Chapter 11 #2
“Your body needs time to recuperate fully. You didn’t quite let it recover before jumping back into it with that coaching job. And I’m sure you’d rather not end up back here. You can go home, but you must have complete rest for at least a week.”
“Okay...”
“I’m serious. You’re risking a relapse or ending up in here with further complications.”
My body fills the threshold once more. “She’ll be staying with me. I’ll make sure she rests for the next week and fully recuperates.” Why on earth am I doing these things—interrupting private conversations, suggesting an unknown woman moves into my home, and saying I’ll make sure she rests?
The doctor nods. “Well, alright. I’m going to have Nurse Harris get started on your discharge papers.”
Avelina waits until we’re alone to clear her throat. “You don’t...”
I shake my head to cut her off. I don’t have to do this. In fact, I shouldn’t. So why does the idea of her not taking the doctor’s orders seriously concern me? And why does the thought of those kids living with someone else downright bother me? My brow furrows because none of this makes sense.
“And here we are,” a gentle voice says from the doorway.
A blur of a little girl moves past me, and I suddenly stagger backward so that she doesn’t accidentally brush against me.
Sofia hugs her mom fiercely as the nurse bounces Leon in her arms.
The nurse offers me Leon. I shake my head, and her brow crinkles.
“I’ll take him.” Avelina smiles, and the nurse settles Leon into Avelina’s waiting arms.
“I’ll be outside waiting, okay?” I murmur.
“Sure. And, uh, Viktor?”
The way she says my name makes my skin tingle in a new kind of way. “Yes?”
“Thank you.”
I nod. And without another word, I move carefully past the nurse and catch up with the doctor in the corridor. “Doc!”
He turns around. “Yes?”
“Did you run full tests on her? Full-body CT scan, MRI, complete blood count, electrolytes and metabolic panel, blood type and crossmatch—in case a transfusion is needed, coagulation tests, arterial blood gas, and an ECG.”
“I can assure you that those aren’t at all necessary in Ms. Nosova’s case—”
“Do them anyway!” I bark.
He scowls at me. “She has no health insurance. She said it stopped when she lost her job. We’re only required to stabilize her and treat any life-threatening conditions or serious injuries, of which she has neither.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck about health insurance or the cost. Do the tests and bill it all to me.” I flash the gun in my holster at him.
His eyes run over my tattoos as well as the weapon, and his face pales. Then he spins around and hurries to the nurses’ station where I hear him ordering the full set of tests.
When the doctor finally has all the test results back, he tells Avelina that she is fine to go home.
However, I can’t help noticing him frowning over the CT scan.
I know he won’t tell me anything if I ask due to patient confidentiality, so I text Matvey and ask him to hack into the hospital database and get me a copy of the results.
I’ll run them past our own doctor later—a doctor who’s paid enough to breach confidentiality for us.
Because I want to check. Just to be on the safe side…
Back at the compound an hour later, I’m glaring at the four soldiers sitting in the rec room, their faces a mixture of contorted confusion and complete horror.
“We have to…what?” one croaks.
“Watch them.”
“But—”
“It’s a fucking order!”
“Okay, but—”
I glare, my tongue running over the flat of my teeth. “But?”
The men blanch and look away.
“I’ll be back to check on you in a while. And the kids better still be fucking alive when I come back, or I’m going to cut off your balls and feed them to you until you choke. Understand?”
All four men nod quickly.
“Good,” I huff. I’d be much happier if Babulya was here to help with the kids, but she’s away until tomorrow. She can’t return soon enough as far as I am concerned.
I spin around and stomp back outside to the drive where I’ve left Avelina and the kids in my SUV. My steps are measured and quick as I carry Leon in his car seat and guide Sofia to the house and into the rec room. With one more warning look at the four soldiers, I leave to retrieve Avelina.
“You don’t have to help me. I’m fine,” she says gently.
“You fainted.”
She looks at me, shaking her head, her lips tugging into a small smile.
I carry her bags as she starts to climb the stairs, me behind her. I’m not sure what the plan is here if she falls back or something. It’s not like I want her to touch me. I shake the thought away as she pauses on the landing.
“End of the hall. First door to the left,” I remind her.
I stay behind her until we’re at my door. The room smells like her—a hint of something floral lingers in the air from the night she spent here.
She moves to grab one of the bags, but I shake my head.
“Bed,” I order.
Her brow puckers.
“You need to rest. Doctor’s orders.”
“I’ll just take some of those from you first.”
Another shake of my head. “You need rest. Get in the bed.”
“So bossy,” she murmurs as she moves to the bed. She sits on the edge before grinning and swinging her legs onto it. She lets her head fall back against my pillow. A soft sigh leaves her as exhaustion pulls at her face.
“Better.”
I open my dresser and hand her one of my T-shirts. “So, you won’t need to unpack. Because you need to rest right now. I’ll have someone bring you dinner.”
“You don’t have…” Her words drift away at my stern expression. “Thank you, Viktor.”
I drop her bags by my dresser and nod. Queenie meows softly, stretching from where she’s lounging on the windowsill. Then with one more quick glance, I move out the door and down the hall.
Taking the steps two at a time, I make my way back down to the rec room, my stomach twisting with the worry that the men haven’t taken my threat seriously.
“You do it,” I hear one of them say as I approach.
“No, you do it.”
There’s a collective groan just as I round the door into the rec room. I lean against the doorframe and watch as one of the men grimaces, holding Leon at arm’s length and with the diaper bag slung over his shoulder.
Leon’s coos turn into sniffles.
“Hurry up!” one of the men pleads, shooing the other forward faster with a wave of his hands.
“Aww, how come I have to do this?”
“Because you lost.”
“Let’s go another round. I’m begging you. Please?”
“Fuck, no.”
My head cocks to the side as I gaze at Leon.
I don’t get it. How could anyone dress a kid who does nothing but scream bloody murder and poop all the time in a T-shirt that reads Little Angel?
Maybe Leon’s parents just aren’t aware of how awful his daily behavior really is.
Or how un-angelic their kid actually is.
Because aren’t angels supposed to be above pooping and all that stuff?
At least Sofia seems happy for now. She’s found a pack of playing cards and is examining them and sorting them into piles.
My brow arches. Sofia might be cute, but her outfit can only be described as a pink monstrosity.
Pink shorts, a pink tee with some stupid cartoon family of pigs on it, and her hair held in two pigtails with offensively bright pink hair-ties with little pink sparkles woven into them.
There should be a goddamn law against wearing so much god-awful pink in one fucking day.
And I grumble under my breath as everything starts to make my anxiety rise.
I fight the urge to bolt from the room entirely.
It’s an assault on my senses. Too much of everything.
Too much crying and too many bright colors.
Why the hell can’t people just dress their kids in all black?
I’ve found black to be the most unobtrusive and calming color which is why I never wear anything else.
A breath pushes through my teeth as I mark a score in my small notebook. I’m only at seven out of ten. I’m fine. This is fine. I can do this. I just need to try and stay calm so that my sensory stress doesn’t escalate.
A string of curses drags my attention back to the men and Leon. One has his nose buried in the crook of his arm as he gingerly holds a soiled diaper like it’s a ticking time bomb. My nose wrinkles as the smell wafts toward me, but it’s the wailing that makes me wince.
It grows louder and louder as the men scramble to distract Leon and deal with the diaper. They grumble and argue before lifting up a freshly changed baby. But the crying still doesn’t stop.
What the fuck was I thinking? Inviting them to the Kremlin again like I had any business offering to help take care of two kids. Me, of all people. I drag my hand through my hair. The wailing only gets louder.
This is a fucking mistake.
And any lingering whispers in the back of my head about relationships and having a family evaporate into fucking thin air.
Why the hell did I even consider being alone a bad thing?
This right here is the reason why my life has to be a certain way.
Because relationships bring all sorts of issues, especially when they also involve kids.
More responsibilities, more noise, and a ton of obnoxiously bright colors to overstimulate me.
And then there’s the whole touching bullshit.
A partner or kid would want to touch me.
The feel of Avelina’s hand lingers from when she laid her fingers on my arm, and I’m not sure I like it because it makes me feel all sorts of…
strange. Part of me wants to be the man who can comfort Sofia when she’s scared, who can hold Leon without flinching, who can touch Avelina’s face and tell her everything will be okay.
But that’s not who I am. That’s not who I can ever be.
And it’s yet another reason I should just embrace the fact that relationships are definitely not for me.
I shake my head. Whatever foolish thoughts I had about family, about being someone different, about the way Avelina’s smile made something warm unfurl in my chest—this chaos proves how wrong I was.
And whatever nagging feeling sunk its claws into me yesterday gets shoved back in its box and locked tight.
It’s clear I’m not cut out for this. Any of it. I don’t want it. I don’t need it. And I made peace with all that years ago.
I sigh, closing my eyes to try and ground myself again.
I should march up the stairs and tell her this was a mistake. I’m overstimulated and stressed out. I’m not the right person for this. She’s going to have to find someone else to help. Someone who knows what they’re doing.
But there’s no one else, you asshole. Her conversation with that woman in the floral dress and the doctor made that very clear.
The image of some stranger from Child Protective Services taking Sofia and Leon away from her makes something violent and primal rise in my chest. Those kids belong with Avelina.
Anyone with eyes can see how much she loves them, how hard she fights for them.
The thought of her losing them because she got sick—because she pushed herself too hard trying to survive—makes me want to hunt down everyone who’s ever failed her and make them pay.
She’s on her own. And if she’s forced to watch the kids while she recovers, she’s not going to recover. Fuck. I huff out a breath. I’m literally her only option.
I wonder if I can somehow track down Geliy. But thinking about him, I know I have no choice except to let her and her children stay here until she’s better.
Geliy saved my life, and I owe him. That’s the only reason I’m doing this. It has to be.
I’ll keep them safe, make sure Avelina recovers, and then they’ll leave. And I’ll go back to my orderly, quiet life where I don’t have to pretend I could ever be anything more than what I am—a man built for violence, not for love.
Because if this is anything more than duty, I’m not sure what the hell I’m even doing anymore.