Chapter 27 Alina
ALINA
The room was quiet.
So very, very quiet.
And it wasn’t the good kind of quiet. This was soul-crushing.
There was the occasional beep or click from the machines and a low hum of conversations in the hall, but that was it.
I’d claimed the small vinyl chair next to Sergei’s bed, and I’d been sitting there since they’d brought him back from surgery.
I kept expecting someone to tell me to move or that I didn’t belong there, but no one said a word.
So, I sat there, staring at Sergei and waiting for some sign that he was coming back to me.
It had been hours, and sadly, there had been nothing.
Not an eye flutter. Not a shift of his foot.
Not even a wiggle of his finger. Until then, I’d never realized just how still a body could be, and it made my heart ache.
He was right there next to me, and I missed him like crazy.
At some point, Viktor had stepped out of the room to make a call, and Preacher had taken Tabitha downstairs to the cafeteria for a bite to eat and some coffee.
Like me, Nikolai didn’t move. He sat in the corner with his long legs stretched out and his arms crossed like he was ready to take on anyone who told him to move.
I took Sergei’s hand in mine and brought it up to my cheek.
I just wanted to feel his warmth for a moment, but it felt cool against my skin.
I didn’t let it go. Instead, I held onto it, hoping he knew that I was there with him.
I was watching the slow rise and fall of his chest when Nikolai said, “You should go home and get some rest. Maybe take a shower and grab something to eat.”
“I’m not leaving. Not while he’s like this.” I turned to look at him as I said, “But you can go. I’m sure you could use some rest, too.”
“I’m staying.” I gave him a slight nod, then turned my attention back to Sergei. After a few moments, Nikolai grumbled, “But I can’t take just sitting here in the quiet. I need you to talk to me.”
Even though I wasn’t really up for talking, it was clear he was struggling with seeing his brother in this condition, so I nodded and asked, “What do you want to talk about?”
“Anything.” He sat up in his seat. “Tell me something about you and what you have going on.”
“You already know everything that’s been going on with me.”
“What about your writing? Are you still doing that?”
“Some.” I shrugged. “I don’t think it’s all that great, but it’s been therapeutic.”
“They’re good. A little dark, but good.”
“They are a little dark.”
“Sometimes dark is what people need.” He cocked his brow. “You should consider publishing them. Might help women who’ve been through shit like you have.”
“Maybe. It’s definitely something to think about.”
Before he could respond, the door swung open and Viktor walked back in. His eyes went straight to Sergei, and he sighed when he saw that he was still out. “Anything?”
“He hasn’t moved.”
“But remember what the doctor said,” Nikolai interjected. “He said the next few hours will tell us more of what we’re up against.”
“He’s still stable?”
“Yes. For now.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
“This is it.” Nikola nodded toward me. “She’s not leaving, and neither am I.”
Viktor gave him a nod, then walked over and pulled up a chair next to me.
And the three of us sat there, watching Sergei like our lives depended on it, and silently prayed that this wasn’t the end.
After a while, Tabitha and Preacher returned.
While Preacher found him a spot by the window, Tabitha wanted to be closer.
She sat in the chair across from me, and there was no missing the concern in her eyes as she looked over at her son.
Viktor cleared his throat and shook his head. “Boy, he’s really milking this one.”
“He’s not milking anything,” Tabitha fussed. “Your brother is fighting for his life over here.”
“It’s a little stab wound,” Viktor scoffed. “He’s just looking for attention. He’s been doing this shit since we were kids. Always trying to play hero and scaring the hell out of us in the process.”
“He isn’t wrong,” Nikolai piped in. “He was always into something.”
“Yeah, remember that time we were all out at that abandoned train yard… the one out by Yuri’s old place?”
“You talking about those guys who were screwing around with that old, stray dog?”
“Yeah, they cornered it under one of the rail cars. It was a pitiful old thing.”
“I remember. He was struggling to get around, and those assholes were throwing rocks at it.”
“And you ran over and started yelling at them to stop.”
“Nah, I’m pretty sure it was Alina who was doing the yelling.”
“It was you. Hell, you weren’t but seven or eight at the time, but you were a mean, little sonofabitch.”
“Viktor,” Tabitha scolded.
“He was, and you know it.”
“I don’t know any such thing.”
I listened to them bicker, but my attention was still on Sergei.
Being careful to avoid his IV, I curled my fingers tighter around his hand.
His chest continued to rise and fall in shallow but steady breaths.
My eyes were still trained on his chest when Nikolai grumbled, “I didn’t take shit off anyone. Still don’t.”
“See, Mother. A mean, little sonofabitch,” Viktor teased. “And he’s still your favorite.”
“I don’t have a favorite, Viktor.”
“Yeah, yeah. Keep telling yourself that.”
Nikolai didn’t argue about being the favorite. He simply scratched the side of his head and said, “Any-way, I wasn’t going to let them hurt that dog. I didn’t care if he was stray or not.”
“And you almost got your ass kicked because of it.”
“I did no such thing. I could’ve taken them easy.”
“You are so full of shit.”
“Just stating facts, brother.”
“Those guys would have pummeled you if it hadn’t been for Sergei.”
“Whatever.” I thought that was going to be the end of it until Nikolai added, “He was just as pissed as I was that they were fucking with that dog.”
“He didn’t give a fuck about that dog. He was pissed that one of them shoved you.”
“He went after them because they tried to set that dog on fire.”
“He saw what they were doing, but he didn’t go after them until one of them knocked your ass to the ground.”
I should’ve told them to stop arguing, but their voices were oddly comforting.
And it was good for Sergei to know that he wasn’t in that room alone.
We were all there, right by his side, and we would be there until he found the strength to come back to us.
God, how I prayed that he would come back to us.
“You got it wrong. He jumped in when the guy with the shaved head came at you with that rusty pipe.”
“That wasn’t him. That was me.”
“No way. That was Sergei. One hundred percent.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Viktor argued. “Sergei was too busy dealing with the other two, and when he finished beating the hell out of the bigger one, he said, ‘If you touch my brother again, I’ll…’”
A hoarse voice cut through the air, low and strained, “I’ll break your fucking hand and feed it to you, and it was a crowbar, not a pipe. And I’m Mom’s favorite. Always have been.”
My breath caught as I looked up to Sergei’s face.
His eyes were still closed, so I thought I’d imagined it.
Then, his fingers twitched in mine. I was up and out of that chair before I could even blink, and the sound that tore out of me was somewhere between a sob and a prayer.
His eyes fluttered open. It was slow and just a little, but they were open, and they were locked on mine.
I cupped his face and pressed my mouth to his like I’d been drowning and he was air. He grunted against my lips with a wince. “Easy, baby. I’m wounded over here.”
I was outright crying at this point, and my words came out as a jumbled mess as I told him, “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Tears were streaming down Tabitha’s face as she stepped over and placed the palm of her hand on Sergei’s forehead. “You gave us quite a scare.”
“Nothing to be scared about. It was just a little graze,” Sergei grumbled. “Should’ve just slapped a Band-Aid on that shit and called it a day.”
Nikolai and Viktor stepped over to the bed, both looking relieved and exhausted. Viktor shook his head as he teased, “You’re a real asshole, you know that?”
“Right back at you, brother.”
Viktor and Nikolai didn’t rush out after Sergei woke up. They both lingered near the foot of the bed, talking back and forth with Preacher and Tabitha, and we all watched quietly as the nurses checked the monitors and adjusted Sergei’s IV. None of us said it out loud, but we all felt it.
We were all worried that he wasn’t out of the woods yet.
He was trying, but it was a struggle for him to stay awake. The drugs played a part in that, but his body had taken a hard hit. It was going to take him some time to get his strength back, and until then, he was going to need rest and plenty of it.
Eventually, Viktor gave Sergei’s leg a careful pat and said, “We’re going to get out of here for a while. Let you get some sleep, but we’ll be back in the morning.”
“Try not to give the nurses too much hell while we’re gone,” Nikolai teased.
That earned him a faint twitch of a smile. Tabitha ran her fingers through Sergei’s hair in a way that only a mother could. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“I’m fine, Mother.”
“You’re not,” she fussed. “I almost lost you, and…”
“But you didn’t,” Sergei interrupted. “It’d take more than a couple of jabs to get me down and keep me down. Now, go home and get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Okay, but I don’t like it.” She leaned in and kissed him on the forehead. “I love you, son. I love you so very much.”
“Love you, too.”
They all said their goodbyes to me, and before slipping out the door, Tabitha leaned in and hugged me as she whispered, “Call me if either of you need anything.”
“I will. Thank you.”
She gave Sergei one last motherly look before she and the boys slipped out of the room.
As soon as the door clicked behind them, I pulled the chair a little closer to his bed and sat where I could see his handsome face as I held his hand.
He studied me for a moment, then whispered, “I should’ve gotten to you sooner. ”
“Sergei, don’t.” I shook my head. “You saved my life.”
He started to argue, but I leaned in and kissed him before he could get the words out. It was soft and gentle, nothing like earlier, and it was effective. He stopped with the nonsense, and when I pulled back, I whispered, “You came. You got to me. Nothing else matters.”
His eyes closed, and I saw him exhale like the weight of the world had loosened its hold. It loosened its hold on me, too, and a piece of me started to think that maybe, just maybe, we were going to get through this thing after all.