Chapter 31
“You need to eat something.” Kara shoves a bag of chips in front of my face like I’m a child.
“I’m not hungry.” My tone cuts sharper than I mean it to. “Where the fuck is the doctor?”
“He said he was getting the latest results and he’d be back. If you go charging the nurses’ station again they’re going to kick you out.”
I huff. “I’d love to see them try.”
Kara places her hand on my shoulder. As annoying and stubborn as she can be, she’s been a steady force throughout the last three days.
“Okay, boss man, calm down. You’ve already scared half the nurses to the point they don’t want to come in here.”
“Then they should do their fucking jobs.” I lean over Sienna’s sleeping form and press my hand to her forehead. Still warm.
At least she’s not hot. Three days ago she could have warmed a small room with her fever.
“They are doing their jobs.” Kara moves to the other side of the bed and sits beside my wife.
My sick, hurting wife.
She hasn’t said anything today. Which is good, because the last time she opened her mouth, she asked me to make her death quick.
No. She ordered me to make her murder fast.
“She has a little more color,” Kara offers as she brushes her hand across Sienna’s cheek. “The doctors will have good news today.”
“Yeah.” I grab hold of Sienna’s hand and squeeze it, willing her to open her damn eyes.
It wasn’t long ago I wanted revenge. I wanted to make her family pay—make her pay.
Now, I just want her to open her eyes.
She’s woken up a few times over the past three days, but she’s been so groggy, so out of it from the medications and her fever, it hasn’t offered much hope. But it’s been almost twelve hours since her eyelids so much as fluttered.
The swelling has gone down on her left eye, and her split lip is mostly healed, too. The external evidence of Dante’s attack is fading, but the internal damage is the more concerning.
Her lung collapsed when the rib he broke struck it. Another rib ruptured her spleen, which needed to be removed. All of this should have amounted to a few days recovery, but infection took over.
I roll my shoulders. My muscles scream with the movement. Three days in this chair has not been kind to my back.
“I’m going to go down the hall and call Melody to check in about Tommy. If he asks to see her?” She hops off the bed and crumples the empty chip bag into a ball.
I shake my head. “Not yet. Not like this. I don’t want him scared.”
“Okay, I’ll tell him she’s still sleeping, but Kaz, I think not being able to see her or talk to her is starting to scare him.”
“If she’s not up by tomorrow, maybe, but not today.” I bring Sienna’s hand to my mouth, pressing my lips to her fingers.
Kara doesn’t argue, but just like Sienna I can sense she has plenty more she wants to say on the subject.
As soon as she walks out, the door to the hospital room opens again and my brothers walk through.
“How is she?” Alexander asks, rounding the foot of the bed and coming to stand beside me.
I clench her hand to my chest as I turn to look up at my oldest brother. His face, usually fixed on pissed, softens when his eyes meet mine.
“What are the doctors saying?” Ivan steps forward, his own voice tight.
“They aren’t saying anything right now. They’re waiting on blood work, but it’ll be the same as last time. She’s healing. We need to let the medicines work to fight the infection.”
I kiss her knuckles. “I should have gotten there sooner.”
“You didn’t know she’d gone there.” Alexander grips my shoulder, squeezing it as though he can transfer his strength into my body.
If it worked that way, Sienna would have been healed days ago.
“I should have put a tracker on her phone. I should have injected her with one.” I blow out a slow breath. “I didn’t take the threat seriously enough. I should have known they’d do something like this.”
“Kaz, you got there as soon as you found out she’d gone.” Ivan grips the bedrail at the foot of the bed.
I shake my head, looking up at her face. Her beautiful, soft face that has the power to make a monster like me fall to his knees. But I didn’t show her enough of that man.
“She thinks I wanted her dead.”
“She was delirious. The doctor explained that,” Alexander reminds me.
“She didn’t even know I was here.”
“The fever was making everything messed up in her head. She probably won’t remember any of it when she’s better. And she’ll get better,” Ivan says.
“Did you track down Vicente?” I ask, needing to put my thoughts somewhere else. Because if I let my mind travel down the road of what might happen if she doesn’t get better, I might scare more of those nurses out there.
And Sienna needs them. She needs their help and their expertise, because I can’t fix her. There’s no one I can threaten to make this better. No gun, no knife, no bribe is going to make the infection inside her body go away.
“Yes.” Ivan nods.
“Where is he?”
“The pit.” Alexander pauses a beat. “He’ll be there when you’re ready to deal with him.”
I stroke my fingers over the back of her hand. My knuckles are still swollen, still cracked and bruised from beating Dante. I’m tired.
“Take care of him.” I lift my eyes to her face. “Just take care of him and get all the rest taken care of, too.”
“You don’t want—”
“I want it handled.” I cut off Ivan.
“You got it.” Ivan pulls out his phone, presses it to his ear, and walks out of the room, already muttering orders in Russian.
“The girls wanted to come, but I talked Megan into hanging out with Tommy instead.” Alexander grips my shoulder again. “Kaz, she’s going to be okay.”
“She never wanted any of this. Her brothers were as cruel to her as they were to anyone else. She was never one of them. I used her for revenge. I’m no better than them.”
“Kaz.” He sighs. “You need to get some sleep. Eat something. Get some coffee. A shower.”
“I’m not leaving.” My body clenches at the idea of getting up from this chair. I can’t let her wake up again and not see me here.
I won’t let her think I abandoned her.
I’m not perfect.
I’m still a monster. Blood will never wash clean of my hands.
I’ve killed. I’ve controlled men with fear of my wrath. I’ve silenced men with a simple look. But none of that power means anything here.
Here, I’m just a husband begging death to spare my wife.
“All right.” He grips the back of my neck. “Do you know what you’re going to tell her when she wakes up?”
I swallow hard.
“Yeah.”
“She’s going to have a lot of healing to do. Vee’s a good person to talk to, she already said she’s available if Sienna needs her,” Alexander says.
“Anything she needs. Anything she wants is hers.”
“I’ll go track down that doctor you’re waiting for,” Alexander says.
“Yeah.” I kiss her palm.
The door shuts behind my brother, leaving me with soft beeping of the machines. My chest expands, like it’s going to explode.
“Sienna, sweetheart, you have to get better,” I whisper, my voice ragged. “I can’t do this life without you. I don’t want to do it without you.”
Lost in my fear and grief, I almost don’t feel it at first. But then the sensation registers.
Her fingers wrap around mine, and she squeezes.