Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
Colton
The hospital is on fire with flashing lights, not the literal kind, but the kind that bounces off every surface—ambulance bars, reporter flashbulbs, police headlights, goddamn camera phones held high by strangers who have never given a shit about me or Jenna or anyone until blood is in the water.
I have Livy on my hip.
Her arms are tight around my neck, chin buried into my shoulder, legs wrapped around so hard I feel her bones through my shirt.
She hasn’t said a word since I pulled her from the car, just keeps her face pressed against me, breathing in sync with me.
Every step toward the ER doors is a war.
My phone explodes in my pocket—Ethan, Isla, Riley, even the GM.
We hit the sliding glass doors. The inside is even louder, voices ping-ponging off tile and steel.
For a second, I stop dead, nearly drop Livy, because the wall of people is too thick and my brain refuses to see a path through.
An orderly sees me—maybe he recognizes my face, maybe he just sees a big man and a small child in trouble—and yells, “Hey! You!” and the sea parts, just a little, so I charge forward before it closes again.
“Sir, you need to check in at the desk—”
“Jenna Davis-Kirillov,” I bark, and he shrinks half an inch. “Where is my wife?”
He blinks, registers my face, and the recognition is immediate. “She’s in trauma three. Please, sir, just—wait over there.”
I don’t even see where he points at, but I bulldoze toward the double doors with the big yellow warning labels. “No Admittance.” Sure. Try and stop me.
A security guard steps into my lane. He’s got fifty pounds on me, but it’s all belt and badge. “Sir—!”
“If you try to keep me away from her, I will put you through that wall,” I growl, and he believes it. Or maybe he sees the kid I’m carrying, and the universe does some math for him. He backs off, palms up.
“Just… calm down. We know you’re in an extra stressful situation but you are endangering everyone behind that door—”
“Dad…” Livy cries.
That’s when I stop, really stop, because I realize for the first time that Livy is still glued to me and her face is so pale, so paper-white. Fuck. I scared her. “Oh, baby sorry I scared you. You okay?” I whisper.
She nods, but her eyes never open. Her fingers tighten—little claws.
I turn back to the security guard and take a deep breath before I start again. “How long has Jenna Davis-Kirillov been in there? What are they doing? How is she holding up?”
The security guard nods to a row of chairs. “Please take a seat. Like everyone else.”
Even though my pulse is higher than the Empire State Building, I don’t fight it.
He’s right.
I was insane for even trying to stomp into the emergency room, but Jenna needing an operation… I can’t stomach it. I just want to speak to a doctor.
But I guess I have to wait.
So, I just nod. “Thank you, sir.”
Then I rip a chair away from the wall and sit.
Prying Livy’s hands away from my neck, I stroke her hair. “I need you to be brave, little one. Remember what I told you about being brave?”
She sniffs into my neck, but nods again, and finally her eyes open. They are wet, which somehow makes it all worse. “Daddy… is… is Jenna going to die?”
The words hit harder than anything I’ve ever taken on the ice. For a second I need to breathe the lump in my throat away.
“No,” I force out, and I wish I could believe it too. “She’s a lawyer, remember? Too stubborn to quit.”
I try to smile, but my lips don’t seem to work. Instead, I kiss her forehead, gently rocking her. I don’t know if I’m comforting my daughter or if she’s the only thing holding me together in this moment.
The waiting room fills with people. There are cops, hospital staff, a priest who just sits quietly in the corner like he’s seen this before and knows most people would rather talk to anyone else first. Riley shows up, suit wrinkled, tie undone.
He takes an empty next to me and tries to say something clever, but even he can’t muster a joke tonight.
The hours stretch.
Nurses come out and ask questions. They want to know about allergies, medications, next of kin. I answer everything like a robot.
At some point, I see Jenna’s mother.
She’s wearing a hospital uniform because she works in this very hospital.
I almost forgot. Her face is drawn so tight, lips a single pale line.
She sees me, and for a second, I think she’s going to slap me, blame me, whatever it is parents do when their kid is on the edge of death and they need someone to hate.
She doesn’t. She just sits beside me and takes my hand, which is somehow worse.
“Thank you for being here,” she says.
I stare at her, confused. “Of course,” I blurt out but the words have teeth.
Jenna’s mother squeezes my hand, looks down at Livy asleep in my lap and strokes her hair.
“She has internal bleeding…” her mother whispers. “They’re trying to stop the bleeding or repair her organs. I couldn’t listen properly.”
I just nod. Internal bleeding because my stupid ex-wife ran her over.
“Ethan just sent me an e-mail,” Riley says. “They locked Mira up.”
“Good, or else I would have killed her.”
Riley just nods even though I know he wanted to say something like this is not going to help or whatever. Jay joined us too, then Isla but we don’t chat. Not really. We just sit there like an odd group, waiting for someone to update us. It’s taking hours.
At dawn, a doctor finally finds us.
His face is a riddle, and I don’t want to solve it.
“She’s stable. In the ICU. But… she’s in a coma. We don’t know when, or if, she’ll wake up.”
The floor shifts under me. But I’m sitting and that’s just about what I register.
“Can I see her?”
He nods. “Of course. But only you since you’re her husband.”
I glance down at Livy and before I can say anything, Riley says, “Hey you know, give her to me. She can sleep at ours. Rory will have a blast.”
I hesitate at first, but then I know it’s the only right choice right now. I’m a mess.
“Thank you man.” I hand him Livy and tell the others that I’ll report back and the walk to Jenna’s room is the longest walk of my life. The world goes fuzzy at the edges. It’s unbelievable. I had it all. Everything I ever wanted, and I messed it up to a point of no return.
I step inside and there she is, a million wires and machines, tubes in her nose and mouth, the whole left side of her chest bandaged and swollen.
Her hair is matted, but her pale face is so peaceful it makes me want to scream.
I drop to my knees by the bed and take her hand, watching how her chest is rising and falling, just to make sure she is still breathing.
I kiss every knuckle, every vein, every freckle on her hand, like maybe if I can warm her up enough, she’ll return from wherever she’s gone.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, over and over, until the words mean nothing. Somewhere at the back there’s a door closing but I don’t register it anymore. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
Jenna’s eyelids don’t even flicker. I press my forehead to her palm, and for the first time in two decades, I let myself cry. Real, ugly tears that shake my whole body and make my nose run and my eyes burn. I let the grief eat me alive.
Because I know this is my fault.
All of it. My choices, my past, my stubbornness. I’d wanted to be a hero, but I’d only ever been a brute. And now the only person who ever truly challenged me, who saw through the armor, might never wake up because I was too fucking slow to realize she was everything. Too fucking slow to show her.
I stay at her side all night, and I don’t sleep. I don’t pray, either. I just keep telling her how much I love her, like it’s the only thing that can pull her back from the void.
Jenna, I love you.
I love you, Solnyshko.
I love you.
I love you forever and always.
I. Love. You.