Chapter 34
Chapter
Thirty-Four
Kirill
It had been four days. I stayed by my wife’s side each day, willing her to wake up.
As much as I was gung-ho to hunt down the fuckers who did this to her, I was finding out I didn’t want to leave her side for a second.
Irina had to kick me out of the ICU several times to take a shower and eat.
But I could barely stomach anything while Lucy’s sustenance was coming from a feeding tube.
Moretti and De Lucci told me they were going to let me know when they had the perpetrators in hand. They finally tracked down those fuckers and were just biding their time to round them up. To see if they were in contact with anyone we knew and lead us to the mastermind.
The door to the room opened, and Doctor Ripley walked in. He was the neurosurgeon who operated on Lucy, and he’d been closely monitoring her progress.
“Mr. Zahkarov.”
“Doctor.” My hand reached for Lucy’s and clasped it as though she was giving me the support.
“I’ve reviewed Lucy’s latest scans.”
I thought I was the master of the poker face, but I couldn’t read anything in the doctor’s bland expression.
“And?”
“Structurally, her brain is normal. Technically, the surgery is successful. No new bleeds and no swelling that is a concern.”
“Then why—” I demanded, gripping her hand tightly as if afraid she would slip away. She was still motionless with a machine breathing for her. Her thick lashes were twin shadows across her face. “—isn’t she waking up?”
The doctor’s poker face cracked and softened to show sympathy to the husband who was the reason for his wife’s unconscious state.
“Your wife’s body is doing a lot of healing.
Not only from the brain trauma but also from the overall inflammation and broken wrist. It’ll be up to Lucy to decide when to wake up on her own. ”
Up to her? My jaw ached from all the clenching. This was the best neurosurgical hospital in the country, with all the advanced technology available. Money wasn’t a problem. I loathed anything out of my hands. Anything I couldn’t control.
“Maybe I need a second opinion,” I said tersely.
The doctor gave a brief nod. “You’re welcome to do that.
I would expect nothing less than for you to exhaust all options for someone you love.
I can have a colleague look at the scans.
” He paused. “But they are going to tell you the same. We can also send them to another specialist of your choosing. It’s entirely up to you.
” He glanced briefly at Lucy. “There’s nothing else we can do for her except keep her stable and allow her body to heal. ”
The doctor let that sink in before he added, “She’d also been breathing on her own when they brought her in, but we put her on a respirator to allow the body to concentrate on recovery. We’ve been backing off of the respirator, and we could remove it tomorrow.”
I couldn’t help staring at my comatose wife, barely comprehending the rest of Doctor Ripley’s statements because I was stuck on his words… “for someone you love.”
“If you don’t have any more questions.”
I shook my head. What else could I ask? I wanted my wife awake, and he was telling me there was nothing else he could do.
The soft click of the door indicated he’d left, and I allowed myself to surrender to the mountain of emotions I’d been keeping locked inside.
Was this what love was? No, what I was feeling for Lucy couldn’t be summed up in a single word. She was my universe.
“Open your eyes, Luchik.” She was indeed the little ray of sunlight that melted my frozen soul.
She threw a prism of color into the wintry wasteland and apathy that was my heart.
I didn’t see black and white. I saw Van Gogh’s magical painting.
I saw confetti of vibrant colors. With her, I experienced everything.
I refused…refused to go back. I wouldn’t.
“You hear me? It’s your move, baby. Wake up.
” I sank into the chair where I spent my days and nights at her bedside and leaned forward, clutching her uninjured hand and having it caress my bristled jaw.
“You’re the color in my life. Without you, it’s all an icy cold, miserable, white desolate existence. ”
Is this payback, wife? To show I can no longer control you or reach you, and you are going to return to me on your own terms?
The silence stretched, punctuated by the breathing apparatus and the machine that assured me Lucy’s vitals were stable.
“If you don’t wake up, Sorcha will never smile again.
She might even poison my food because it’s all my fault.
Sato might even conspire with Sorcha and murder me.
Is that what you want? They certainly won’t want to be around an unfeeling asshole again.
Because that is who I’m going to become,” I threatened her.
What? Think I wouldn’t manipulate my comatose wife? “Yes, I’m blackmailing you again. You know by now I would do anything so you won’t leave me.” I expressed a shuddering exhale. “Just…please, please, baby…wake up.”
Kirill Zahkarov was begging.
And praying.
I prayed to a god whom I’d never sought since the day I was banished into Russia’s brutal winter. When I lifted my head, wetness drenched the back of Lucy’s hand. I touched my face.
Monsters do cry.
Gunfire echoed around us.
I glared at Kolya. “What the fuck are we doing hiding behind these crates?” We should go in and annihilate every single one of them.
“You’re not bulletproof.”
“Wanna bet?” I growled at him. We were wasting time. I was antsy to get back to Lucy. What if she woke up and I wasn’t there? It’d been a week since the attack.
The thugs who drove the garbage trucks were outcasts of Boston’s Irish mob.
Their boss gave up their location after a lucrative incentive.
I was an expert in incentives. Peter was blowing up my phone after Moretti and I closed the ports.
With New York and Chicago turning his shipments away, he’d become desperate.
We weren’t opening anything until he told us what he knew.
He knew Lucy had shot Viktor. He knew I had sent those troopers to compromise his brother, Viktor.
My missing tech guy was found dead with signs of torture, and Peter more or less admitted to doing it.
So that meant he sent someone here to carry it out for him.
Why wasn’t he declaring an all-out war like I was expecting him to?
So, I made the first move and shut down the New York ports I controlled. Moretti followed suit.
I wasn’t playing politics or this fucking waiting game.
I had no patience for it.
I reached for the grenade inside my black trench coat. Kolya grinned.
And I lit those motherfuckers up.
“Who threw the fucking grenade?” Moretti growled.
“It sped things up, didn’t it?” I said. There were nine thugs.
Two died instantly when I threw the explosive while it disoriented the others.
In my experience with these types of men and the way they executed the attack on Lucy, the dumb ones were sent to the front lines, and there were one or two smart ones who fell back.
We already had their files, their social security numbers, and their bank accounts.
Cash deposits, but we hadn’t identified the source yet.
We recovered several phones from one of their safe houses, and Trevor dumped the data.
That was how we knew they had once been connected to the Irish mob.
We knew which ones were the weak links. Kolya was already working on them.
Their screams echoed in the warehouse where we had surrounded them.
Bratva and De Lucci soldiers. Moretti didn’t want to miss out on the action.
I glowered at the man in front of me. He was panting and sweating, and he stank like the sewer. But he was their leader. A man named Oz.
I slipped my knife from the boot and held the tip to his eye. “Now is the time to tell us who paid you to attack my wife.”
“Why should I?” He tried to act defiant. “You’re just going to kill me!”
I chuckled darkly. “Bratva revenge 101. We don’t stop with you. We will wipe out three generations of your family. Your wife, sons, daughters, and grandchildren.”
“Monsters.” He started sobbing.
“Start talking, Oz.”
“We don’t know who paid us,” he hiccupped. “It was all anonymous. But the bank account is on the computer.” He cocked his head toward a stack of boxes. Trevor, who’d been observing, made his way to the corner.
“Found it,” Trevor said, with a laptop in hand.
While I waited to see if we had a lead, I checked on what Kolya had found out. Two men lay eviscerated on the ground. He was working on the third. The screaming, crying, and yelling were giving me a headache.
Meanwhile, Moretti and De Lucci were doing their own brand of mob justice while trying to get information out of the others.
“Any luck?” I asked.
“No,” Kolya answered grimly. “They all received their orders from Oz, but this one”—he gripped the hair of the man he was currently interrogating—“is the one in the surveillance footage driving the truck that hit Sato and Lucy.”
He handed me his machete. He always carried one on his person or in his car.
The smell of the man’s fear saturated my nose. Like Oz, he was sweating and scared shitless; he’d soiled his jeans with God knew what.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
His mouth flattened into a thin line. His eyes were glazed. And he was shuddering like an addict in withdrawal. Hatred encased in ice flowed through every cell in my body. It was detachment, yet I knew there was a simmering rage beneath it. I swung the machete down and sliced off his ear.
“Ahhhhhh! You fucker!”
“What’s. Your. Name?” I gritted.
“Bert Leonard!” he yelled, still howling in agony as his blood mixed with the river of red he was already sitting on.
“I found something!” Trevor yelled.
I scoffed. “Well, Bert Leonard, I just wanted to know the name of the man I’m sending to hell for putting my wife in a coma. I’m not forgetting it anytime soon.”
Then I cut an arc across his neck.
I handed the machete back to Kolya and stalked back to Oz, who was rocking back and forth in hysteria after he witnessed me decapitate one of his crew.
I was surprisingly numb. I didn’t find any satisfaction at all in what I’d done. This blackness and emptiness saturating my soul could only be filled if Lucy woke up.
None of this matters if I lose you, Lusenka.
Not the bratva, not my position. Nothing. Why did it take you getting hurt for me to see it clearly?
“What did you find?”
“The money came from a shell company set up by Davenport.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want it to come to this.
I met Kolya’s eyes. “Anya.”