Chapter 51
CHAPTER
FIFTY-ONE
KIRILL
The hospital waiting room smells like disinfectant and stale coffee, fluorescent lights washing everything in a sickly pale glow. I’ve been staring at the same scuff mark on the linoleum for the past two hours, my elbows on my knees, hands clasped tight enough that my knuckles have gone white.
Across from me, Marina sits ramrod straight in a plastic chair, her white power suit still soaked dark with Dinara’s blood.
One of her soldiers—a woman with a shaved head and a scar bisecting her eyebrow—stands behind her chair like a sentinel. Marina herself sits perfectly upright, hands folded in her lap, but there’s exhaustion carved into every line of her face.
My brothers flank me on either side. Matvey’s sprawled in his chair with his legs stretched out, but there’s nothing relaxed about the way his jaw is clenched or how his fingers keep drumming against his thigh.
Dem sits perfectly still, smoking a cigarette he definitely shouldn’t be, staring at Marina like he’s cataloging every way he could kill her if it came to that.
Marina’s soldiers captured them at Newtown Creek, zip-tied them alongside the other family heirs, and loaded them into trucks. My brothers expected execution—a bullet to the back of the head in some abandoned warehouse—but Marina ordered them brought here when everything went to shit.
I guess she decided to spare us. I don’t know if that makes her merciful or just pragmatic, but they’re alive and that’s what matters.
Katya’s curled up on the row of chairs to my left, finally asleep under Matvey’s leather jacket. She refused to go home, insisted on staying even though she’s been through hell tonight. She’s tougher than any of us gave her credit for.
The steady tick of the clock on the wall counts out the seconds, the only sound breaking the heavy silence.
We’re a goddamn portrait of dysfunction.
The cartel queen who terrorized New York on one side.
The Baronov heirs she was planning to execute on the other.
But we’re all here for Dinara, still in surgery.
I've spent the last hour telling my siblings everything while we wait. Revealing that our father killed our mother was one of the most difficult conversations of my life. I watched grief rip through them fresh and raw, the poisonous truth settling into something we'll carry forever.
I also filled them in on Miron’s betrayal, the showdown in that warehouse where our father tried to make me choose which woman to kill and the most fucked-up irony of all—Marina, Dinara’s mother, being the Ghost.
We’ve said little since then. Everyone’s processing in their own way, but I’m grateful they’re here for me, because I don’t have it in me to do this on my own.
Seeing Dinara nearly die—correction, take a fucking bullet for me—broke something in me that won’t heal until I see her again. Alive. Breathing. Eyes open.
I glare at Marina across the waiting room and she meets my stare without flinching.
Whatever happened to her after she escaped from Velour’s basement made her into someone formidable and terrifying, someone who could command an army and take down criminal empires.
But she also became someone who could look at her own daughter like she was a stranger.
That’s the part that makes me want to put my fist through a wall.
It took Dinara taking a bullet to crack her open. Just enough to let the love she’d buried come flooding back.
I don’t know if that changes anything. But it’s Dinara’s choice how to move forward with Marina.
Our father, though, that’s a different story.
He’s Marina’s now, taken back to whatever compound she’s running, and I don’t give a single fuck what she does to him.
I’d join in the fun of torturing that monster if I had the time, but right now the only thing I care about is the woman in surgery three floors above us.
The door swings open and the doctor walks in, still in his scrubs, mask pulled down around his neck. We’re all on our feet before he’s fully through the threshold—me, my brothers, even Marina rising from her chair across the room.
“She pulled through,” he says, and my heart slams against my ribs. “The bullet missed all vital organs. She lost a significant amount of blood, but we stabilized her and repaired the tissue damage. We’ve checked thoroughly for internal bleeding and found none.”
Relief crashes through me so hard my knees almost give out. Matvey grips my shoulder and even Dem’s rigid posture eases slightly.
“But,” the doctor says, giving us pause. “We won’t know the full extent of complications until she’s awake and we can run more tests. The bullet tore through muscle and soft tissue. There could be nerve damage, reduced mobility, chronic pain. We won’t have a complete picture for another few days.”
My stomach twists. She’s alive, but we don’t know yet if she’ll walk out of here whole or if this is going to change her life in ways we can’t predict.
But nothing else matters. She’s everything.
More than the bratva, more than duty, more than my own fucking life.
She’s not just the woman I married. She’s mine in a way that goes beyond rings or vows.
She’s carved into me so deep I wouldn’t survive losing her.
And I’ll kill anyone who tries to take her from me.
“Who’s Kirill? Dinara keeps asking for him in her sleep,” the doctor informs us, glancing around the room.
I step forward. “I am. I’m her husband.”
The doctor gestures toward the hallway. “She’s in recovery. Still under from the anesthesia, but she’ll be waking up soon. I can take you to see her now.”
Before I leave, I look back at Marina. “Someone needs to contact Dinara’s father. He’ll want to come right away, I’m sure.” I pause. “I can call him, or you can. Your choice.”
Marina sucks in a quiet breath and looks away, steeling herself. “I will. He deserves to hear it from me.”
I turn and follow the doctor through the doors, toward the woman who stepped in front of a bullet meant for me without hesitation.
The recovery room is small and sterile, machines beeping softly around the bed where Dinara lies with her eyes closed.
An IV drips into her left arm, monitors tracking her vitals in steady green lines across a screen.
Her face is pale, dark circles bruising the skin under her eyes, and there’s a thick bandage wrapped around her torso visible above the thin hospital gown.
But her chest rises and falls. She’s breathing. She’s alive.
I pull the chair close to her bedside and reach for her hand, wrapping my fingers around hers carefully. Her skin is cold and I rub my thumb across her knuckles, trying to warm her.
“Come on, solnyshko,” I murmur. “Open those eyes for me.”
It takes a minute, but her eyelids flutter and then slowly lift. Her eyes are unfocused at first, but then they find me, and they light up.
“Kirill.” Her voice is hoarse, barely above a whisper.
“I’m here.” I lean closer, bringing her hand to my lips and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “I’m right here. How do you feel?”
“Like I got shot.” A weak smile tugs at her mouth. “Which I did. Right?”
“You did. You threw yourself in front of a bullet meant for me and scared the fuck out of me.”
Her smile fades and she tries to sit up, wincing. I’m on my feet immediately, easing her back down. “Don’t move. You just got out of surgery.”
“I’m okay,” she breathes, but her face is tight with pain. “What about Katya? And your brothers?”
“Everyone’s fine. They’re all in the waiting room.” I take a breath. “Your mother too.”
She swallows, her brow furrowing. “I’m surprised she cared enough to come here.”
“She does care. She cares a lot. It’s too bad it took you getting shot for her to realize it, but she’s been here the whole time, and she looks completely terrified of losing you.”
She nods weakly, then her gaze finds mine and I see the weight of everything. How close we came to losing each other. How easily this could have ended differently.
“You don’t get to do that again,” I say with a deep rasp. “You don’t get to throw yourself in front of bullets for me. That’s the first and last time, do you understand?”
Tears well in her eyes. “I couldn’t let you die.”
“I was wearing a vest,” I tell her. “From the Newtown Creek operation. I never took it off. The bullet would’ve hit Kevlar, not me.
” My throat closes up and I have to stop, dragging in a breath.
“It doesn’t matter now. Just know… I can’t live without you.
Watching you get hit, seeing all that blood—that was the worst moment of my entire life, Dinara. ”
More tears fall and I kiss away each and every one of them.
“I love you,” she whispers. “I love you so much it terrifies me.”
“Good. Be terrified. Because I’m never letting you out of my sight again. You’re mine, for the rest of this life, your next life, and the one after that. I’m going to stalk you into the afterlife and beyond. You’ll never get rid of me.”
She lets out a shaky laugh that turns into a wince. “Is that a threat or a promise?”
“Both.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“You’re going to make a full recovery. It’ll take time and it’s going to hurt like hell, but you’ll heal. And you’re doing it with me, every step of the way.”
“Okay.” She squeezes my hand weakly. “I can do that.”
“Your mother’s calling your father to tell him what happened.”
Dinara’s eyes widen. “Oh God. Papa—this is going to give him a heart attack. There’s so much he doesn’t know, so much I need to explain.”
“It’s fine,” I cut her off gently. “Let her tell your father. He deserves to hear it from her. We can fill in the rest when they get here, which I imagine will be as soon as possible.”
“We’ll have some explaining to do,” she says, lifting her hand to show me the ring still on her finger. “Starting with this.”
She stares at the ring for a long moment, then looks back at me with tears still clinging to her lashes. “I would do it all again, all of it, if it ends with you and me together.”
A sweet, heavy ache fills my bones. I lean down and kiss her forehead, then her cheek, then carefully, gently, her lips.
“That’s a promise, solnyshko.”
When I sit back, she’s fading, exhaustion and pain medication pulling her back under. Her eyelids droop and I settle back into the chair, still holding her hand.
“Sleep,” I tell her quietly, settling back into the chair but keeping hold of her hand. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here watching over you.”
Her fingers tighten around mine one last time before her breathing evens out and she slips back into sleep.
I lean back and close my eyes for just a moment, letting the relief finally crash through me.
She’s alive. She’s going to be okay.
And I’m never letting her go.