Chapter 5
LEO
Ichecked the time on my phone as I pushed through the staff exit of the hospital.
Technically, my shift had ended at eight, but I’d stayed behind to catch up on some paperwork.
Mine and Brad’s lawyer had called again, leaving me a voicemail to request a meeting to discuss Brad’s will and last wishes.
After the funeral, I had told him I needed some time, then I didn’t return his call.
The second I stepped into that meeting, my connection with Brad would be severed. I would have nothing else to look forward to from him, and he would be well and truly gone, so I intended to put it off for as long as possible.
The November night air was cold enough to sting my lungs as I stepped into the parking lot. For a moment, I stood in front of my car, keys in my hand, staring at the windshield as if there were some logical reason not to get inside.
Going home still felt wrong.
Sleeping in the bed we’d bought together felt wrong.
Making only one plate of breakfast in our kitchen felt like betrayal, and my brain refused to accept that life went on.
I had moved most of Brad’s things to the garage, and the house looked different without his things scattered through it, but that didn’t erase the memories.
The kitchen counter where we’d argued about my hours.
The living room couch where we’d fallen asleep, tangled together after making up.
The hallway where he’d once grabbed me by the waist and kissed me so suddenly I’d nearly dropped the groceries.
I forced myself into the driver’s seat and shut the door. The quietness inside the car wrapped around me instantly, heavy and suffocating. My shoulders sagged as the adrenaline from the day drained out of my muscles, leaving only bone-deep exhaustion behind.
God, I’m tired.
I pressed my eyes tightly closed, then opened them. “Come on, Leo, stay awake.”
I slapped my cheeks, then started the engine and adjusted the AC so cold air blasted from the vents.
The last thing I needed was to feel too warm and comfy.
The cold air would help keep me awake on the drive back to my house.
At this time of the night, with no traffic, I should get there in under fifteen minutes.
I started the engine and pulled slowly out of the lot.
After midnight, the city was peaceful, and traffic was practically nonexistent.
I kept the radio low as I drove, the voice of a late-night talk host filling the silence, but I didn’t hear a word of it.
My thoughts drifted to the session I’d had with the therapist a few days ago.
The visit had gone better than I’d thought, and my intent of saying the bare minimum just so she would sign off on me continuing work flew right out of the window.
I’d found myself opening up to her about the guilt I felt about Brad’s passing and the argument we’d had the night before.
Of how I’d not been in the mood to make him coffee that morning, so I just left for work without even kissing him goodbye.
The one thing I’d refused to discuss was the way he died.
I didn’t think I was capable of perpetuating the lie that he’d died by suicide.
Even with the doctor/patient confidentiality, I refused to speak the truth that my husband had been driven to his death by a businessman who was really the head of a Russian mob.
Who would even believe me?
Besides, Sergei would know if I said anything, and that would put Dr. Collins in danger.
He always seemed to know everything that happened around me.
I had no evidence, but I felt as if he’d been inside my home.
I didn’t need to give him a reason for him to make up his mind about what to do with me.
The moment I slipped, I was as good as dead.
Thankfully, Dr. Collins hadn’t pressed about the circumstances behind Brad’s death, though she did ask whether Brad’s affairs affected my grieving of him.
I’d explained about our open marriage, that we had met at a play party when we were twenty-five and always invited other people into our sexual exploits.
“Dr. Cavanagh, I get the feeling there’s something you’re holding back,” she’d said after I explained.
“I tried to end it,” I’d croaked, my voice raw and a sick feeling in my gut.
“For the last two years, I felt like I was losing him. In the past, we had sex with others, but we still had intimacy. We made time for each other, but we stopped having sex just the two of us. I wanted to regain that intimacy, so I tried talking to him about it—about slowing down and just letting it be us for a while.”
“And what was his response?”
“He said we were fine and he had no problem with the way we were.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
“I felt maybe he was right and I was overthinking, so I tried to continue the way we were, but I couldn’t. The day he died, I was going to give him an ultimatum—that we either took time for just us or separated.”
It was the first time I’d admitted it out loud. I’d wanted to separate from Brad, hoping it would force him to feel what I did: a growing isolation from what we were and what we used to be. I wanted him to miss us the way I did.
By the end of the session, Dr. Collins had concluded she saw no reason I couldn’t continue working at the hospital, but she made another appointment for me to see her in a week to continue our discussion.
I wasn’t sure I would return. Since admitting out loud that I’d wanted a separation from Bradley, I walked around with a heavy guilt suffocating me.
“Functioning isn’t the same thing as healing, Leo,” Dr. Collins had said in parting after our session. “You still need rest. Proper sleep. Regular meals. Time to process what happened.”
She had written a prescription in slow, careful handwriting and slid it across the desk toward me. Sleeping pills to help get me through the restless nights.
I had filled it, thinking they would help. I took a pill one night, then flushed the rest of the bottle down the toilet. Sure, they’d worked. I’d slept through the night, but in a black void. There had been no dreams of Brad to pull me awake, and that had been much worse.
I turned onto the highway leading toward my neighborhood and checked the rearview mirror out of habit. The empty road stretched out behind me.
No black truck.
No tingling feeling down my spine.
No Sergei.
My fingers tightened slightly on the steering wheel, and I narrowed my burning eyes to focus on the road ahead. It had been almost a week since I’d last seen him. If I’d known slapping him was all it would take for him to leave me alone, I would have slapped the hell out of him weeks ago.
His presence had hovered around my life like a shadow—outside the coffee shop, across the street from my house, appearing in hospital corridors with those ridiculous deliveries of coffee and food I never asked for.
The nurses had a field day accepting those deliveries on my behalf, but every day I scanned around me and didn’t see him watching me, the stranger it felt.
I checked the side mirror again—nothing. Had he finally decided I wasn’t worth the trouble, or had he simply gotten better at hiding?
The thought made me exhale slowly. His presence had been intrusive. Infuriating. And yet…it had also become routine, like the rhythm of hospital life, and tonight the silence felt off.
I yawned hard. My jaw cracked as I blinked rapidly and shifted in my seat, rolling my shoulders to wake myself up. The road ahead curved gently, the headlights stretching across the dark asphalt.
Another yawn followed. My eyelids felt heavier than they should have.
Just a few more minutes.
My head dipped once.
I jerked upright immediately, heart jumping into my throat as the car drifted slightly toward the shoulder.
“Jesus,” I muttered, gripping the wheel tighter.
Cold air.
I needed cold air.
I rolled the window down an inch, letting the night wind rush inside.
The guardrail flashed past in my peripheral vision, and my vision blurred for a split second.
The tires hit a bad patch in the road, and the steering wheel wrenched violently in my hands.
My foot slammed on the brake, but the car was already sliding sideways toward the barrier.
The impact came with a deafening metallic scream, and glass exploded. The world tilted violently as the car struck the guardrail, metal grinding against asphalt before the vehicle slammed to a brutal stop.
A high-pitched ringing sound filled my ears as the airbag deployed. For several seconds, I couldn’t move. The car had landed with the driver’s door crushed partially against the guardrail. My chest burned where the seatbelt had caught me, and my left arm was pinned awkwardly against the door.
I tried to breathe, but air came out in a shaky gasp. Blood trickled, warm against my temple, as my vision swam in and out of focus.
How long have I been here?
“Leo!”
The voice was distant at first, muffled through twisted metal and shattered glass. The ringing in my ears grew louder.
“Leo!”
Footsteps echoed on asphalt, and the door rattled violently.
“Leo, can you hear me?”
Sergei.
A laugh bubbled up from me, and tears filled my eyes because why the fuck not? Of all the people who could have appeared at this exact moment, of course it had to be the one man I despised most in this world.
Second only to Maxim Morozov.