34. Irina
Chapter 34
Irina
T he first thing I felt when I woke up was the ache in my chest.
And it wasn’t from the phantom pain of the gunshot wound.
“ Printsessa.”
I slowly peeled my eyes open until my father’s face came into view. He looked terrible, dark circles beneath his hollow eyes as if he hadn’t slept or eaten in days.
“You’ve been out for some time,” he said, stroking my face affectionately. “I’ve been so worried.”
My stomach sank. How long?
As if the emotions harboring inside my chest needed a breakthrough, it finally rushed to the surface in an unbearable release.
“ Papa ,” I sobbed, fear paralyzing me as I clutched my chest. “Please, please...” I cried harder, my voice failing me as images flashed through my mind. “Please, tell me he’s alive.” My vision blurred as tears soaked my face. “Tell me you didn’t kill him,” I breathed, pulling at my hair to feel anything but this suffocating torment.
“ Irina .” His arms came around me, stopping my movements.
My body shook restlessly, my lungs caving in from the loss of the person I wanted most. “I love him,” I chanted, curling in on myself.
The confession washed over me in blinding anguish and I felt like a little girl again, trapped with four walls closing in on me.
I hadn’t realized I’d passed out until I felt myself come to consciousness again as my father’s voice pierced through.
“ Irina , can you hear me?”
I wanted to scream and tell him I wished I didn’t, that I’d rather die than face whatever this was, but nothing came out.
“I’m sorry.” My father’s expression twisted into guilt as he stared at me with regret. “I thought he was the one who shot you.”
I turned away from him, staring at the white wall in front of me. It took me a second to realize it was my old bedroom.
I was in Russia.
“Is he dead? Are they all dead?” I held my breath, my heart pounding as I waited for his answer.
One. Breathe. Two. Breathe. Three. Breathe.
“I don’t know.”
A lone tear slipped from my eye. “I’d always thought I’d never find a place to call home and the one person who made me feel as though I did, you took him away from me. ”
I couldn’t look him in the eye after what he’d done to Luca, to me.
“I’ve stood by your side in everything , Papa , even after the isolation I endured when my mother was alive.” If there were pieces of me to break and shatter further, it would’ve happened in this moment. I loved my father, but it wasn’t enough anymore. “But I cannot forgive you for this.”
“ Irina .” His Russian accent was strong, thick with emotion.
“Please, leave.”
After a few beats of silence, the soft click of the door became my only comfort.
I wept into the soft fabric of my pillow, the heartache reaching far into the depths of my soul, crushing me from the inside out.
If something bad happened to Aurora, Nicolai, Roman. . . Luca. Oh, God, I wouldn’t forgive myself.
I’d never felt so alone in my life, existing in a space of nothingness.
I’d lost time, yet it felt like none had passed at all, reliving a memory that would forever leave a scar.
Shutting my eyes tightly didn’t get rid of the scene when Luca was shot. It only became more vivid, sinking into the broken pieces of my mind.
It felt as though I was being whisked away, floating in the abyss, and if this was death, it was far less comforting than I expected.
The pain in my chest intensified when the echoing sound of another gunshot reverberated in my ears before a loud thump hit the floor .
Luca stared at me. His caramel eyes filled with such regret, I wondered if he knew how deeply that look would haunt me forever.
He’d fallen beside me, our hands mere inches apart, and I couldn’t do anything to feel him—to save him.
“Irina,” he whispered, and it was the first time I had ever seen him cry.
My tongue was stuck at the root of my mouth, forbidding me from speaking.
“ I love you.” His words drifted toward me in a soft caress that ended all my suffering.
I shot up from the bed in a heaving mess, my skin slick with sweat.
Luca loved me and not being able to say it back was killing me.
He had to know, right? He had to know that he succeeded in capturing my heart and soul for himself. That I couldn’t think past who I was before he barged into my life.
Pulling my knees up to my chest, I cried some more. This feeling was far worse than the empty void in my chest that I’d been carrying for years. And the one person who had been capable of stopping it was gone.
I died that day in Roman’s house and what I was living now was a cruel nightmare.
My thoughts plagued me, clouding my judgment from reality and fiction.
“I love you.” I rocked back and forth on the bed, my face crumpling as I forced my mind to tumble back into my happiest memories. Back to Luca . “I love you.”