Chapter 35 Sergei
SERGEI
Exhaustion weighed me down. I felt like I could sleep for another hour. Another day. A week.
I couldn’t recall the last time I’d experienced this tiredness, fatigued all the way down to my bones.
Despite passing out on the ride after I got Maisie away from the Popovs, I remembered everything that led up to the moment I couldn’t stay awake.
The hours of frantically searching for her. All the anxiety of fighting so many enemies. And the endless worry that I’d fail Natalie.
I hadn’t. I hadn’t failed anyone. I pulled through and found Maisie just in time.
I got there and stopped a bullet from reaching her.
And I would never, ever forget the sweetness of her hugging me.
That bliss of relief after I cut her gag off in that disgusting warehouse by the docks where she hugged me like she’d never want to let go.
Lying on my back, I breathed easy and knew that I was under good care now.
I was likely at the private clinic that Claire managed in my uncle’s building.
Not in a hospital where Claire had stepped in to stop Popovs from looking for me while I was out for surgery before.
The smell of antiseptic stung my nose, serving as the biggest clue that I had been stitched up.
Saved and mended.
Alive and surviving to fight another day.
Opening my eyes slowly, I took stock of who was nursing me with gentle presses on my skin.
My heart swelled and raced at the sight of Natalie seated next to the bed.
Looking calm and patient, she kept her gaze lowered as she focused on rubbing ointment over a large scrape on my forearm.
It wasn’t the worst of my injuries. Whatever Claire had done to the two bullets I’d taken—one in the leg and the other on my side—had worked.
Or she’d given me some decent drugs to take the edge off the pain.
Marveling at how Natalie could be so lost in her thoughts as she tended to the angry redness on my arm, I lay there and watched.
I studied her, admiring her big heart to tend to me like this.
Appreciating her sweetness to be gentle and wish me well in this recovery.
I did it for you.
Saving Maisie had never been a debate.
It wasn’t only a matter of making sure this mother never lost her child.
I did this for us.
Because that precious child seemed more and more like my own every day.
Everything I do and all that I will work for is to prove to you that I want to be a man worthy of your love.
With all the ups and downs we’d faced, that would never change. Aside from my loyalty to serve my uncle and the Family, Natalie would always be my purpose. My reason.
She lifted her head a little, brushing her curtain of long, dark hair back. As she met my gaze, her breath hitched. “Sergei.”
I tried to smile the best I could with the swelling on my cheek.
“You’re awake,” she said, smiling as tears shone in her green eyes. She lifted her hand to cup my face, worry so clear on her face. Her fingers trembled as she brought her delicate touch to my skin, and I closed my eyes at the warmth of her gesture.
“I feel like I could sleep for another week yet,” I replied wryly.
“Then sleep.” She sighed happily, blinking back tears.
Sleep was a lost cause now. I was wide awake and full of hope at the softness in her gaze on me. I feared I’d lost it. I had started to wonder if she’d ever be able to look at me like that again. To look at me with love.
“Later,” I said, bringing my hand up to rest it over hers.
Motivated by the hint of love in her eyes, I treasured this rare moment of quiet. To embrace this privacy, like nothing else existed in the world but us. Me and her. Together.
She opened her mouth to say something, but the door opened behind her.
“Maisie, wait. Sergei might be—” Claire rushed in, chasing the little girl. “Resting,” she finished unnecessarily, smiling at me as she realized my eyes were open.
Natalie turned, twisting and reaching her arm out to catch her daughter as she jumped up onto the bed. “Maisie, stop. Be careful!”
But she didn’t hear them. She crawled alongside me, scrambling to get high enough and hug me. Her arms snaked around my neck and as she clung to me, she began to cry.
“Please don’t die.”
I let out a hard breath, hit by the anguish in her plea that I could barely endure.
The idea that she’d worry about me like that.
The concept of her valuing me in her life.
Distraught and tearing up, she stayed put right where she was.
“I don’t want you to die,” she repeated, burying her face against me. I met Natalie’s gaze as I hugged Maisie back, keeping her secure in my embrace as her little body trembled from crying.
“I love you,” she sobbed. “I don’t want you to die either.”
Her telling me that she loved me was such a poignant moment, a real turning point in her acceptance of my having a role in her life.
“I love you, too, Maisie.” I rested my cheek against the top of her head despite the aches that tugged throughout my body at moving this much.
Claire noticed the sign of my discomfort, though, ever the doctor. “Maisie, Sergei isn’t dying.”
“I don’t want him to die!” Maisie wailed.
“I’m not.” I rubbed her back.
“He’s going to recover just fine,” Claire said, approaching the bed to gently encourage her to get off me like she was. “But in order to recover, he does need to rest. And to give his wounds a chance to heal.”
As if only now realizing she could be hurting me by climbing on the bed like this and putting pressure on where I’d been stitched up, she backed away.
I didn’t want her to feel rejected at all. I merely shifted over a bit, making room for her to lean against me.
“I’m not going to die, Maisie.”
Someday, far into the future, sure. No one was immortal. But I hated for her to be so stressed about my dying now.
Catching a glimpse of Natalie showed how this affected her too.
She looked closer to tears once more, more anxious.
If she was thinking on the same line of thoughts that I was, and what Claire was likely thinking as well, she had to be saddened and alarmed by how Maisie was fearing a repeat of having another man in her life dead.
She’d lost her father already. Fitz lost his life due to me, actually. But the fact that she was making the situations parallel, comparing how her father died and how she didn’t want me to die as well, proved how much significance I had in her life.
I kept my arm wrapped around Maisie as she tucked against my side. With my free hand, I found Natalie’s fingers and twined them with mine.
“I’m not dying, Maisie,” I said again, realizing she might need to hear it again and again to have it stick.
Claire nodded, watching over us. She furrowed her brow, perhaps concerned about the trauma impacting her. I bet she’d have a solid recommendation for therapy if we could pursue that route for her, especially with how young she was.
“I’m being cared for. Claire stitched me up.”
“Can I see?” she asked, wiping tears from her eyes.
I was patient, showing her the spot in my calf and on my other side, near my ribs, where Claire had patched me up.
She took the chance to inspect on the sites, too, reconfirming to the girl that I was doing well.
Tired, but well. No signs of swelling or inflammation.
She showed how nothing looked infected, and it started to sound more like a science talk.
When she pulled the vitals monitor over and pointed out the numbers, she further—and clinically—reassured Maisie that I wasn’t at death’s door.
“I will do all I can to be in your life forever,” I told her.
Meaning every single word of it, I kissed the top of her head.
Maisie nodded, pressing against me as I patiently and calmly talked her down from her panic.
That we had lots of people to help keep us safe.
How all my family members would look out for her.
Natalie jumped in too, talking about how George was recovering in another room.
I was glad to hear that my right-hand man was faring well.
“I think she’s out,” Claire said softly.
Anya had entered the room to visit me, too, and the teen approached Maisie as she napped next to me. “I know she slept a little bit.” She scooped her into her arms. “But I bet she’s still worn out from everything.”
Natalie yawned, as if on cue.
Claire exited the room to carry Maisie out. She paused as she passed Natalie, setting her hand on her shoulder. “You should rest, too.” She glanced back at me with a smile. “Both of you could use it.”
Alone again, I took Natalie’s hand. “I can’t rest yet.”
She sighed, boring me with such a soulful, vulnerable stare of trust.
“Not until I can tell you that I pray you will find it in your heart to forgive me, Natalie. For the role I had in his death. For ever bringing you into danger. I pray for your forgiveness and love, and I hope you can choose me.”
She smiled softly, squeezing my fingers.
“I want to believe that you could choose a future of love with me, not staying firm with your anger at me or the sorrow of missing your husband.”
She drew in a shaky breath, holding my gaze with tears in her eyes.
I kissed the back of her hand. “I pray that you can choose to fight for us.”