Chapter 3 – VALENTINA
Three
VALENTINA
Somebody better have caught the license plate of that asshole.
Fuck.
My head is throbbing, and my body feels like lead. There’s an ache pushing at the edges of whatever narcotics they pumped into me. It's distant but sharp enough to remind me I’m broken somewhere. Maybe everywhere.
I remember riding with Remi, and stopping at the red light, the screeching tires, too fast to register, followed by metal and pain. After that…nothing.
I don’t know how long I've been out, but the steady beeping of machines and the sterile tang in the air tell me I’m in a hospital. But more importantly, that I’m alive.
My eyes flutter open, only to slam shut against a streak of sunlight. I pull in a shaky breath and try again, blinking until the ceiling panels are no longer blurry.
“Valentina.”
The voice cuts through the haze. It’s familiar, though I can’t place it.
“Kolibri,” he whispers.
The sound steals the air from my lungs. I gasp and twist too suddenly, and feel instant fucking regret as pain flares through my body. A strangled groan slips past my teeth as I blink furiously, forcing my vision to clear.
He crouches, hand closing gently around mine, and those piercing blue eyes finally come into focus.
And just like that, I’m crying.
Maksim.
My Maxy is home.
Aunt Leni shared pictures through the years, but maybe out of resentment for how he left and never looked back, I never paid much attention. Seeing him now, really seeing him, is something else. He’s certainly handsome.
A small laugh slips out as I remember the times I tried to dress him up as my prince and how much he hated it. Looks like he turned into one after all. The kind that belongs in steamy books, not fairytales.
But now it’s different. It’s like I’m seeing him with new eyes, tracing every way he’s changed, from the boy I once knew to the man standing in front of me.
I cried for days after he left. Back then, the only way my parents could get me to sleep was with a video call before bed. Until the ache dulled. Until the calls grew fewer. And until one day, without realizing it, they stopped altogether.
“Maksim, what are you doing here?” My smile falters as dread creeps in. Did he fly back because of me? “Fuck. How long have I been out? W-where’s my mom? My dad? Remi—Oh my God, did she get hit too?”
I try to push myself up, but Maksim’s hands find my shoulders and guide me back down.
“Hey. Stay calm. You’re okay. You’ve been out of surgery for a few hours.”
“Surgery?”
Panic rises, and I run my hands over my limbs. That’s when I realize my right leg feels like dead weight, stiff and almost burning.
“Don’t worry, Val.” His voice is calm, but there’s tension hiding underneath. “A few screws, and a cast for a couple weeks. Doctor says you’ll be fine. Eva and Derek are downstairs with Remi. She’s okay.”
A shuddering breath escapes me, relief slipping through the cracks of the fear. I force my eyes back to him. “And you? You came back.”
He nods once. “I did. And…now I almost wish I hadn’t.”
“Wait, what does that mean?” I ask, frowning.
He gives me a slight smile and drags his thumb across my forearm. For a second, I’m that kid again, but instead of comfort, his touch hits me weird.
I cover it with a shaky laugh. “Well?”
He leans in, close enough that I catch the scent of his cologne—smoke, spice, and something dark I can’t name.
“If it weren’t for me,” he says quietly, “you wouldn’t be here right now.”
My brain clears like someone opened a window. I stare at him. “Wait—you’re saying you’re the asshole who hit me?”
It’s his turn to frown. The light in his eyes dims, replaced by that haunted look he used to wear like a second skin. Back then, I was too young to understand it. Years later, Aunt Leni told me pieces of his past—what his uncle did to him, what he survived—and suddenly it all made sense.
“I wasn’t driving,” he says quietly. “But if I hadn’t been distracted, maybe I could’ve warned him. Maybe…I could’ve stopped it.”
I reach up, fingers brushing his cheek. He flinches, and I almost pull back, until he leans into my palm.
“Maksim, it’s not your fault. I usually wait a few seconds after the light changes, just in case, but Remi and I were messing around. It was…a stressful day.”
“Are you seriously blaming yourself?” There’s a flicker of amusement under the rough edge of his voice.
I shrug too hard, and a sharp pain stabs through my ribs, threatening to break through the meds. I bite it down and force a smile. “Sounds like it was a group effort.”
His deep chuckle rolls through me, and in that sound, I realize just how much I’ve missed him.
And how much I hadn’t noticed the space he left behind until now.
Maksim has always lingered in the back of my mind, pulled forward by little things—a photo of him brooding like a typical teenager, or the state fair we went to every summer.
Maxy, the hummingbird, he won for me when I was barely out of diapers.
Maybe that’s why I’ve never thrown it away.
Maybe that’s why it’s still buried in the back of my closet somewhere.
“Maksim,” I whisper, startled by the crack in my own voice. “Can you…just hug me?”
He doesn’t hesitate. He leans in, careful, his arms circling me like he’s afraid I’ll break. When he starts to pull back, I tighten my grip. I’m not ready to let him go again. Not yet.
“Valentina, I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” The words come out soft, almost too fragile for my liking.
He exhales, the sound heavy. “I already did.”
“Then you owe me. Now shut up and hug me.”
His cautious laugh rumbles through me, touching places that were never meant for him. And stirring heat where there shouldn’t be any. I shift against it, unsettled by the betrayal of my own body.
“Are you okay?”
I nod. “I’m just…happy to see you.” Liar. “Are you here to stay?”
Maksim retreats to the chair at my bedside and exhales like a man carrying the world on his shoulders.
“For now. Mom is—”
“In remission,” I finish for him. “Maksim, she’s the strongest woman I know—and that’s saying something.”
Guilt shadows his face. “I should have been here sooner.”
I want to agree. To tell him he never should’ve left us…left me. But I was too young then to understand what drove him away. All I knew was that I had lost my brother.
Brother.
I test the word, roll it through my mind, but it doesn’t fit. It never has.
“You’re here now,” I say instead, curling my hand into his.
He gives me a lopsided smile and strokes his thumb across my knuckles. And suddenly, I’m hyperaware of everything. Every flicker of his expression, the warmth of his skin, the weight of his voice when he speaks…
Oh, God.
Maybe it’s the meds fogging my head.
“Val!”
Remi bursts into the room, rushing straight for me. I yank my hand from Maksim’s without thinking, like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t. I don’t even know why the thought crosses my mind, or what it means. But it lingers before I can shove it away.
“Easy, Remi,” I laugh weakly as she grabs my shoulders in a hug my body’s nowhere near ready for.
“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Her blue eyes shine behind a wall of tears.
“Hey, I’m okay. Sore as hell, but okay. Stop crying, because then I’ll start crying.”
Too late. Fat tears spill down my cheeks, and I reach for her anyway, ignoring the pain just to hold her tighter. It could’ve been her in this bed, broken, bruised, or worse. The thought makes me shudder.
One by one, my family fills the room. When my mom and dad finally reach me, standing on either side of the bed with tears in their eyes, I lose it. The dam breaks, and I sob.
“Papi…I’m sorry,” I choke out when he pulls me close. “I-I should have—”
“You’re okay,” he murmurs, his voice thick. “That’s all that matters.”
I break against his shoulder, the sound of my cries muffled by his shirt. And just like that, I’m his little girl again. Like when I scraped my knee falling off my bike and he carried me all the way home, or when I slipped off the balance beam, sprained my ankle, and he was the first to reach me.
He’s always been my safe place. My anchor. My everything.
In his arms, nothing can touch me.
And I know that’s true, not just with him, but with all of them.
When I blink through my tears, I find him. Maksim is standing in the far corner, apart from the rest. No smile or tears. Just those eyes fixed on me.
Something shifts then, a fracture I can’t name, only feel.
And somehow, even broken and aching, I feel more whole now than I did this morning.