32. Lev
Chapter thirty-two
Lev
When I walk through the sliding doors of the emergency room, Roman sits out like a sore thumb in the waiting room.
Couples and families wait for their loved ones, but Roman’s still in his black suit, head hanging in his hands.
My stomach sinks even more. For the past thirty minutes I’ve been running on adrenaline, but he looks like she’s died.
I grip his shoulder and shake him.
“She’s okay?” She has to be. I refuse to believe any other outcome.
When he looks up at me, he’s obviously shaken. His gaze is far away, like he’s not in his own body. He blinks up at me slowly, but he doesn’t answer.
Frustrated, I march over to the front desk.
“Tatiana Chernov,” I bark at the young lady wearing cats on her scrubs.
She jumps slightly at my harsh tone, but types into her computer.
“They have her back in imaging. We’re preparing room three-oh-four for her when she’s done.”
I nod and give her my thanks. If she’s in imaging, she’s not in surgery, and she’s not in the morgue.
I grip Roman by the arm and drag him toward the elevators. I don’t know what happened in that short ambulance ride, but it was enough to shake the most solid man I know.
After a frustrating few minutes, I find the room and drag him inside. A staff member is fitting the bed with blankets, looks up at us confused, but is smart enough not to ask.
I shove Roman down into the small couch and wait for the cleaner to leave before I grill him.
“What happened?” I ask once they’re gone.
“Dmitri’s going to kill me,” he replies, and when he looks up at me, his eyes are glassy. Shit.
“We know that. That was always the risk.” I’m not used to being the voice of reason, but if Roman’s out of commission, and Mik’s getting Juliet settled back at the barn, then I guess it’s my job now.
“She could be pregnant,” he whispers, and the blood drains from my head, making me instantly dizzy.
She’s on birth control, right? Except, I didn’t pack it when I grabbed her stuff. We used condoms, right? Sometimes. Jesus, how could we have been so careless? It’s like all logic flew out of the window the minute she said ‘go’.
I shake my head to get rid of the errant thoughts.
“If she is, we’ll figure it out.”
“Unless we’re dead.”
“How about we worry about that when we know that she is? There’s still a good chance that she’s not.” I hope.
We sit in tense silence for a few moments before Roman adds. “I have to call him and tell him...”
I nod. At the very least, he needs to know she’s hurt and in the hospital. He should’ve called from the ambulance.
He stands and pulls his phone out, staring at it for a long time before taking a deep breath in and out.
He dials and holds the phone to his ear. I don’t envy him. That’s not a phone call I’d ever want to make.
“Sir, Tatiana’s been in an accident. We’re at the Grace Memorial Hospital, and she’s been taken back for imaging.”
He winces as Dmitri shouts down the line in Russian. Roman takes it all with a grimace before Dmitri hangs up. Shoulders sagging, he sits again and puts his head in his hands again.
I’m not sure how long we sit there, waiting, before the doors open and a small army of staff wheel Tatiana into the room.
We stand, and I’m immediately relieved to see that she’s awake.
“Juliet?” she asks the moment she sees us.
“She’s fine. Mik took her back to the barn,” I reply and am rewarded with a grateful smile.
“The doctor will be in to see you when he gets the results from radiology,” a nurse tells Tati and shows her how to call a nurse if she needs anything.
When it’s just us again, I can’t help but sit on the side of her bed. “Are you okay?” I ask, tracing a finger gently down her arm where her gown opens.
“I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, but they’ve given me some good drugs so it’s not too bad,” she replies.
I move to the other side of her and wince when I see the bruise forming on her other shoulder.
It’s ugly and angry, red and deep blue. I drag the gown from under her butt to expose her hip, which is equally bruised.
“Baby,” I whisper, my voice cracking. I hate seeing her hurt. Her skin should never be this color. But I feel helpless because I couldn’t have protected her from this.
“What’s wrong with him?” She asks, nodding her head toward Roman.
“Your dad’s on his way.”
“Oh...”
A heavy silence sits between us. Neither of us wants to talk about what happens next.
When the door opens, I jump to my feet and lean against the wall next to her, like the good bodyguard I know I’m not.
Luckily, it’s just the doctor. He seems surprised to see Roman and me, but he smiles warmly at Tatiana before glancing down at her chart.
“Well, the good news is that you have no broken bones and no internal bleeding.”
Relief rushes through me.
“I do want to keep you overnight for observation and concussion protocol.”
Tatiana nods and thanks the doctor. As the doctor goes to leave, Roman snags his white jacket.
“Pregnancy?” Roman croaks out.
It takes the doctor a beat before he realizes what he’s asking and checks the chart again. “Oh, yes. The pregnancy test was negative.”
Roman sags in relief, but before Tati can ask him about it, the door presses open again, and Dmitri walks in. Roman and I both stand at attention.
Dmitri’s fuming.
“Chto sluchilos’? Kak ty eto dopustil?” What happened? How did you let this happen?
Nikolai enters next, looking much more calm and controlled, and it causes a spike of anger to slice through me. His sister was just seriously hurt, and he doesn’t seem worried in the least.
“Otets,” Father. Tatiana says, interrupting his rant and pulling the attention off Roman. “I’m fine. Juliet slipped, and we went down. But the doctor just said everything’s fine.”
“Juliet?” he asks, confused.
“My... horse?” She replies, her voice small, like she realizes her father knows nothing about her or her life.
The way Dmitri looks at his daughter makes my skin crawl. How have I never noticed before? There’s not an ounce of compassion in his hard gaze. He has lifeless eyes.
He waves a hand in the air, dismissing the obvious fact that he couldn’t care less about his daughter.
Nikolai nods his head toward the door for my benefit, and I follow him out into the hallway, knowing Roman, at the very least, will protect her.
“Is it true?” he asks without an ounce of compassion.
Nikolai and I were friends. We grew up together, wrestled in high school together, lost our virginities to the same chick.
But I don’t recognize the man standing in front of me.
And that usual simmer of anger that was my constant companion before the cabin returns.
I nod, but I have my own questions. “Did you ever figure out who called the hit on her?”
His brow quirks for a beat, like he forgot that a month ago his sister was almost murdered.
Then he waves his hand dismissively, the same way his father just did, and I realize the boy I considered my best friend is gone - replaced by a younger version of his father.
“I’d forgotten all about that. It was Giovanni Vitale. But it was just a warning, nothing serious.”
I have to breathe through my nose to tamp down my fury. Tatiana almost getting shot is not nothing serious. Roman is still recovering from his bullet wound is not nothing serious.
“How did he know where she was?” I grit out through my teeth. She’d been at that college for years, and no one knew. So what changed now? The Italians have never gone after the Bratva before. Something isn’t adding up. I knew I should have been the one to interrogate that asshole.
Another wave of his hand and I’m tempted to break every single one of his fucking fingers. I need to walk away before I do something I won’t be able to come back from. Like murder my former best friend.
“Remember her ex? Tio or something? Apparently he was running his mouth at a bar, and one of Vitale’s men happened to hear and put two and two together.”
Heat crawls up my neck, and I’m starting to sweat with how hard I’m trying to wrangle my anger. I should’ve killed him instead of just roughing him up.
But... wait... “How long have you known?”
“Known what?”
“Who called the hit.”
He waves his hand again, and I swear a growl crawls up my throat.
“The day after it happened. I just forgot.”
And I snap. But that month with Tatiana must have changed me as a man, because instead of punching his stupid fucking face in, I turn on my heel.
“Where are you going?” he calls out after me.
“Gotta take a piss,” I shout back before opening the door to the stairwell. I doubt they have a gym to punch out or run out my aggression, but jogging up a few flights and back should hopefully do the job.
He’s known for a month and didn’t care enough about his sister to tell us. They pulled her from her school and her life and would have left her in that cabin until they remembered she existed.
And part of me wishes they had.