Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Leah
I didn't know how long I'd been sitting on that bench in the hospital corridor.
Maybe ten hours. Maybe twelve.
Time lost all meaning under the red light above the operating room door. It became a slow torture, like a dull knife carving into flesh. My fingers locked together, stiff, holding this prayer position. I'd kept this pose since I got here.
Now, this futile effort was all I could manage. Beyond this, I could do nothing.
The tears had come and gone in waves, until finally my eyes were too dry to produce any more liquid. They were swollen, itchy, aching—probably looked like hell.
Harper's arm wrapped around my shoulders from behind, pulling me against her. She didn't say anything, just stroked my back with her palm. I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. All that remained was a numb, hollowed-out emptiness.
Inside that room, a man was fighting for his life.
Against that fact, everything else lost its meaning.
Nick stood nearby, arms crossed, leaning exhausted against the doorframe. He hadn't eaten or drunk anything either.
"All right, you two need to pull yourselves together."
Harper's voice cut through, forcing a lightness she didn't feel.
"Roman's going to be fine. You planning to greet him looking like corpses?"
Silence. Neither Nick nor I had the energy to respond.
Harper sighed, digging through her bag until she found a crumpled sandwich. She tore open the wrapper and shoved it into my hands.
"Eat something. If not for yourself, for the baby."
I stared at the sandwich. No appetite whatsoever.
But I bit into it mechanically anyway. The bread was soft, stuffed with some kind of meat and lettuce, but all the flavors were drowned out by that lingering taste of rust in my mouth.
I chewed twice and couldn't continue. Instead, I buried my face in Harper's chest.
"Harper, I'm so scared."
Harper's hand patted my back gently. She was silent for several seconds before speaking.
"Listen to me, Leah. Roman didn't pull you out of that warehouse so you could sit here and starve yourself to death. He traded his life for yours. You owe it to him to take care of yourself. If not for you, then for him."
She was right. I slapped my numb face, straightened up from her embrace, and grabbed the sandwich that had fallen onto the bench. I stuffed it into my mouth desperately.
Yes. Like that.
This was what I could do for Roman now. Hold myself together. Protect the baby. Wait for him to come out.
Heavy dragging sounds echoed from the end of the corridor.
I looked up to see two men in black tactical vests emerge from around the corner. Between them they carried—or rather, dragged—a person. His feet scraped across the polished floor, leaving two long streaks of blood. His head hung down, one arm bent at an unnatural angle.
They walked up to me and dropped him without ceremony.
The man hit the floor at my feet with a dull thud.
I looked down. It took me several seconds to recognize him—his face had been completely reshaped. His nose was bent to one side, his mouth split open in a deep gash, his left eye socket swollen to a slit.
This man was Sergei.
The man who always wore perfectly tailored three-piece suits, who always stood three steps behind Roman with a folder, who always wore that professional smile—now he lay on the floor at my feet, groaning incoherently.
Nick walked over from the doorframe and crouched down, grabbing Sergei by the hair and lifting his face.
"Say hello to the missus, Sergei."
It was the first time I'd seen Nick this emotional. He looked like he wanted to tear the man apart with his bare hands.
"After all, you're the one who handed her over to Trent."
I'd already learned the truth from Dmitri's mouth. But seeing this traitor in front of me, the man who'd betrayed both Roman and me, I couldn't help the rage. I stared at that swollen, deformed face.
Nick released Sergei's hair and stood up, turning his head toward me.
"This is the man who leaked your and Mira's routes to Trent."
My gaze moved slowly from Nick's face to Sergei on the floor.
He was begging. His mouth spat out string after string of garbled words I couldn't make out clearly, but they were undoubtedly pleas for mercy and promises to never do it again.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, mixed with spit and tears, pooling on the floor.
I looked at him. In my mind flashed that scene of Roman going down.
Deep red blood poured from between his fingers as he clutched his abdomen, running down the back of his hand. That image sliced into my brain. A sharp pain twisted in my chest, so intense I unconsciously clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms.
All of this. Because of this man.
"You. All of you. All because of you!" Hatred gave me back my strength. My hands shaking, I hurled the sandwich at his face.
"You animal! It's all your fault! Roman's lying in there fighting for his life because of you!" I grabbed my purse from the chair and beat it against him again and again. No one stopped me, not until I finally collapsed sobbing back into the chair, covering my face.
"Don't waste your energy on this trash, honey." Harper's warm embrace gradually calmed me down. I looked up at the men holding Sergei. "What are you going to do with him?"
"He's spilled most of his secrets. Whether he lives or dies, we're waiting for the pakhan to decide."
"Kill him."
I had no mercy in my heart. Not a shred. My voice sounded so calm it felt strange even to me.
Sergei's eyes went wide. His mouth opened and closed, but he didn't get a word out.
The two men in black bent down, lifted him up, and dragged him toward the end of the corridor.
His screams echoed through the empty hallway for a few seconds before being cut off by a fire door, relegated to another world.
The corridor fell silent again.
I stared at the pool of blood Sergei had left on the floor. Finally, I understood Roman's world.
This was what Roman faced every day. Betrayal, deception, bloodshed. How could I question his suspicion when this was the law of survival here?
"You've changed, Leah."
Harper's voice came from behind me—not accusing, just stating a fact.
I turned to look at her. "Yes."
"I don't think that's a bad thing." Harper stood up, draping her coat over my shoulders. It smelled like her familiar perfume—warm, comforting.
She sat back down beside me and took my hand.
"No matter what you become, I'm on your side. Always."
I gripped her hand back, squeezing hard.
Harper's hand gave me a thread of strength. We continued our silent vigil.
Finally, the red light over the operating room went out.
A doctor in green scrubs emerged, mask pulled down to his chin, forehead covered in sweat. He glanced at Nick, then at me, and finally spoke.
"The surgery was successful. The bullet didn't hit any vital organs. There was significant blood loss, but we've got it under control. Mr. Volkov is out of danger."
The sudden news made my knees go weak.
All the panic, all the terror—it nearly knocked me off my feet.
Harper caught me from behind. Nick visibly exhaled. The suffocating atmosphere that had pressed down on the corridor for hours finally cracked open.
"I need to see him."
"He just came out of anesthesia. He's very weak. I'd suggest waiting—"
"I need to see him now."
The doctor looked at me, looked at the blood staining my clothes, and sighed. He stepped aside.
I practically ran into the ICU.
Roman lay in the bed, tubes running everywhere. The heart monitor traced green waves across the screen, beeping rhythmically.
IV lines extended from the back of his hand, connected to several bags of different-colored fluids. His face was deathly pale, lips cracked, eyes sunken deep into their sockets. He looked ten years older.
But he was awake.
Roman's gaze seemed to have been waiting for me. From the moment I entered, it locked onto me.
I walked to the bedside. My legs gave out, and I dropped to my knees beside the bed. I reached out and took his hand, carefully controlling my strength, afraid of hurting him.
"The baby."
The first words out of his mouth weren't about his injury. They were about the baby.
My eyes immediately burned. My dried-out tear ducts produced tears again.
"The baby's fine. We're both fine."
His fingers stopped on my cheekbone, thumb gently wiping away the tear tracks on my face.
"Are you all right?" His voice was hoarse, so quiet I had to strain to hear.
"I'm not all right. I've been losing my mind. I've never been this scared in my life."
I pressed his hand against my face, hard, greedily feeling the residual warmth of his palm.
"This is all my fault." His voice dropped lower.
"Every day with me, you're terrified. This isn't the life you should be living."
"Roman, you don't need to explain anymore. I don't blame you."
"No. Let me finish."
His eyes fixed on the ceiling, his Adam's apple bobbing.
"I know how suffocating the things I've done are.
The cameras, the guards, the confinement, all those damn rules.
I kept telling myself it was to protect you, but deep down I knew—it was my fear.
I was afraid of watching another woman slip through my fingers.
After Irina died, I couldn't handle any relationship normally. "
After finishing that sentence, he slowly raised the hand with the IV line, turned it over to grip my fingers, and pressed my palm against his cheek.
His face was burning hot with post-surgery fever. Blue stubble had sprouted on his jaw, scraping against my palm.
"Forgive me. Please. I know I have no right to ask this, but I still want to try. If you're willing to give me one chance, I'll learn how to love you the right way."
I looked at him. At this man who commanded the underworld, begging me again.
I didn't think he'd begged many times in his life. And he'd done it twice for me.
I leaned down, forehead pressed against his. The smell of disinfectant invaded my nostrils—sharp, cold—but underneath it, I could still smell him.
"I forgive you, you bastard."