chapter 43
Matleon
They say Matleon gets everything he wants. What they should say is that Matleon loses everything he wants the most.
First, I lost her heart. Then I lost the hope of ever getting her heart back. And now, I’ve lost her.
I felt hollow when I lost her smile, an emptiness that carved itself beneath my ribs but stayed tolerable, like a wound I could press a hand over and keep walking.
Then I lost hope, and the hollowness became unbearable.
It felt like it might kill me. And now, after I sent her into that room right in front of my eyes, and she stopped breathing, the hollowness has swallowed me whole.
It isn’t inside me anymore. I’m inside it.
It’s a pit. A grave. And I’m falling, never hitting the bottom.
Her father is sitting across from me. He’s in pain, I can see it in his wet eyes, but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel his pain. I don’t feel mine either. I don’t feel anything.
There’s only numbness, spreading from my chest outward, until even my hands feel like they don’t belong to me anymore. Like my body has already started shutting down, preparing for a world where she doesn’t exist.
Someone touches my shoulder. I turn my head. It’s Zo. He sits on the bench beside me.
“There are chances of her saving,” he says.
I stare back at the door. My gut twists so hard I fold forward. Chances mean she might live. Chances mean she might not leave me. Chances mean this isn’t the end, but chances also mean she could choose to go.
She never said she wanted to stay with me. What if she decides to punish me like this for everything I did?
What if this is her way of leaving?
What if this is what I deserve?
My chest seizes, and suddenly the pain floods in. Unbearable pain. It isn’t a heart, it’s a fist punching through me from the inside, over and over.
I drag both hands to my head and dig my fingers into my hair. My body curls in on itself. I can’t breathe right.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out, the words scraping my throat raw. “I’m sorry… please don’t punish me like this.”
Tears spill before I even realize I’m crying. They fall onto my pants. My shoulders shake. I can’t hold anything in anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again and again—to the sterile floor, to the girl whose innocent heart I broke, to the woman I couldn’t protect. “Please… please don’t leave me. I can’t… I can’t do this without you.”
I keep begging for her forgiveness when she can’t even hear me. I bow my head, shaking, drowning in the one thing I never thought I could feel, grief so deep it feels like it’s trying to hollow me into a corpse beside her.
“Leo.”
“Leo.”
“Matleon.”
I hear voices in the distance.
Someone pulls at my hands. They fall from my head. Zo wipes my face.
“She is fine.”
I look up. The door is still shut.
“You’re lying,” I mutter, looking into his cold blue eyes.
“A nurse just came out and said this,” Kaz speaks from beside me.
“I want to see her.” I get up, but he stops me, grabbing my shoulder. “You can’t go inside. The doctors aren’t done yet.”
I sit down again. My eyes meet her father’s. He’s sitting with Uncle Maksim. He gets up, comes toward me, and sits down beside me.
“I didn’t protect her,” I mutter.
He places his hand on my knee. “It’s not your fault, son.”
I look at him. “Are you not angry?” I shake my head. “You should be angry.” Tears start falling again. “I failed to protect her—you should be angry.”
He pats my shoulder. “You didn’t fail her. If anyone has failed to protect her, it’s me.”
Uncle Maksim squeezes his shoulder. “Don’t bury yourself in guilt, Damir. You know very well not everything is in our control.”
The door in front of us opens, and I jump to my feet. A team of doctors comes out. Zo asks them about her.
“The bullet was very close to her heart, but the operation was a success. She will be conscious in a few hours.”
One of them looks toward me. “You can see the patient after we shift her to the observation ward.”
Even after the doctors move her and give me instructions, I don’t go inside. I ask her father to go.
Kaz asks me, “Why aren’t you going?”
“She’s safe with him,” I mutter.
Uncle Maksim grabs me around the neck. “So love can make anyone stupid. She reached here in the first place because she’s our daughter. Your wife would never have reached here otherwise.”
I look toward him. He nods. “We didn’t protect her, son. It’s not on you.”
He leaves me standing there and enters the ward.
After half an hour, they come out. Her father meets my eyes. Kaz pushes me forward. I enter the ward and close the door behind me.
She’s lying on the bed, surrounded by machines. Her hair has fallen around her head on the white pillow like a red halo. My Angel.
I sit down on the chair beside her. She’s breathing, yet the fear refuses to leave me. My mind isn’t catching up with the present; it’s still stuck on the moment I saw her chest completely still before they took her inside.
I can’t believe she didn’t leave me. She always wanted to leave me. Maybe she decided to stay only for her parents.
What am I even thinking? I take a deep breath and look up. Uncle is right. I’ve become stupid.
The door opens, and Zo comes in.
He sits on the chair beside me. “She’s fine.”
“You lied to me.”
He shrugs. “You were losing your mind.”
I chuckle weakly. “I think I’ve lost it completely. Even though every logical analysis says she’ll be alright, there will only be a scar left and no other permanent injury, I’m not able to accept it. It’s like my emotions are fucking my reason.”
“It’s okay. You’re allowed to feel this way. You’re human, not a robot,” he says, then adds, “But don’t pull that shit again. It scared the shit out of me.”
“Why did you come even after I told you not to?” I ask him.
He smiles.
We were planning to fight in a different way, but Zo’s arrival forced us to change our plan.
We had intel that all the leaders would be there to mock Mikhailov, and we intended to deal with all of them at once, that’s why we let them catch us.
Women were never part of the plan, but some rat fed them the information about where the women would be, and they took them hostage.
Only a few men from the enemy’s side were left; otherwise, who would have guided the men from Kaz’s top security force to strike? That was the plan. But we thought we had killed them all, we thought wrong, and now my Angel is paying the price.
Iselyn
I hear many voices. I can recognize them all, Uncle, Kaz, Zo, Papa, but there is no voice of Matleon. Where is Matleon? I remember that man pointing a gun at him. Matleon… is he shot?
I force my eyes open and look around. There’s no one. I’m alone in a hospital. Why am I here? I try to get up, but a sharp pain in my chest pins me down.
“Angel!” A cry of joy comes from the door of the ward.
I look toward him. He’s fine. He comes sprinting toward me and collapses into the chair beside me. “You’re awake.”
He looks exhausted, his eyes red. He leans forward and kisses my forehead. “You’re awake.”
“Matleon,” I croak from my dry throat.
He nods. “Yes, Angel.”
“Why am I here?” I ask after gulping some saliva to ease the dryness.
“You took the bullet for me,” he says, his voice heavy with guilt and sadness.
The memory comes back. “I shot him, he shot me. I guess it’s fair.” I force the words out in a slurry voice, then fall back into sleep.
The next time I wake up, Papa is sitting beside me. This time, I feel more aware; my thoughts are still scattered, but I’m clearer than before.
Papa caresses my head. “How’s my little girl feeling?”
“Better. Where’s Mom?” I ask slowly.
“She’s sleeping,” he mutters.
“You almost killed your old man,” he adds with a sad smile.
“I’m sorry, Papa. I wasn’t thinking straight.” I could have moved away along with Matleon, but my mind was in shock.
“Next time,” Papa says softly, “if something like this happens and you have to choose between Matleon and yourself, let him take the bullet. It’s not because you’re my daughter and I’m selfish.
It’s because that bullet would have been manageable for him.
He could have stayed standing, he has extremely high muscle density.
But that bullet almost killed you. And it’s not just about Matleon; the same goes for me, your uncles, Kaz, Zo, and Zan as well. ”
“But how could I just stand there and watch my loved ones get hurt?” I whisper.
“You don’t know, Kroshka, how much you hurt your loved ones by trying to save him. You didn’t see him crying. You didn’t see every man around feeling that crushing guilt.”
Thinking like that, I realize I may have caused more damage than I prevented. Papa suddenly looks older in a single day, and I don’t even know how bad Mom must be looking. Matleon earlier also looked utterly exhausted.
“How’s Mom?” I ask, my voice catching.
“She became unconscious from shock. She came back to consciousness today. When we told her you were safe, she began recovering,” he says.
My heart drops further. “I’m sorry, Papa. I didn’t mean to put you all in danger. I was just so afraid in that moment.”
He tilts my face toward him, fingers brushing my cheek. “I know. Now rest, Kroshka. That’s all I want from you.”
I nod. “You should sleep too.” After a pause, I ask softly, “Where’s Matleon?”
“He’s outside.”
Papa stands, presses a kiss to my head, and smiles gently. “Rest well.”
I nod again. He leaves the room. Almost immediately, Matleon enters. He comes to my side and sits in the chair beside me.
“What kind of husband roams around outside while his wife is lying unconscious?” I pout weakly.
He chuckles and bends over me. “I was talking to your doctor, dear wife.”
His fingers trace the outline of my forehead, then my cheeks, his touch careful, reverent. There’s something strange in his eyes.
“Are you sad that I’m alive?” I try to joke.
He doesn’t laugh. His jaw clenches. His eyes water. “I realized something,” he says hoarsely. “I’m never going to let you live in peace without me. Even after you die, I’ll follow you there.” A crooked smile touches his lips. “I think bothering you is the mission of my life.”
“I like you bothering me.” He keeps staring into my eyes, unblinking.
I chuckle, breaking the thick silence. “You know… I was regretting it big time—dying without telling you that I love you.” I try to say it casually, but my heart starts racing anyway.
His nostrils flare. The next second, he’s kissing me, too violent, considering I’m a patient lying in a hospital bed. But I still kiss him back, drinking in his love, his sadness, his guilt, every violent emotion radiating from him.
He pulls away, resting his forehead against mine. “There was nothing to regret, Angel. I would have followed you into the afterlife, and you could have told me there.”
I chuckle, he moves up. “I would’ve gone to heaven, and you, for sure, to hell.”
He smirks. “Nah. I would’ve forced you to hell with me.”
“So arrogant. But I think I’ve already lost my ticket to heaven.”
“After marrying me?” He raises a brow.
“After killing people,” I mutter.
“It’s okay, Angel. Heaven won’t disregard one of their entities just because she killed people who were already about to die.” His lips curve. “But anyway, whether they want you or not, I won’t let you go. So don’t regret something you were never getting anyway.”
I shot people in a rush of adrenaline, but now the guilt is here.
“Don’t think about killing dead people, wifey. If you hadn’t killed them, your husband would have.” He shrugs lightly. “And since we’re married, it’s only fair to share the work. I’ll help you in the garden in return.”
I chuckle.
He smiles, then leans in and kisses me again.