44. Mila
MILA
I ’m underwater.
At least . . . that’s how it feels when my consciousness slips in, my mind waking up before my body.
I’m no longer in the dining room I remember from flashes of my memory. I’m in our bed.
Opening my eyes, I blink against the rush of nausea pooling in my stomach. My side is sore. My back and limbs ache. I feel like I rolled down a mountainside.
A soft whimper comes from beside me, and I raise my head when Phantom nudges my fingers, big brown eyes lit with worry.
“I’m okay, buddy. I survived.”
Unfortunately .
My body hurts when I pull myself up to sit. Looking around, everything’s the same as when I left it. The only difference is it’s empty, with no sign of my husband anywhere.
Odd.
I let out a quiet groan when I move my legs to the edge of the mattress before the reality of what happened dawns on me.
Oh. Right. Of course, I’m sore. I got stabbed.
My legs don’t want to move, but I force them, climbing to my feet. I’m shaky, my body threatening to give out, but I’ve got to pee like crazy.
Shuffling toward the bedroom door, I twist the handle, pulling it open, only to freeze at the sound of voices nearby.
“She doesn’t need to go to a hospital,” Christian growls from somewhere nearby. “Do you know how easily accessible she’ll be?”
“She wasn’t easily accessible with you?” a woman’s voice argues back, and my heart bottoms out in my chest.
I know that voice.
“Exactly, and look what the fuck happened? In case you forgot, this is partially your fault. Need I remind you of the little temper tantrum you threw when I married her?”
“I told you to stop it, not marry her,” she scoffs.
“And yet, you did nothing to stop it from your end. I did what I had to do. You’re not the victim in this situation, Monica.”
Her voice is cool when she responds. “You’re going to kill her.”
“I’m keeping her alive,” Christian fires back when I round the corner from the bedroom, stopping dead in my tracks when my eyes land on the woman standing at our kitchen table.
“M-mom?”
She’s not real.
This isn’t real.
It’s just another dream my mind created to torture me. My mother is in LA. She doesn’t know I’m still alive, and she doesn’t know that I was stabbed.
But . . . when she steps closer to me, and the familiar, comforting scent of her perfume wafts over me, tears sting in the backs of my eyes.
Awfully realistic for a dream.
Her eyes go wide when she sees me, and my first thought is how I must look. A rush of emotion takes over and I sway on my feet, but Christian is there to catch me when I take a stumbling step back.
“You’re supposed to be in bed,” he grits through his teeth, holding me against his chest.
“I . . . heard you guys.”
“Mila,” Mom breathes, her eyes filling with tears. She holds her arms out, crossing the kitchen, but at the last second, Christian puts his arm in front of her to keep her from hugging me.
“Stitches,” he mutters darkly, and she concedes, pressing a kiss to my forehead instead. When she pulls back, her blue eyes are soft, filled with all the pain of the last six months. Pain I caused her.
“You’re really here,” I breathe, and she smiles through the tears in her eyes, taking my face in her hands.
“My baby,” she whispers, sucking in a ragged breath, her thumb stroking my cheek. “My God, how I’ve missed you.”
“What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
She pauses, looking over at Christian, and warmth slips through me.
He called her. Of course, he called her.
“I have so much to tell you.” My voice sounds far away like I’m sinking beneath the surface of the rough waves again.
Mom smiles, releasing me. “We’ll have plenty of time for that later.”
I nod, thankful that sleep is in my future. Now that the adrenaline has worn off, all I want to do is sleep.
I attempt to pull away and hug her, but the room sways around me, and Christian growls under his breath, stooping down to lift me into his arms.
I don’t want to be carried, but I fear I have no choice. I’m not sure I could take another step on my own.
Christian takes me to the bathroom first, unfortunately standing guard while I have the longest pee of my life. When I’m done, he carries me back into the bedroom.
He lays me in the bed, and I suck in a shallow breath through my teeth, the pain in my side stronger than ever.
Grabbing a bottle from the nightstand and a glass of water, Christian hands me a little white pill before forcing me to drink the entire glass of water.
“Get some sleep. If you need to get up, I’m right outside.”
“Mom—” I start, but Christian silences me with a kiss on my forehead.
“She’s not leaving anytime soon,” he murmurs before pulling away too quickly.
He tucks me in, covering me with blankets up to my chin, and it’s then that I finally get a good look at him. He looks exhausted. Like he hasn’t slept in days. There’s a fine stubble growing on his cheeks, and his eyes are ringed with purple.
Reaching out, I catch his hand, and he stalls, looking down at me with indecision. I don’t want him to go. Especially not when he looks like this.
“Please . . .” I whisper, knowing once I get him into bed, he’ll fall fast asleep. “Just until I fall asleep.”
His jaw ticks, and I think he’s going to refuse me, but in the end, he lets out a sigh, scrubbing a hand over his face. As if I’m made of glass, he slides onto the bed beside me, overtop of the covers.
“Only until you fall asleep,” he murmurs, his voice gruff. “I’ve got work to do.”
“I know,” I say softly, forcing a smile to my lips. Relief floods through me when he nestles beside me and lets me put my head on his shoulder, soaking up his warmth and the scent of him I’ve become addicted to.
The moment of tenderness strikes me, but when I close my eyes, breathing deeply, he presses his lips to my forehead, his kiss lingering on a quiet groan.
“What happened to Collin?” I ask, but I’m not sure he heard me.
“I took care of it,” he says quietly, his knuckles brushing down the side of my face. “I’d do anything for you.”
I want to open my mouth and tell him I love him, but my mind and my body are not working as a team. Sleep is pulling me under, my brain growing foggy. Even still . . . I don’t miss his quiet voice rising above it all.
“Sleep, Mila. We’ll be here when you wake up.”
“I can do it, Christian.”
“So can I.”
I growl at him under my breath, sliding from his arms into the bed. He situates me against the pillows, propping one up behind me so I can watch the TV he had installed last week. Stepping back from the bed, he covers me up, tucking me in like a child.
“Better?”
“I can walk myself from the bathroom.”
“And I can carry you.”
Asshole.
“Is this how it’s going to be if we ever decide to have children?”
“There’s no deciding anything. You’ll have all my babies whenever this shit is over.”
My cheeks flame, and my heartbeat pitter-patters in my chest.
“Enough,” My mother scolds, rushing to the other side of the bed. “You’ll stress her out. Let me brush your hair, Mila.”
“I’m stressing her out, am I? You can’t brush curls,” Christian scoffs. “Everyone knows that.”
Yep. This is my life now. I can’t decide who’s more of a helicopter nurse. My mother or my husband.
“Can both of you back up, please? My show is on.”
“Look,” Mom snaps at Christian. “You’ve gone and gotten her addicted to television.”
Rolling my eyes, I throw the comforter over my head. Neither one notices. They don’t notice anything unless it has to do with their daily pissing match.
“She’s not addicted. She’s a grown woman who was stabbed. And in case you forgot, my wife.”
“Stabbed under your protection,” Mom fires back. “And forced.”
“And she has the option to divorce me at any moment.”
Mom scoffs. “How noble of you.”
“Honestly, you both suck right now,” I grumble from under the covers, but neither listens to me.
I may as well be mute.
Deciding I’ve had enough of listening to the two people I love most in the world rip each other to shreds, I grab the remote, steadily turning the TV up higher until they’re forced to fall silent.
Both stare at me in annoyance and disbelief.
I stare at the TV.
It’s been four days since I was turned into a kabob, and my side hurts. My head hurts from listening to Christian and my Mom. My back hurts from lying in the same place for so long.
. . . my pride hurts because I have to be carried to and from the bathroom, and painkillers are hell on your system. I haven’t had even a spare second worth of privacy, and it’s driving me insane.
Great way to really break in a new (to me) marriage.
Now that I have their attention, I turn the TV back down.
“We need to talk,” I start, and Mom’s already cutting me off.
“You need to relax—”
“You need to shut up for five seconds and fucking listen.”
Mom’s mouth clamps shut.
Christian hides his smirk by brushing a thumb over his lips.
“Sorry,” I wince. Did I mention painkillers make me cranky? “Look, I love both of you, but you’re smothering me.”
“We’re just trying to do what’s best for you,” Mom says, and Christian shoots her a look, which she shoots right back.
I feel like I’m in the middle of an old-west showdown.
“What’s best for me right now is just rest. I can’t do that if I’m worried about you two at each other’s throats.”
“You can rest when we get home,” Mom says, and ice slips up my spine.
“Excuse me?”
She blinks.
“When we get back to LA . . . You are coming home, right?”
Is she serious?
“I’m not leaving.”
“It’s not safe here, Mila.”
“In case you forgot, I was raped and beaten half to death in LA, Mom. Nowhere is safe.”
She winces at the mention of what happened, her eyes growing pained. I’ve always tiptoed around that night, but if there’s anything being stabbed taught me, it’s that you can’t hide from the pain.
Sooner or later, it’ll find you, and when it does, it’ll reap hell on your emotions if you bottle up for long enough.
“I know you’re still struggling with this, Mila, but I want—”
“What about what I want?” I ask, and a hush falls over the room. Christian leans back against the dresser, his eyes on the floor in front of him and his shoulders stiff.
Mom, on the other hand, has nothing to say.
I do, though.
“I’m not leaving. I’m staying . . . with my husband”
Christian’s eyes snap to mine. As if he actually thought a knife to the stomach would be enough to send me packing.
At this point, I’m not sure a nuke could tear me from his side.
“But Savannah and Mason . . . Hannah, they miss you.”
“They can visit her here when she’s ready,” Christian says, pushing off the dresser. He crosses the room, stopping at the side of the bed. I miss him. I’ve slept alone for the last three nights because he refuses to lay beside me for fear of hurting me, and I miss the scent of him on my skin in the morning.
Bending down, he places a kiss on my forehead, his lips lingering like he’s memorizing my scent.
“I’ve got a meeting. Will you be okay until I get back?”
“I’ll be okay,” I say softly, my heart rolling from the softness in his eyes. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he says, brushing his knuckles down the side of my face before he pulls away and steps out the door, leaving Mom and me alone.
Mom sighs heavily and falls down in the chair beside my bed.
“I can’t believe he would go to a meeting right now,” she grumbles.
“Can you stop?” I snap, my temper flaring, and in turn, my side cramps too.
Mom just glowers at me like a scolded child.
“Why are you being so hard on him?”
“Because he abandoned you—”
“Because you told him to,” I snap, interrupting her.
She falls silent.
“Christian married me to keep me from being forced into marrying one of Marcus’s friends. You know, because you allowed him to auction me off.”
“I asked him to stop it. Not marry you.”
“Call it toxic or a mistake or a violation,” I shrug. It hurts. “I don’t care. It’s between Christian and I and no amount of nasty comments hurled his way will change the outcome.”
“You can’t tell me you’re not considering a divorce. At the very least, an annulment?”
I shake my head.
“At first . . . I wasn’t sure. Then I realized, even if he had asked me, the outcome would be the same. I love him, Mom.”
She purses her lips, and I know she wants to argue. That’s just who my mother is.
I sigh, leaning my head back against the pillows. One thing about being a human pincushion? Sudden bouts of exhaustion.
“We’ve both made mistakes, Mom. You have, too. What matters is how we move forward.”
She purses her lips, looking at the television. A commercial for bridal gowns flashes across the screen.
“You didn’t get that, Mila,” Mom says quietly, her eyes settling with tears. “I know he loves you. I know you love him, I’m just . . . sad all of that was taken from you.”
So that’s what this is about. Her own feelings of guilt.
“Who’s to say I even wanted it?” She pauses, looking at me like she’s finally seeing me for me and not a replica of herself.
“What do you want?” she asks carefully, and I shrug.
“Christian,” I answer without thought. “A family. A comfortable home and to feel safe.” I scratch Phantom’s head, where he lays beside me on the bed. “I wanted a dog, and I found one.”
“That’s not a dog,” Mom says warily, eyeing him like he might turn ravenous at any second. Phantom eyes her back, cocking his head with sass. “That’s a creature of hell.”
“Don’t listen to her, sweetheart,” I coo, petting his head. He lays his chin on my leg, closing his eyes. “He saved me, in a way. Kind of like I saved him.”
“Well, I suppose he does love you.”
“Christian saved me, too.”
She sighs.
“He’s like one of my kids,” she grumbles. “He just pissed me off. Took my baby from me.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“I’m not a baby anymore, Mom. I’m twenty-four.”
“You’ll always be my baby. Big, scary husband or not.”