58. Laila
58
LAILA
I stop pacing when the door opens, ready to rant and yell and say everything I would’ve texted to Arsen if he’d bothered to answer his phone at any point in the last few hours.
But the second I see the blood congealed on his hands, all of my anger drains away. “Arsen!”
I rush over to him, but he holds himself back. His voice is low and cold. “I’m fine. It’s not my blood.”
It’s the same thing he said to me the night he showed up at the house. That night, it was Natascha’s blood on his hands.
I don’t want to know whose blood it is now.
I glance over to the crib to make sure Nina is sleeping through this. Miraculously, she is. I can only hope she sleeps through nights like these for as long as they continue to happen.
“I was expecting you back hours ago,” I whisper, inching towards him. “What happened?”
“We were attacked.”
“‘We’?” I look over his shoulder, but it’s just him here.
He flinches, his eyes sunken and bloodshot. “I need to get cleaned up.”
Ignoring the pain shooting up and down my hip—a direct result of the hours of pacing I did before he walked in—I reach for him. “I’m right here. Let me help you.”
He doesn’t brush me off like I expect. Instead, he allows me to lead him into the bathroom. He watches with a blank expression as I fill a bowl with warm water and find a hand towel.
The blood around his wrists is dark and flaky—hours old, at least—and it disappears under the cuff of his shirt. So, I start undoing the buttons and checking to make sure he’s whole. He was right—the blood isn’t his—but he’s not unscathed. There are fresh scrapes and bruises all over his chest and arms. Discarding his bloody clothes, I run the wet towel over his chest, massaging until his skin is clean.
I try to meet his eyes, but he looks away pointedly. It seems the only time he can look at me is when I’m not looking back.
Finally, when I’m sure my imagination has to be worse than the truth, I ask, “Arsen, what happened?”
“A mistake,” he says brusquely. “One I might not be able to take back. But one I can ensure I never make it again.”
Fear closes my throat and keeps me from asking the rest of my questions.
Arsen doesn’t move as I drop the bloody towel into the bowl and wash my hands. I’ve never seen him so still. So distant.
I can’t take it.
I cup his face, forcing his eyes to mine. “Please,” I whisper, “come back to me.”
His green eyes are dim. They flicker to mine for only a second before they drop away. “Dominik was shot tonight.”
My hands fall away. I stumble back, my elbow knocking the bowl of red water on the counter. Looking at it now makes my stomach churn. “What?”
“He’s in emergency surgery. Kira’s probably at the hospital by now.” He says it with a resigned sigh I don’t understand.
Dominik is one of his best friends. Arsen loves him, loves Kira. I know it.
“We need to be there.” I’m already running through a list in my head of what I need to do. Get dressed, have Polina watch Nina, find Arsen a new shirt. “She needs someone with her. Oh, God.”
“There’s no point looking to God,” Arsen interrupts harshly. “He can’t hear us.”
Suddenly, Arsen’s strange behavior—his coldness and detachment—makes perfect sense to me. I grab his hand, kiss it, hold it against my beating heart. “I’m not going anywhere, Arsen. I’m gonna be right here with you, okay? We’re not going to lose Dominik.”
His eyes snap to me. It’s the most focused he’s looked since he walked into our room. “Will you get ready?”
“Of course. Give me ten minutes. I’ll put on some clothes, and we can go to the hospital. I’ll have Polina look after Nina while we’re?—”
“No.” He pulls his hand away, his eyes once again trained on the floor. “Nina can come with you.”
I’m not sure we should be taking Nina to the hospital, especially under the circumstances. I’d feel much better leaving her here with Polina and my mom, but I decide not to argue with Arsen now.
If he feels more secure with us all together, I want to give him that.
“Okay. We’ll bring her with us.”
He nods once and walks out of the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind him.
My heart is thundering in my chest, and I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. It’s Dominik. Dominik is hurt. That’s what’s wrong.
While I shower and change, I tell myself that’s what this is—but when I walk back into our bathroom and find Arsen bent over a large duffel bag, I can’t lie to myself anymore.
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer as he grabs Bugsy from Nina’s crib and tucks it in the duffel along with an unorganized wad of clothes.
“We’re just going to the hospital,” I say weakly. “You’ve packed enough for a month.”
“It’s not going to be a month.” He zips the duffel.
“Okay.” The panic is rising in my throat, and I have to speak around it. “Then we don’t need to take fifteen changes of clothes to the hospital. We are going to the hospital, aren’t we?”
He slings the bag over his shoulder. “Get Nina.”
“I don’t understand. What’s?—”
“I told you to get Nina.” He doesn’t raise his voice, but his words might as well be weapons the way they slice into my skin.
Trembling, I walk to the crib and scoop our sleeping baby into my arms. Her weight settles against my chest, along with another heavy realization. “We’re not going to the hospital, are we?”
At least he’s man enough to meet my eyes as he says, “No.”
I fight back nausea. “Where are we going?”
“ We aren’t going anywhere. You and Nina are.”
“Why? For how long?” The more the silence stretches, the thicker my panic becomes. “Arsen?”
“For as long as it takes.”
“To do what?” I cry. “Is this about Charles? Or Dominik? What happened to him? Why is he in the hospital?”
“Because of me.” His jaw is granite. “And you have to go before you get hurt, too.”
He blurs behind my tears. I blink them away furiously, trying to make sense of what he’s saying. “But what about us? Our family? I’m your wife.”
“A mistake I should never have made.”
I stumble back like he struck me. He might as well have. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” He answers with no hesitation. “I let myself get distracted with you—with playing house and being your husband—and I put everyone at risk.”
I shake my head. “Don’t say that. You didn’t?—”
“Dominik is dying. He could be fucking dead now, for all I know!”
“Don’t put that on me!” I shriek, causing Nina to stir in my arms. “Don’t you dare put that on me!”
“I’m not.” He runs a hand over the back of his neck, his shoulders tense. “This is on no one but me. Now, let’s go.”
“Arsen!”
But he doesn’t stop. He walks through the door and disappears.
Nina has settled again, and I look down at my sleeping baby, wondering how we got here. How we can get out.
With no idea what else to do, I follow Arsen through the house and down the stairs. My hip is aching by the time I reach the entryway and find my bags by the door along with Gedeon—yet another person who won’t meet my eyes. An engine purrs from the driveway.
Arsen appears in the door. “Are you ready?”
“Where’s Mom?”
We came here together. We should leave together. If Arsen is done with me, he won’t want her around.
A shadow passes across his eyes. “She’s sick, Laila.”
The pain in my heart eclipses the pain in my hip. “What are you telling me, Arsen?”
“You have ten minutes. Go say your goodbyes.”