24. Dimitri
24
Dimitri
W hen I was ten years old, my mother was diagnosed with brain cancer.She had the tumor removed when I was eleven and spent the next year undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. When a year passed without a relapse, her doctors declared her in remission. I was thirteen at the time.
Mom was a single mother thanks to her sperm donor skipping out before I was even born. And even though I grew up without a father, I never felt like I was missing out on something important. Mom did what she could and the fathers of my friends stepped in to teach me the things she couldn't. Everything else, I learned from the extensive time I spent in the library.
The cancer returned with a vengeance when I was seventeen. Mom fought hard, but in the end, the disease claimed her just weeks before my high school graduation. On the day they lowered her into the ground, I went to the local Marine Corps office and enlisted. Less than a month after graduation, I found myself on a bus to boot camp, eager to leave behind a life filled with painful memories.
Being here now in a hospital so similar to the one I held my mother’s hand in when she took her final breaths, stirs up unpleasant memories, leaving me feeling on edge and unsure of my next steps.
I’m trying hard to focus on the positives instead.Gabriella doesn’t have cancer.She’s not walking the line between life and death, but she could have. She has a sprained wrist and several bruises and cuts from the glass shards but no concussion and is otherwise okay, all things considered, given the damage to her Mercedes.
According to the police report I downloaded after hacking into their system, a truck ran a red light as Gabriella was merging onto the freeway and slammed into her passenger side. The angle of the impact forced her vehicle into the guardrail before it tipped over and rolled down into a ditch, ending up on its hood.
It was a complete accident from the officer’s reports, but I’m still going to look into it because my faith in Miami’s police is paper thin. Knowing what I do, half are corrupt, and the other half are too ignorant or too righteous to know any different.
Pedestrians returning home from New Year parties stopped to help get Gabriella free from her wrecked vehicle and stayed with her until the paramedics arrived. The driver of the truck suffered a concussion, and a broken leg from the collision, but he was taken to another hospital…lucky for him. I don’t know if I’d be able to control myself around him. He’s responsible for hurting my angel, accident or not, it doesn’t matter to me.
Gabriella is still out from a combination of the medication they gave her and the adrenaline of the accident. Although I can hardly imagine how she’ll feel when she sees me. Based on our last conversation, I doubt she’ll be very thrilled. After all, the accident was partially my fault. Had she not been distracted by our argument, maybe she would have seen the truck coming. Maybe she could have avoided it in time.
I have so much to ask her forgiveness for. The conversation she overheard. The accident. The truth about myself. There’s so much, and I fear she won’t have enough compassion in her to forgive me for all of it. Not that I deserve to be forgiven for any of it, if I’m being honest.
With nothing else to do until she opens those beautiful hazel eyes, I watch the screen that monitors her heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature instead. All normal. So now it’s just a matter of time for the drugs to leave her system and then a waiting game after that for her mind to recover enough to wake.
The door opens. Gabriella’s family will be here soon, and I intend on being here when they do. But it’s only her nurse and a doctor.
“Oh,” the nurse exclaims when she spots me. “I didn’t know Ms. DiAngelo had company.”
“My apologies. I've only just arrived,” I tell her.
“Are you family?”
“No.” I’m better than family.
“Oh,” the nurse repeats that annoying sound before a frown tugs her lips down and I know immediately what she’s going to say. “Well, I’m terribly sorry to have to tell you, but only family is allowed back here right now. Visiting hours for non-family start at eight a.m.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“But sir—”
“I said, I’m not going anywhere,” I repeat, my tone deep and even.
This time, the doctor steps forward, clearing his throat as he approaches. Swinging my eyes to the older man, I visibly watch him freeze in my icy gaze. He glances down at the tablet in his hands and clears this throat again, a clear sign that he’s nervous. But rather than listen to his gut screaming at him to shut his damn mouth, he argues.“Sir, since you’re not family, we will have to ask you to leave. If you refuse—” He swallows hard, working up the courage to continue his threat. “If you refuse, I will have to get security involved.”
I make a point to lean back slowly in my chair next to Gabriella’s bedside, my eyes never leaving the doctor’s growing pale face. “Go ahead and call them if it would make you feel better, but I’m not leaving.”
The nurse and doctor leave the room in a rush. I calculate that I probably have maybe five minutes or fewer before “security” arrives, and I’ll have to argue with those elevated mall cops. In the meantime, I reach out and sandwich Gabriella’s non injured hand between mine. Giving it a light squeeze, I try to implore her to wake up through just my touch alone. When her fingers twitch, my heart skips a beat, and I wait to see her open her eyes. But it’s just a subconscious reaction because she stays quiet and still.
Bowing my head to rest on our joined hands, I whisper, “Please, angel. Open your eyes. Come back to me. I can’t lose you. Please.”
The sound of several hurried footsteps echoes outside the room and grows louder as they get closer. I kiss the back of her hand and keep hold of it even as I rise to my feet and turn to face the door. I expect to see the nurse and doctor and a few security guards, but I did not expect to see Michael and his fiancée, Rose, walk in along with Raphael and a blonde woman beside him. I think her name is Lily if I remember what Gabriella shared with me. A woman sold to Xiao years ago who ended up having a daughter with him. When the DiAngelos attempted to kill Xiao, they found Lily and her daughter instead. Raphael offered her a chance at freedom in exchange for her help taking down Xiao. In the end, the plan worked. Xiao is dead and Lily and Raphael fell in love.
Michael’s eyes fall to where I hold Gabriella’s hand and if he had the power to shoot lasers, my hand would be on fire. Instead, he raises his murderous gaze to my face and then takes a menacing step forward. Rose notices and immediately steps in front of him, putting her small body in between a lion and his prey.
“Not here, Michael,” she warns him. He growls like the big cat and bares his teeth at me, over Rose’s head. She reaches up and cups his face. “Please.”
“Rose is right, Michael,” Raphael, the younger of the two brothers, tells his twin. “We’re here for our sister. Not to pick a fight.”
“The Russian bastard is holding our baby sister’s hand,” Michael snaps back.
I take offense to being called a Russian bastard, but hold my tongue. The air crackles like there's lightning in the air, ready to strike.
“And I’m sure Dimitri will explain why.” Raphael looks toward me, and I shift my eyes to him. The DiAngelo brothers are identical but have changed their appearances enough that it’s almost like looking at someone different. Raphael has longer and messier styled hair while Michael keeps his short around the sides with a little length on top. “Isn’t that right, Volkov?”
Interestingly enough, I get the vibe that Raphael might be slightly more agreeable and understanding of Gabriella and I, rather than Michael. He strikes me as the more level-headed of the brothers, if that’s even possible when the pair are death incarnate. Having the three of us in a room together is a recipe for disaster. Add in that Viking friend of theirs and it’s like trying to have a pack of alpha male wolves live and work together.
Someone’s going to get hurt. Or killed.
“Yes, in time.”
Michael takes another step forward, only to be stopped once more by Rose. Before he can pick her up and move her aside or say something stupid to me, Lily steps around Raphael and approaches Gabriella on the other side of the bed.
“If you’re done measuring dicks,” Lily comments offhandedly as she studies the monitor and IV bags hanging. “Your little sister was in a car accident and deserves some peace and quiet while she heals.”
Her comment is like a needle that pops the brothers’ growing anger, and deflatesanger both into a slightly calmer state. From the corner of my eyes, I feel Michael’s heated gaze remain on my profile, while Raphael stands stiff and ready to make a move if I do something he doesn’t like.
“Have you heard anything?” Lily asks, and it takes me a second to realize she’s talking to me.
“She has a sprained wrist and several cuts and bruises but no concussion and is otherwise stable.”
Lily nods, glancing at the bottom of the bed. She frowns and then looks up at Raphael. “I’d like to see her chart, but all the hospitals have switched to tablets now.”
Raphael nods. “I’ll go get one.”
He leaves, patting his brother once on the shoulder as he goes. Michael doesn’t move from glancing between me, his sister, and our joined hands.
A heavy silence falls over the room while we wait for Raphael to return. When he does, he hands the tablet to Lily who makes a comment about it already being unlocked and he simply shrugs, like bribing or threatening a staff member to unlock one is no big deal.She simply shakes her head in exasperation before she taps away.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I reach in to retrieve it, reading the text from Sergei on the screen.
Sergei: I need to see you at the house.
Me: Can it wait until later in the morning?
Sergei: No.
Blowing hard through my nostrils, I send him an acknowledgment and slip the phone back in my pocket.
I had every intention of staying with Gabriella until she woke up. I want to be here when she does. The last thing I need is her waking up to find me not only missing but also leaving the conversation she overheard to fester like an open and infected wound. Not to mention with her family here, it gives them the chance to poison her against me. But I have to take the risk.
As much as I don't want to, I need to talk with him about the idea I’ve been carefully thinking about. I need him to think it was his idea to begin with because if Sergei were to learn about Gabriella and me only less than a day after he announces I'm to wed his daughter; it won't go over very well.
“I have to leave for a couple hours,” I announce to the room. “But I’ll be back soon.”
“Or you don’t come back at all,” Michael grumbles loud enough for us all to hear.
“Michael,” Rose reprimands him like she’s disciplining a child. “If he doesn’t come back, he can’t explain why he’s here holding Gabriella’s hand, now can he?”
Her logic is sound and from the exasperated huff he forces out, he knows it too and can’t argue against it.
I raise Gabriella’s hand and kiss the back of her hand again. The growl that escapes from Michael makes my lips twitch in humor. But he stays quiet and keeps his hands to himself as I walk past him and Raphael, closing the door behind me.
I’m halfway down the hall when I hear my name called. Freezing, I turn around to find Rose hurrying after me. In the doorway behind her, Michael stands like a statue, staring us down, like a guard dog.
“Yes?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
I eye her, unsure what it is we could have in common enough to talk about.
“About Gabriella.”
Besides her, that is.
“What about her?”
Rose takes a deep breath, like she’s steadying her nerves. Releasing it hard, she says in a hurry, “I know you two are seeing each other and have been on and off over the last year.”
My eyes flick over her head back to Michael’s sharp gaze before back to Rose. I don't think he heard her, thankfully. “How did you find out?”
“I just kind of put two and two together and then asked Gabriella last night." She glances at her feet. "I feel like the accident is partially my fault.”
It’s not, but I’m not ready to explain why just yet. “How so?”
“I urged her to go to you and tell you how she felt. If I hadn’t…” There are tears in her green eyes when she looks back up at me.
The man Gabriella has nurtured back to life can’t stand to see a woman cry. It’s a little uncomfortable sight. Especially when her tears are unwarranted. “It’s not your fault. She got into the accident leaving the Playground after seeing me.”
“Oh, still though.”
“If it’s anyone’s fault, it is mine.”
“How so?” Rose repeats my question back to me.
“She overheard a conversation and made a wrong assumption. She ran out before I could stop her.”
Rose nods several times like she’s processing the information. “I see.”
Presuming the conversation is over, I start to turn around when she reaches out and touches my arm. When I twist back to her, she drops her hand.
“Can I give you some advice? About Gabriella?”
I’m sure if I said no, it’d make no difference.
“What is it?”
“Gabriella said you’re keeping something from her and that whatever it is, is stopping you from committing to her completely. So figure it out soon because she could have died tonight from you not being honest with her.”
I meet her hard eyes for a long second as her words take root in the back of my mind, joining the many other reasons why I need to tell Gabriella the truth. And soon.
“You’ll stay with her?” I ask instead of acknowledging her advice.
“Of course.”
Nodding once, I lift my eyes to Michael, who now stands with his arms across his chest as he continues to stare us down.
“Thank you.” I say to Rose and then turn around to leave the hospital with a new heavy weight on my shoulders.