Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Apollo
There have been times, few and far between as they were, that fear had come for me.
Being a victim of fear is not something that I consider myself accustomed to.
At a young age, fear became an emotion that I used to inflict harm on others.
I knew fear. I worked with it, honed it and wielded it like a weapon as sharp and as lethal as any blade.
Today, fear didn’t find me. Something much stronger took its place instead. Today, I’d come to know terror more than I ever expected to.
“What did you just say?” I ask, voice hard and lost as I blindly reach for my keys. My phone is pressed firmly against my ear, my brother’s rushed words racing through my mind.
My stomach is in knots like I’d eaten something rotten, and my chest feels like it might cave in. I knew exactly what was just reported to me, but I couldn’t accept it. It was an unacceptable reality that I refused to face without hearing it again.
The desire to cling to disbelief is quietly squashed.
“Yordan was shot,” Cassio repeats, louder and slower. “He’s losing a lot of blood, but we’ve got him and we’re on our way to the hospital. We’re almost there.”
“How the fuck did this happen?” I demand in a bark, storming out of my office. “I leave him alone for a day, surrounded by guards and three of my brothers, at a fucking fundraiser for an orphanage, and he’s been shot?”
Rayna’s going to kill me.
I’m going to let her.
Yordan Todorov is my responsibility, my seventeen-year-old mentee. My fucking friend. And somehow, he was suffering from a bullet.
Had the Bulgarian Mafiya come for him? Impossible, I shake off the thought.
The tip I received about their interest in Rayna and Yordan guaranteed they had no idea where the Todorovs were.
They were shit-talking in a bar about revenge, drunk on delusion.
It wasn’t a credible threat, I checked for that.
The only reason I even told Rayna about it was to further gain her trust. I was including her, and now I was going to lose her.
Any progress made between us is sure to be wiped out now that I failed to do the one thing she asked of me. To keep Yordan safe.
“You can yell about it later,” Cassio growls. “The gunman is dead, and we’ll keep Yordan alive. Elio is going to get Rayna. Just meet us at the Med Center.”
“Fuck,” I snap, hanging up my phone, tempted to throw it forcefully into the wall.
Feeling sick and almost dizzy, I climb into my car and gun it.
I don’t think about anything other than getting to the hospital as I drive recklessly.
Cars swerve out of my way, red lights don’t stop me, and street lights are a fucking blur.
I feel like I might throw up, head pounding and heart aching with guilt.
When I get to the hospital, I don’t bother parking.
I pull onto the sidewalk, running over a bush in the process.
I know exactly where my brothers would have taken Yordan, and I run in that direction.
Workers who see me as a madman rushing through the halls without recognizing my face attempt to slow me down before they’re deterred by those who know better—effectively saving their lives.
If anyone stepped in my way right now, I wouldn’t even think about it before snapping their neck.
The white hospital walls and sterile lighting are harsh on my eyes, but I don’t stop scouring until I stumble upon where I’m supposed to be. Catching sight of long black hair, I find Ana and with her, who I need.
“Where is he?” I demand, shouting across the hall to my brother.
He doesn’t need to shout back, because I’m in front of him in a matter of breaths. “He’s with the doctors now, they’re getting him blood and closing him up,” Cassio reports, holding his hands up as if to tell me to calm. He knows damn-well that I will not calm down.
I’m burning up from the inside out, feeling both enraged and helpless. A brutal combination that no one should be subjected to.
Eyes flicking to the side, I find Leon covered in blood, shirt soiled with it as he sits in a waiting room chair. He’s staring blankly at the wall in front of him, eyes unblinking.
“What the fuck happened?”
It’s then that I notice the tears in Ana’s eyes. Ana who refused to cry in front of my family when half of hers was slaughtered. Ana who always maintains a brave face in public.
“How bad is it?” I ask, fists tightening so hard that they shake. “Where was he hit? Tell me he’s not going to die, Cassio.” The request is not pleading, it’s commanding. I refuse to hear anything other than Yordan’s projected recovery.
“He’s not going to die, Apollo,” he insists, voice steady. “He was shot while protecting a little girl.”
I freeze, absorbing the information. “What?”
“Oh, Apollo,” Ana sniffs. “It was awful, I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head, not understanding her apology.
“An eight-year-old girl’s father came looking for her.
He was a family annihilator. He killed his wife and their son a month ago, but ran from police before he could be caught.
He heard his daughter was sent to live at the orphanage and he came to finish the job.
Yordan was helping her tie her shoes when he showed up. ”
“Yordan shielded her with his body,” Ana says, tears falling faster.
“Cassio got to them so fast, he tackled the guy and shot him but not before…” She swallows, lips wobbling.
“We never expected him to be able to find her. We were so careful. She wasn’t posted anywhere online, we took every precaution. ”
A random man did this?
Not an enemy?
I don’t know whether to be relieved that this act of violence wasn’t meant for Yordan, or remain sick with guilt that it happened at all.
“Where was he hit?” I ask again.
“Kidney,” Leon says, finally speaking up. His voice is weak with rasp, and his eyes haven’t moved from the wall. “On the left side, the bullet didn’t go all the way through. Went in through his back, no exit wound in the front.”
“But the doctors already removed it,” Cassio adds reassuringly. “It’s not still in him.”
“He’s still bleeding,” I gather, breathing hard.
“They’re working on stopping it. The kidney is a delicate area, you know this, Apollo. But he’s going to be fine. Leon kept him talking the whole way here.”
By the look of him, Leon did more than keep him talking in the car.
He kept the bleeding under control, holding Yordan together with his bare hands.
Gratitude hits me like a punch to the gut, and my brother and I share a knowing look.
No words need to be exchanged. I would have done the same for him, or his sons.
“Where’s Leo?” I ask, suddenly concerned.
“Armani and Colton have him,” Ana says softly. “They came to be supportive of me. God, this is all my fault. Why does everything I try to do end so badly?”
“Don’t say that,” Cassio reprimands, pulling her close. “We’ve talked about this, love. You have to stop blaming yourself for the actions of grown men.”
I breathe out slowly, watching the intimate moment between them. Of course I don’t blame Ana. How would she have known that a fundraising event for such a good cause could take such an ugly turn?
How could I blame her for assuming it would be safe when I did the very same thing?
The sound of pounding, rapid footsteps pulls my attention away.
Looking down the hall, my stomach sinks.
Rayna’s face is wet and splotchy with tears, her hair a wild and wispy tumble of black and blonde waves as she sprints down the hallway.
Elio trails right behind her, face stormy and guarded.
They must have driven just as dangerously as I did, arriving so quickly.
I tense as Rayna approaches, expecting for her to try and slap me again. This time, I would let her.
But the hit never comes.
Rayna
Heart beating so wildly that I feel it in my throat, my hands reach out, wrapping around Apollo’s wrists.
“Tell me he’s okay,” I beg, voice broken.
I haven’t been able to breathe properly since Elio came to get me. He called me, minutes away from the apartment and told me to get downstairs for him to pick me up. Yordan was in the hospital, and he refused to tell me what happened until I saw him face to face.
Once I heard that my brother was shot, taking a bullet to protect a little girl, I understood why he withheld the information. Elio didn’t want to risk me fainting in a locked apartment, unable to get to me. I didn’t pass out in the car, but I felt like my soul left my body all the same.
“The last we heard, he was being stitched up and given more blood,” Apollo says, looking down at me with cloudy blue eyes. Gone is the overly cocky and stern demeanor he’s never seen without. He doesn’t look like a king lording over an endless kingdom any longer. He looks worried.
“I can’t believe this happened,” I croak, hands squeezing his forearms harder. “He was supposed to be safe.”
Apollo hangs his head, the height difference between us still allowing eye contact. “I should have been there.”
My heart stutters in my chest. Does he blame himself?
I swallow hard, shaking my head slightly. “Even if you were there, you wouldn’t have been attached to his side. You couldn’t have stopped it.”
The doubtful look in his eyes tells me that he doesn’t believe that for a second.
He thinks that if he were there, he could have prevented this.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Apollo, it’s that with all of his cocky bravado, he carries the unrelenting burden of responsibility.
He feels responsible for everyone and everything he cares about, no matter how unrealistic it is.
“Yordan Todorov’s family?” a clipped voice asks.
I spin around, finding a man in a white coat waiting. He’s bald, older, and has cold brown eyes. Everything about him is stiff and distant, but in a professional manner. This must be one of Yordan’s doctors.