Chapter 21 - Dante
I felt Alisa go rigid against me for a minute before she registered she was safe. Only then did she allow me to pull her back into the shadows.
I held her close and felt the fear from the gunshot still fresh on her skin. She was trembling and breathing too loud. I kept my hand over her mouth and pressed my lips against her ear to whisper. “Don’t move until we’re sure they’re gone.”
Someone had just put a bullet in her father, and if we weren’t careful, we’d be next.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I’d nearly lost my damn mind when I went to check on Alisa and found her room empty. For a while, I thought nothing of it. Maybe she’d run down for some water. Or maybe she couldn’t sleep.
But then, she was nowhere to be found. When I asked the guards and we went through the footage, I saw what she’d done.
My men asked if they should start the search. But I had a hunch that after the meeting with my brothers, there was only one place she’d have gone. Her father’s.
Thank god I didn’t waste any time and followed my gut. Had I been a minute too late, we could have been in an entirely different situation.
When I found her eavesdropping and then heard the gunshot, I thanked whatever guardian angel had nudged me to come after her.
Just then, we heard footsteps exit the living room.
Fuck.
I pulled Alisa deeper into the alcove, pressing us both against the wall. Her body trembled against mine, and I could feel her tears dripping onto my hand, still clasped around her mouth.
The footsteps grew louder. Closer.
I reached for my gun, tucked in the back of my jeans, with my free hand and pulled it out to use, if needed.
A floorboard creaked just around the corner. I held my breath. Alisa’s fingers dug into my arm.
The footsteps paused, and I counted the seconds in my head.
Then I heard the man moving in the opposite direction, further and further away, until the front door creaked and slammed shut.
I waited just a while longer, making sure that whoever it was didn’t return, and only when I was certain that it was safe did I let go of Alisa.
“We need to get out of here,” I whispered. “Now.”
She turned to face me, her eyes wild with fear and shock. “We need to get to my father.”
“Alisa,” I said, gently. “Your father… he’s… “ I didn’t know how to bring myself to say it. We heard the gunshot. Dangerous men like that didn’t shoot for anything but the kill.
“We can’t just leave him,” she said, her voice breaking. “I know who he is. I know what he’s done. He sold me, Dante. But unlike him, I won’t fail in my responsibility as a daughter, even if he failed in his to me.”
Before I could stop her, she darted out of our hiding place and into the living room.
“Shit,” I muttered, following her. “Alisa, wait—”
I stopped short when I saw Marc Montes sprawled on the floor with blood spreading all across his shirt.
Alisa fell to her knees beside him, pressing her hands against the wound on his chest. “Papa,” she cried. “Oh, Papa!”
“A… L… I… “ he tried to speak, but he was barely alive. His eyes fluttered open just a moment before closing again.
“Dante?” Alisa turned to me with panic in her eyes. “Dante, we have to get him to the hospital now, please… “
The last thing I wanted to do in the world was to help the man who had tried to sell my wife. But when Alisa looked at me like that, with such hope and desperation, like I was the answer to her troubles, I couldn’t bear to let her down.
No matter what, that man was still her father.
So I moved. For Alisa.
I knelt beside her and felt his pulse. “My car’s out back,” I told her. “Let’s get him to a doctor.”
“Will he make it?” she asked, sounding so small and fearful that I wanted to lie just to make this easier on her.
“I don’t know… “ I met her eyes. “But we need to go now, Alisa.”
“Okay.” She wiped her tears away quickly with the back of her hand, pulling herself together. “Okay. Let’s get him up.”
It took both our collective strength to lift Marc up. Alisa placed his right arm over her shoulder, and I took the other. He was deadweight, mostly, and we half-carried and half-dragged him out the back door to where I’d parked my car.
“Let’s get him in the back seat,” I said as I opened the doors. “It’s better if he lies down.” Alisa climbed into the back with him and placed his head on her lap and her hands on his chest to keep pressure on her father’s wound.
“Where are we taking him?” she asked when I started to drive.
“We have a family clinic,” I explained, meeting her eyes in the rear-view mirror. God, they were red. Bloodshot. “We have good doctors there.”
“Hurry.” She choked on her own sob, and I pushed my foot on the pedal, praying, for Alisa’s sake, that it wasn’t too late.
***
By the time we arrived, the surgical team was waiting with a gurney, since I’d called ahead. The doctors and nurses rushed him into a private room, and Alisa ran to keep up with the gurney, her eyes never leaving her father.
I followed, watching Alisa like a hawk. After the unspeakable betrayal she faced at the hands of her own father, her capacity for forgiveness didn’t seem human.
How come she, even after suffering at his hands, still wanted to save him?
I didn’t think I could ever understand. But there was one thing I knew: If something happened to that man, she’d burn and crash.
I caught up with the doctors while Alisa held her father’s hands by his bedside, crying and whispering into his ear to hang in there while the team worked him over.
I chose not to give her company because I feared that if I opened my mouth, I’d tell her what I really thought: That Marc Montes didn’t deserve her tears.
But I kept quiet. This wasn’t about me or my anger. It was about Alisa and what she needed.
“Doc.” I pulled him aside. “What are the next steps?”
The doctor looked grim. “He’s lost a lot of blood. The bullet missed his heart but punctured his lung. We need to operate, but before that, he needs to be stabilized. We’ve put the IV in for fluids and given him meds to raise his BP. Then, we can operate.”
“So, he’ll be okay?” I asked, looking back through the room window at where Alisa still held her father’s hand.
“Honestly?” The doctor lowered his voice. “It’s not looking good.”
My eyes snapped back to the doctor. He looked pale. Like he knew something I didn’t, and that’s when I understood.
“Thank you, doctor,” I said softly, then walked over to Alisa and Marc.
I walked back into the room to stay close behind Alisa. Marc lay on the hospital bed, connected to machines and tubes of all sorts. His skin was ashen, and his breathing didn’t sound too good.
“Alisa,” he whispered.
“I’m here, Papa,” she said, taking his hand.
His gaze shifted to me, standing behind her, and I saw the panic and worry in his eyes, as though he realized just then that there was nothing he could do about his little problem. His daughter had made her choice, and I had made mine.
I knew he had enough information about me to know that I wasn’t a man he wanted on his bad side.
“You need to know,” he said, even though he struggled to speak each word. “Why I did it.”
I moved closer and placed a supportive hand on Alisa’s shoulder because something told me whatever came out of Marc’s mouth would only serve to disappoint.
“I was trying to retire,” Marc choked. “But they… the Pavlovs… wouldn’t let me go. They said I knew too much. They said they’d ruin me. Wipe out my accounts, take away my freedom, and ruin my reputation. That I had to leave this country and never come back, to someplace most have never heard of.”
He coughed, a wet, horrible sound. “Where would I go? What would I be? I needed… to prove my loyalty.”
“So you gave them me instead?” Alisa’s voice cracked.
“I would have been left with nothing! Everything I worked for and saved would have been lost. You have to understand it’s only because I knew…
it was a test of loyalty,” Marc insisted with desperate eyes.
“They wouldn’t have hurt you. If I convinced them I trusted them enough to be family…
they’d have… left you alone. I know Arko. He won’t force a woman...”
The bastard was still lying, even now. I clenched my fists. If he wasn’t in that bed already, I would have put him there for how he tried to manipulate the situation again.
The Pavlovs weren’t known for their mercy. They would have taken Alisa, no matter what.
And he knew it. Of course he did. Why else would he fear them so?
“You’re lying,” I said before I could think.
Marc looked over at me, and all I saw was anger.
“She is my daughter. What would she be without me? If I were reduced to being no one… it was better for her…. Besides, there are worse fates in the world than being married to the Pavlovs. Alisa could’ve considered herself lucky… with their wealth…their power…”
“Papa!” Alisa went pale, as though she understood what I’d been thinking. Marc was a fool. Even with that vague, bullshit answer, he had said enough.
“I… had no other choice,” he repeated, clutching Alisa’s hand.
“There’s always a choice,” I added coldly. “You chose yourself. Every time.”
Alisa shot me a look, but it wasn’t one of anger. It was one of utter exhaustion, like she was done with it all.
“Oh, papa,” she said softly. “You should have gone to the police.”
“They would have put me in… jail… “ he began to sputter.
The monitors began to beep faster. Marc’s breathing grew more labored.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, though whether he meant it or was just saying what he thought she wanted to hear, I couldn’t tell. “I never meant… for it to go this far.”
His hand tightened around Alisa’s, then went slack. The monitor flatlined, a high, steady tone filling the room.
“Papa?” Alisa said, her voice small. “Papa, no. No!”
I pulled her back as the medical team rushed in, starting CPR. But I could see in their eyes that they knew it was too late.
After several minutes, the doctor called the time of death.
Alisa stood frozen, staring at her father’s body. Then her legs gave out, and I caught her before she hit the floor. She turned in my arms, burying her face against my chest, and finally broke.