Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Chloe
“Why won’t you let me help you, dammit!”
A super-aggravated bratva enforcer was glaring at me from the bathroom door.
Dr. Wyeth was on her way with the results of the blood test and preliminary findings of the “substances” I supposedly ingested.
I wanted to freshen up from that cottony taste in my mouth.
The effects of the sedative had worn off; I was less groggy.
I was oddly detached from what happened.
Unlike the times when Kolya caught me staring into space, I remembered bits and pieces of what happened last night.
But I didn’t feel like that person. My brain didn’t feel like it was exploding with thoughts…or voices. Still, fear festered underneath. I spat out the mouthwash, splashed water on my face, and ran a brush through my hair.
My face was pale, and my eyes seemed bigger. I wondered if my pupils had been dilated yesterday. But I felt a million times better today.
Yesterday, I woke up with a sense of hopelessness I didn’t understand. Anxiety and doubts. Huge doubts about raising Sebastian plagued my conscience.
Today, I would reserve that judgment. I felt more in control. Regardless of whether I trusted Theo, I had a full recollection of my conversation with Jeremiah. I shuffled back into the room.
I heard Kolya’s angry sigh.
I didn’t let him touch me. I wasn’t mad at him for what he said to me in the heat of the moment. If our situations were reversed, I might have ranted at him the same way. Maybe even worse.
No, it was the fact that he was promised to someone else. So, okay. I came to his room. I owned that mistake. But he didn’t get to call me baby or that cute Russian nickname he used for me as if nothing had changed or the past week we were living apart didn’t happen.
“I’m fine. I’m not groggy anymore.”
Another frustrated sigh.
He hovered behind me as I climbed back into bed. An attendant came in earlier with a breakfast of toast and eggs. I requested coffee, and the pot just arrived.
“You should go home,” I informed Kolya. “Send Dora over.”
“She’s handling a crisis at the shelter,” he responded.
And I knew Sebastian was with Sorcha, and that appeased me a bit.
Still, I wanted to hold my boy. But until I was sure I was psychologically and physically capable of handling the demands of motherhood and wasn’t a danger to my son, I could be patient and logical.
I vaguely remembered Kolya explaining about Marena.
Somehow, it was connected with another secretive organization related to his betrothed.
“Clearly, if Marena was sent by the organization that wants you to marry one of their own—”
“Chloe, I told you, there’s no arranged marriage planned with any organization. Dimitri was messing with me.”
“Well, then, what is it?” I narrowed my eyes at him.
He regarded me for a few seconds. “I can’t discuss it here.”
It was my turn to emit a frustrated sigh. All my life, I tried to detach myself from the dirty secret of who I was, but I seemed to be getting dragged into more secret organizations and cabals.
“Fine.”
When the door opened, it admitted Dr. Wyeth, whom I had earlier met in one of my waking-up moments.
“Chloe.” She smiled briefly. “You’re looking better.”
“I feel better.”
She rolled a stool from the corner to the side of the bed. Sitting on it, she laid a device on the bed. “Do you mind if I record this?”
“It’s fine.”
“Chloe, you indicated you feel better. Can you describe what you mean?”
“My head is clearer. Yesterday, it was chaotic. There were many thoughts, but I couldn’t pin one down clearly. Except…” I stared at her recorder. “Is this going to be private?”
“Yes. I’m bound by patient-doctor confidentiality.” She stared at Kolya. “Maybe you should leave us alone.”
“No. It’s fine. Kolya can stay.”
The door opened, and Theo walked in.
Dr. Wyeth sighed and paused the recording. “Would it be okay for your brother to listen in?”
“Yes. He’s my son’s legal guardian just in case I’m deemed unfit. Kolya and Theo need to decide based on your findings.”
Theo walked over to me and squeezed my hand. “Sorry to barge in like this.” He turned to Dr. Wyeth. “You have the results?”
“Preliminary,” she clipped. Clearly, she was a tad irritated by all the interruptions. “Shall we resume?”
I nodded. She started recording again and identified the people in the room and that I’d given permission for them to listen in.
“As I’ve said, my thoughts were chaotic. There was this feeling of doom. I even thought I was going to have a heart attack.”
“Have you ever gotten a panic attack?”
“No identified panic attacks, but I’ve had a lot of anxiety in the past two years.”
“Mr. Petrov said you’d go into unresponsive dissociative states.”
“Yes. I’d suddenly come out of them and realize I’d been doing something else than I’d remembered.
” I stared at Kolya. “Like when you found me staring at the kettle that was about to boil. I really thought I was simply exhausted. It’s like I’d retreated into my head, but each time I get into that state, my thoughts are self-doubt or paranoia.
I remember my thoughts. I thought you were brainwashing my baby.
It was a one-eighty from the giddiness I felt when Sebastian first called you Dada.
When the initial paranoia set in, it just turned darker from there.
” I closed my eyes briefly, not wanting to admit it.
“I think…I think that was when the voices started.”
The atmosphere in the room shifted. I could sense, rather than see, Theo and Kolya freezing. I didn’t want to look at them. But my gaze sought the doctor.
“I heard voices,” I whispered.
“You heard them yesterday?” Doctor Wyeth asked.
“They were constant yesterday.”
“Chloshka,” Kolya said hoarsely. “You should have said something.”
“How? You already thought Sebastian wasn’t safe around me, but the truth was you were right.”
“These voices,” Dr. Wyeth cut in. “What were they saying?”
“They kept repeating that Sebby wasn’t safe with me.
And that I was a bad mother. It kept insisting it.
Louder and louder until I couldn’t take it anymore, and my mind believed it because it was easier that way instead of fighting it.
” I told them what I could remember from the time I woke up from my fugue to seeing Sebastian choking, to tearing out of the Zahkarov compound, driving to The Astorian.
“It went quiet for a bit, but came back full force after I tried to get away.”
“Am I the trigger for this?” Kolya demanded.
“No jumping to conclusions, and this is not group therapy,” Dr. Wyeth said.
I glanced at Kolya. He had flattened his mouth. A muscle twitched in his jaw.
“The brain is a complex organ. It’s the nerve center that controls all thoughts, memory, and bodily actions,” the doctor continued.
“Unfortunately, it can be manipulated by substances, controlled or not. Even caffeine can affect brain chemistry. However, I am considerably concerned why someone would give you an opioid agonist compound that would trigger psychosis.”
Theo crossed his arms, but Kolya muttered an expletive, paced a circle, paused, and then waited for the doctor or me to elaborate.
“So, I’m not going crazy?” I asked. “It’s what I was taking?”
“That is my initial assessment. You have to be monitored, of course.”
“What kind of medication is it?”
“The one in the pill bottle appears to be a synthetic drug used as an SSRI inhibitor. However, we’ve isolated the chemical structure of the compound from the tea and the homeopathic remedy and narrowed it down to a South American plant known to cause hallucinations and psychosis.
” She went on to name the plant with a complicated scientific name.
But my ear was buzzing at this discovery.
“I’ve been taking that tea for a while.”
“What’s interesting about the tea is that the concentrations are different from tea bag to tea bag,” she said. “A few of them tested to be plain chamomile.”
“That’s so it’ll be hard to pinpoint the tea as the culprit,” Theo said.
“Correct.”
“But I had that tea for weeks,” I said. “This last time, though, Marena took a while to procure it.”
“She was going in for the kill,” Kolya growled.
I winced.
“This woman meant you harm, and if this were any other patient, it’s my duty to inform the authorities, but I understand it’s a delicate matter.”
“Marena has been working in this capacity for five years, according to my sources,” Kolya said.
“She wanted me out of the picture.” I glanced at Kolya. “Maybe she wanted you badly.”
“Who?” Theo asked, glaring at Kolya. “Marena?”
“Not necessarily Marena,” I said.
“It’s between me and Chloe,” Kolya added.
“I will not be recommending therapy at the present if your behavior and actions were triggered by malicious intent.” Dr. Wyeth was looking at Theo.
“But I need to be assured that this Marena woman is barred from working as a child advocate and will be investigated eventually once you sort out your stories.”
So Dr. Wyeth was aware of discretion.
She ended the recording. “Is there anything else?”
“No,” I said.
“I’ll walk you out, Doctor,” my brother said.
“Theo, there’s something I need to tell you.”
He gave me a speaking glance. “I’ll be two minutes.”
When Theo left with the doctor, Kolya was eyeing me intently.
“What?” I asked, and I tried my best not to tuck my hair behind an ear because I was self-conscious.
“I’m moving back in,” he informed me.
“Excuse me?”
“We tried it your way; it didn’t work. You need me.”
“Are you still saying I can’t keep my son safe?”
“No, I’m saying our son needs both of us. He’s not an ordinary boy. It might not even be about me.”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s bugging me about this theory that Marena is connected to me is that she’s been at this job as a child welfare liaison for five years. I’m having Ilya dig deeper, but what if it has to do with her being just part of a kidnapping ring targeting infants?”
“She wants to kidnap Sebastian?”
“Having her kidnap Sebastian is too obvious. She’s the scout.”