Chapter 36
EVGENY
Dmitri looks up from his phone, and a grin stretches across his face as I walk into his hospital room, one that’s become far too familiar.
It’s good to see that grin. It’s good to see that he’s sitting halfway up, with more color to his face and not so many tubes draining red stuff.
“Boss.”
“Are you following the doctor’s orders, or just drawing this out to charm every nurse?” I ask, taking a seat at his bedside.
The big bear chuckles. “How about a little of both?”
“More of one than the other,” I counter, and Dmitri’s laugh confirms my point. “How are you feeling?”
“Better each day. Mostly.” Dmitri pushes himself up on the pillows and flinches, his breathing going shallow for a moment, making my own breath catch.
“As long as you’re getting better.”
I say it to cover my concern. There were many tense days and nights when that wasn’t a given.
“Hey. At least I get a chance to relax. You can’t keep me running around when I’m tied to this.” He lifts his arm, showing the IV and the medication drips attached to it.
“As long as it’s not that damn ventilator.”
We both fall silent, the lack of conversation taken up by a strained truth neither of us wishes to air.
“The Sokolinaya Bratva is still in chaos,” I tell him. “They won’t be challenging us any time soon.”
Dmitri’s eyebrows rise toward his hairline at my change in subject. “Still no one in charge?”
“No.” I try to keep a scowl on my face, but a smirk breaks through anyway. I can’t help but be satisfied. “Three of Tsepov’s vor have staked their claims.”
“A fight for succession?” Dmitri smirks. “Have to say I don’t feel too sorry about that.”
I chuckle, tacitly agreeing, then shift as my phone buzzes.
I smile as I read the words, Almost there.
“Eva?” Dmitri asks, a knowing grin in place.
“She has her thirty-week checkup today, and then we have a final review meeting with the designer before they lay the new foundation for the house rebuild. The site is finally clear of debris, and they’ve secured the library.”
“And I’d thought building a fireproof room just for some books was ridiculous. The safe room behind the bookcase for the Fabergé shit, I understood, but not the books.”
I stand, slipping my phone back into the inner pocket of my suit coat as a nurse comes in. She eyes me and then Dmitri, who gives her a wink. The nurse blushes and sets to work checking his vitals.
“Eva said you were giving the nurses trouble here. Maybe you should switch to all-male nurses.”
“If I have to be in the hospital, I may as well have some fun.” Dmitri gives the nurse another wink, and this time, she giggles.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Just behave yourself. And get better. I want you back at my side.”
“Yes, Boss.” Dmitri flashes me his shit-eating grin, and I do roll my eyes this time. “Say hello to the twins for me.”
I send a wave over my shoulder. “Just make sure you get home to do it yourself.”
“When I get tired of the nurses, Boss.” His voice follows me out the door.
The big, black SUV pulls up to the curb as I step outside. I can’t see anything through the ultra-tinted windows, but my entire body knows who’s inside. I feel Eva’s pull like a magnet, like the pull of the tide, just as inexorable, just as unchanging.
A Kucherov man comes around the side of the SUV, giving me a nod of acknowledgment, and opens the door to help Eva down. She grips the door and his hand as she navigates the big step down from the SUV with her awkward, pregnant body.
She gives me a tired smile as I step up and take her into my arms, grateful simply to have her there again. I am always aware of how close I came to losing this great joy in my life, to losing Eva and the twins.
Letting Eva out of my sight that horrible night had been one of the most challenging things I’d ever done. But Dmitri needed help. I needed help. And I’d hoped someone could help Vasya, though I had shot to kill.
The EMT crews had found us all minutes later, splitting off to attend to Dmitri and then me as I knelt there, still holding on to Vasya’s hands as they lost their warmth. With their help, I made it to the front of the estate and to Eva, who flew into my arms as soon as she saw me.
My brave wife, who had kept it together through the entire ordeal, through the EMTs seeing to my wounds, until we had seen Dmitri alive, at least, and off to the hospital.
Until first, the fire captain and then the police detained us for preliminary questions as the fire crews finally beat back the blaze that had been my estate.
That’s when Eva disappeared, and I only found her again in the back of an ambulance after a frantic search of the rescue vehicles that had turned the street into a parking lot.
“What’s wrong with her?” I’d demanded.
“She needs to be checked out,” the female EMT replied, calm and measured. She ignored the anxious bite to my tone as she moved around my wife with the ease of experience. “Miss, I need you to look at me and breathe.”
Eva’s eyes focused on the EMT as the woman searched her face, gloved hands tracing scratches and bruises and the still-healing scar on her forehead. Her partner responded to the clinical terms that left her mouth calmly as she continued the inspection.
“Can you tell me what happened? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I—” Eva stuttered, her eyes flicking from the EMT to the ambulance wall to the floor and back in an unnatural way that I didn’t like. “I, uh, sorry, what?”
“Are you hurt anywhere? Can you tell me what’s going on? What happened?” The EMT tried to catch Eva’s gaze.
“I, uh…”
The EMT put her gloved hands on either side of Eva’s face, finally drawing her attention. “I need you to breathe, okay? You’re safe. Take deep breaths and relax.”
Eva did as instructed, her shoulders rising and falling with the effort.
“Can you tell me what happened?” the EMT repeated for the third time.
“I, uh, I think the door hit me in the nose…” Eva stammered, gesturing to her face. “It, uh, hurts, and there was blood…”
I could see the bruises setting in under her eyes, though Eva’s nose wasn’t misshapen.
“You look like you’re bleeding here.” The EMT pointed to the blood on Eva’s shirt.
My wife blinked as though it was her first time seeing it. “That’s, uh, not mine.”
And then her face crumpled as she no doubt realized it was Dmitri’s. Or Vasya’s. Or both.
“Miss, I need you to take a deep breath. You’re safe. I need you to be calm.”
Eva nodded, her lower lip quivering as she took a shaky breath, then another. The only thing I wanted to do was take her into my arms and never let her go, to protect her from the rest of the world so no one could touch her, including the EMTs.
But they needed to make sure she was okay. I needed to know she was okay.
“I’m going to put this on your finger, okay? It’ll check your pulse and oxygen, and then I’ll check out the rest of you. How many weeks are you?”
“I, uh…” Hovering between tears and breathing, Eva looked down at the swell of her stomach. “I…”
“Twenty-three weeks,” I supplied, and the EMT’s gaze flicked to me.
“Are you Dad?” she asked.
The designation caught me by surprise again, but I nodded. “Yes. Is she all right?”
“She’s fine. We’re just checking her out. Dad, you need to breathe, too, okay? She’s safe. She’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
She said the last for both our benefits. But Eva’s face crumpled again, her entire body heaving with a wracking sob like a tsunami of the whole night’s reality crashing down on her at once.
I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I pulled myself up into the ambulance, my bandaged back screaming in protest, and took Eva into my arms, holding her close, whispering to her that I was there, that she was safe, that we were okay. I moved only enough to let the EMTs do their job.
What had followed that night and the next week is a blur in my memory. All the police questioning, Vasya’s funeral, time at the hospital with Dmitri as he fought for his life, and combing through the wreckage of what had once been my sanctuary.
Eight weeks later, the confusion has finally started to clear, and I see only a shadow in Eva’s eyes now as she smiles up at me from the safety of my arms.
“Come on,” she says, pulling away, then slipping her hand into mine. “Don’t want to be late.”
As we settle into the dark ultrasound room, the tech gives Eva a friendly smile, then slips onto the high stool and flips the switch to raise the bed.
“How are you guys doing today?”
“Good. Tired.”
Eva is more than tired. She’s having trouble sleeping because she can’t get comfortable. She can hardly eat with the constant heartburn. We go on long, slow walks along the beach, the cold waves washing against her swollen ankles and feet. And I wonder how she’s going to make it ten more weeks.
If it is ten weeks. We’ve been warned twins often come early.
But no matter how much Eva complains about feeling like a whale, she is beautiful to me. Even more beautiful with every passing day.
I’m still who I have always been, the Kucherov Demon.
But now, I’m also Eva’s husband and the father of our children.
If I’m the same hardened monster to the public and with my men, I am someone different with Eva.
Someone I suppose was always at my core, in danger of disappearing until Eva broke through my terrible, beastly mask to my heart.
“All right, Mama. You ready to see your babies?”
“Yes.” Eva squeezes my hand, her expression bright and full of wonder, as the sea of gray-and-black shades appears on the big screen in front of us.
Our children. Our twins. A boy and a girl, which we finally learned only after Eva went back and forth about knowing now versus waiting until the birth.
They move as we watch, sucking thumbs, kicking in time with the ripples that move across Eva’s abdomen and the tightly stretched skin there. They move, too, when Eva laughs and when I press my lips to her belly and murmur sweet things to them.
“Everything looks good, Mama, Daddy,” the tech announces as she takes different pictures and measurements on the screen. “The doctor will talk with you, but growth is normal, and heart rate is good.”
Eva turns her head from the screen to beam up at me, glowing with happiness. I squeeze her hand again and kiss her forehead before kissing her lips.
“You ready?” she asks, meeting my gaze.
“If you’re by my side, I’m ready for anything life throws at us,” I reply.
I’m ready for this new chapter in my life, to take the step I was so afraid to take, the one I was so afraid no one would take with me. I am the monster I have always been. But I am also Evgeny Kucherov, and with Eva, at least, I can be that man.
I’ve found myself, and I’ve found a woman who saw me for who I was under the savage mask. The person even I didn’t know was there. A woman who took a chance on me despite my darkness. Or maybe because of it.
I’ve found my home.