpack with its five zippers— fight-me pink, she called it.
The memory should bring comfort.
It doesn’t. It twists the knife deeper. While my family rebuilds… Bella lies broken because of me.
I move past the nurses’ station.
A nurse nods respectfully, eyes lowering fast. Smart. I’m not fit for conversation tonight. Not after what Arseny uncovered.
Azimut Holdings.
The shell company three layers deep behind the silver Lexus SUV Irina took off in. On paper? A logistics firm in Cyprus. In reality? Tatiana’s leash. My stepmother’s fingerprints are all over it—working with Irina, conspiring to use Bella as leverage in a war they can’t even begin to understand.
We’re close now. Timur got an address out of one of the thugs before he bled out. Regrettable. Necessary. Frankly, merciful compared to what I had planned.
I stop outside Bella’s door, letting the rage pool and settle like lead in my gut. When I open this door, I have to be in control.
She deserves that much.
The suite is dim, the soft hush of medical equipment breaking the silence like a steady heartbeat. Machines keeping my wife alive.
My wife.
The word cuts deeper than it should.
“Mr. Belov.” Dr. Katya Levitsky rises from her chair beside the bed. Yelena’s handpicked choice—a trauma specialist with ice in her veins and enough backbone to meet my eyes without flinching. “I was just checking her readings.”
“How is she?”
“Stable. The swelling has reduced. We’ve lightened the sedation. She could wake within the next twelve hours.”
I move to the bed. Three days, and still—still—the sight hits like a blow.
Bella’s face is a painting in bruises. Yellowing across her cheekbone. Neat stitches tracking a cruel line across her temple. Her lip split and swollen. The breathing tube is gone, thank God—but the cannula feeding her oxygen feels no better.
Her right arm lies strapped to her chest, broken in two places. Three cracked ribs taped down under the hospital gown. A gash across her thigh needed twenty-seven stitches.
I know. I counted every goddamn one.
“The children want to see her,” I say, not taking my eyes off her.
Dr. Katya hesitates. “Soon. Once the swelling reduces. Right now… it would frighten them.”
Of course. I picture Alya’s tiny face crumpling. Lev stiffening in silence. Nikolai’s rage.
Not yet.
The night nurse speaks from the door. “Night shift is here, Mr. Belov.”
“Thank you.” I dismiss Dr. Katya with a nod. “Send the morning reports directly to me.”
Once the door clicks shut, I allow myself one sin.
I take her hand.
So small. So fucking fragile in mine.
The bruises around her wrists are healing, but I see them. I feel them.
“You stubborn, impossible woman,” I murmur, tracing her knuckles. “What the hell were you thinking?”
The anger surges—and folds into something worse. Something that gnaws and howls under my ribs. Guilt.
I should have seen it. Should have noticed the way she started pulling back. Hiding things. I, who pride myself on reading enemies before they move, missed the most important one standing right beside me.
Because I was too busy watching the way she smiled when Alya crawled into her lap. The way she started leaning into my touch instead of tensing.
Because I wanted to believe.
“You are not expendable,” I whisper to her broken body. “Understand me, Isabella. You are not a sacrifice.”
The monitor beeps on, oblivious.
Even unconscious, she defies me.
I settle into the chair beside her bed, still holding her hand. I should be reviewing the raid plan for dawn. Coordinating with Timur. Pushing Arseny harder.
Instead, I sit here. Trapped between the man I was—and the man she’s forcing me to become.
“I’m making sure Julian and Lila are safe,” I say into the stillness. “We sent word that you’re away on a business trip.”
I exhale slowly, pressing my hand against hers. It’s a lie. A weak shield against the storm that’s coming. The best I can do to swallow the guilt clawing at my throat.
Still no response.
“The twins want you to help with their solar system model. Apparently, I’m ‘completely useless’ at anything involving art.”
A faint smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. The first one in three days. It fades fast.
“I want you to wake up, Isabella,” I admit, leaning closer, pressing my forehead against the back of her hand. “I will find them,” I promise her skin. “I will dismantle everything they love, piece by fucking piece. They will learn what it means to touch what’s mine.”
But I need you to come back.
I don’t say it.
I can barely even think it without falling apart.
Instead, I press my lips to her bruised knuckles. One slow, deliberate kiss.
“We had a deal, Bella,” I whisper against her skin. “One year. I’m holding you to it.”
A twitch.
Small. Barely there. But my hand feels it. I freeze, staring down at her fingers, where they curl weakly against mine.
Another twitch. Stronger this time. Then, a dry, broken whisper:
“Kon… stantin…”
Her eyelids flutter, struggling against the sedation.
I lean closer, keeping my voice low, steady. “Right here, krasavitsa . You’re safe.”
Her lashes lift, dragging over bruised skin. Those blue eyes—dull with drugs, rimmed with pain—find me through the fog.
She blinks slowly. Confused. I can almost see her piecing it together—the machines, the bed, the weight of pain not quite touching her yet because the medication holds it back.
“Where…?” Her voice cracks, thin as paper. She swallows. Tries again. “Where am I?”
“You’re home,” I say. My thumb brushes lightly over her wrist. “My private clinic. You’re safe. No one can touch you here.”
She swallows. Winces. Recognition dawns in those beautiful eyes.
Her forehead creases. I see the panic rising before the words break free:
“Irina…” Her voice is a rasp. She tries to sit up, instinct driving her body—but the pain slams her back against the mattress.
A broken sound escapes her lips, half gasp, half sob.
“Don’t,” I say sharply, pushing her gently back down, my hand firm on her shoulder. “You’re hurt. You’ll tear your stitches.”
She struggles for a breath, her chest heaving shallowly.
“She threatened me,” Bella whispers, her voice cracking around the words. “She said… if I told you anything… she’d kill Julian and Lila.”
Her eyes shine, glassy with tears she’s too stubborn to shed.
My chest tightens so hard it feels like my ribs might snap.
I cup her jaw carefully, forcing her to look at me.
“She won’t touch them,” I growl, low and lethal. “I promise you that.”
But it’s not enough. Not for what they’ve done. Not for what they tried to do.
I smooth her hair back from her forehead, my hand steady even as rage licks under my skin like wildfire.
“You don’t have to fight alone anymore,” I murmur. “That’s over.”
She shudders. Closes her eyes. Fighting the tears, the terror, the exhaustion.
And still— Still, her first thought is for them.
“Julian…Lila…” she chokes. “Are they—?”
“They’re safe,” I cut in, cold and sure. “I made sure. We sent word to them. They think you’re away on a business trip.”
Her body sags into the bed, her fingers loosening around mine in exhausted relief.
But I see it. The way her jaw tightens. The way her shoulders tense under the hospital blankets.
She’s still carrying them.
Still carrying all of it —even broken, even battered, even bleeding.
My hand tightens around hers.
Inside me, the fury sharpens into something almost clean. Simple. Certain.
They hurt her. They scared her. They tried to rip away the only thing that matters to her.
They don’t get to walk away from that.
Four of them. The men who dragged her into that car, zip-tied her wrists, slammed her into that wreck. Timur has them now. Or what’s left of them.
They’re being skinned alive in the meat house on the outskirts of the city. A butcher’s playground. Steel hooks. Blood-soaked floors. Screams swallowed by the thick concrete walls.
It’s not enough.
It’ll never be enough.
But it’s a start.
I look down at her face again. At the bruises darkening her skin. The stitches at her temple. The purple smudges across her fragile wrist.
The guilt claws at me. I shove it down.
Guilt is for men who have time to feel sorry for themselves. I have a war to finish.
I lift her hand to my mouth and press a slow, deliberate kiss to her knuckles. A vow without words.
“Sleep, Bella,” I whisper. “The ones who touched you are already dead.”
Her eyelids flicker. She tries to hold my gaze, but the sedation pulls at her, heavy and relentless. Still, for a moment, she sees me. Through the haze, through the pain.
And I see her.
Strong. Defiant. Mine.
You’re mine. Nobody gets to take what’s mine.
Not Irina. Not Tatiana. Not the fucking devil himself.