52. Elanee
52
ELANEE
“ E lanee?” It’s my sister’s voice. I know she left the room at some point, but I can’t remember for how long. Last night, I vaguely recall her taking me into the shower and washing me. I’ve fallen numb to it all. Empty. No particular thoughts come to mind, but at the sound of her voice, I fold into myself even more. She’s spent hours talking to me about what I’m unsure. “You didn’t eat again?”
I stare at the end of the bed and at the wall past it. I can’t recall if I’ve slept or not since coming to the Armani household. It’s all just a blur. Another presence steps into the room, but I don’t look up. If I move from this position, everything might fracture again, webbing new branches of pain and suffering.
Tired.
Broken.
Empty.
I can sense Layla leaving the room and leaving behind a person who takes a seat beside me. I have my arms curled around my knees, with my head now resting between them.
“Elanee.” The voice that speaks is a male’s. Rough. Broken. Tired.
Dmitri.
I don’t even dare look at him. Just like everyone else, he will vanish as well. Eventually, he will go quiet and leave. Just how I want it.
I hurt him.
I hurt all of them.
And I thought I loved them? But how much suffering had I caused?
“Elanee?” Dmitri says again, and this time, the warmth of his hand covers mine. I don’t shift to hold or look at it. I just want to disappear. “I didn’t mean those things I said. I’m so sorry.” His voice breaks, but it’s not enough to give me the courage to face him.
We sit there for minutes silently until he speaks again. “When I was on my way here. I thought about all the things I lied to you about.” I don’t know why he’s still talking; it’s obvious I don’t want him here. I don’t want anyone here. I just want to wallow and fade into a distant memory.
I wish I never came back to New York.
“I lied to you about your date with Lochlan Reign standing you up in college. I actually slashed his tires and pretended that it was simply by chance I saw you waiting outside the cinema alone.” The vague memory returns to me.
“I also lied about being allergic to mushrooms. I just never wanted you to make that risotto again because it was horrendous.” Another vague memory in the past.
“I also lied about how I felt about you on the night that we fought before graduation… I told you that you were nothing more than a friend to me and that I could never see you in any other light. But that wasn’t true.” Another wound reopens—a reminder of the memory that changed it all. “When I asked you not to go to Russia, it was because I didn’t want you to leave me . I’ve never been good for you, Elanee, and I knew how much of a selfish prick that made me, so in my own way I thought I was setting you free.” His voice breaks, and my fingers curl in the way he’s somehow able to blend his pain with mine. The way he can navigate the cracks in my fractured shell when I don’t feel like I have anything else to give.
“The truth is you’ve always been the only woman I’ve cared about. The only woman I’ve loved. I hate myself for not protecting you. For only stepping up now and being able to end your torment. I’m sorry you had to wait so long, and I thank you for letting me be by your side if for only a moment.”
A lump forms in my throat. Damn him. Why won’t he just leave me alone?
“It wasn’t fair for me to say those things to you, and I didn’t mean to say them. I wasn’t acting like myself. Deep down, of course, a part of me only wanted you for myself. I purposefully pushed you away and was met with the consequences of another man having you.” His voice is filled with hatred now, and I can’t help but shift my gaze to meet his. He’s watching me. But it wasn’t just any man. It was his father.
“I only want the best for you. I know at times I can’t be the easiest to deal with, but I’ve only ever wanted for you to be safe. And for you to be mine. Always.”
A tear slides down my cheek because the way he’s speaking is a reminder we’ll never have that. I already knew that. But ever so slowly these past months, I fell for it again. Began to believe that there was hope for Dmitri and me.
But for an entirely different reason now. Because he was risking his life for me. Again. My eyebrows furrow slightly as vague memories flood in of Layla telling me that Dmitri is going to fight The Lion. When was it, in three days? Had it already been three days?
“You can’t fight him,” I rasp. My voice is barely audible from days without drinking water but a wave of relief seems to wash over him. His thumb strokes against my hand.
“No matter what, I always intended to kill him. I just have all the more reason to do it now.”
Tears well in my eyes, and I want the pain to stop. I preferred the barren place where nothing crept through the cracks because all it does is hurt. “I’m so tired,” I admit, and his expression twists. He sits up from the side seat and sits on the bed beside me.
“I know, sweetheart. It’s almost over,” he says as he begins to wipe away my tears.
But will it ever stop?
I tried so hard to fight this all these years, and I just don’t have anything left in me to give.
“It’ll never stop,” I whisper. “I’ve hurt so many people.” My voice breaks.
His expression twists into anguish. “You’ve been hurt the most, Elanee. And I turned my back on you when you needed me most.” Guilt floods his voice and he looks away.
Another fracture and the dam of emotion is about to spill over. I can’t handle it anymore. “It hurts so much,” I confess as tears spill over.
“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry for being late,” he says and returns to meet my gaze. He goes to extend his other hand to cup my face, except it seems excruciatingly slow. His gaze shifts to his hand, and I can see the internal conflict.
“Dmitri?” I say. Concern immediately sparks to life. “What’s wrong?” Something doesn’t feel right. I grab his hand and help him put it on my face so he now only has me to focus on. “Dmitri?” I ask again.
Shame mars his features and he sighs heavily. “I’ve kept things from you because I didn’t want you to worry. I won’t use it as an excuse for all the things I said to you. But when I tell you this, I want you to know that no matter what, nothing will change the course of tomorrow’s events.”
Something doesn’t feel right, and I don’t want us to suffer any more pain. So why do I feel like what he’s about to tell me will hurt the most?
“I’m sick, Elanee.”
A palpable tension stirs between us as his words reverberate in my head.
The final crack splinters me into a million pieces. Three words I never wanted to hear from the person I cared about most. Another lump forms in my throat. This is a joke, right?
“I fought with Luca about a month after you arrived in New York to set in motion everything that led to now,” he begins to explain. “When we had that fight, I took a knock to the back of my head, and after I left the club, I blacked out. Layla took me to the hospital, and that’s when they discovered a tumor on my frontal lobe.”
Air rushes from my lungs, and a cold chill runs over my body.
Tumor.
The memory of first seeing Layla outside the hospital returns to me.
Oh, my god.
Was that when Dmitri received his diagnosis?
I can’t speak.
I can’t breathe.
“Elanee, focus on me. It’s okay.” His grip tightens on my hand.
That snaps me right out of the confusion. “It’s not okay! Dmitri! It’s not okay!” Rage ignites me. “How can you tell me this is okay?! What does that even mean? You’re… you’re… sick! Can’t they operate on it, can’t they—”
“Calm,” he says carefully as he pulls me toward him. I hadn’t even realized I was trying to stand. He tugs me into his lap.
“Don’t tell me to be calm. There has to be something that can be done. You can’t just leave me like this!”
“Ssh,” he says as he brings my head close to his chest.
“Don’t treat me like a child, Dmitri!” I try to push away from him, but he’s too strong. Or I’m too weak. A reminder of the broken little thing he’d walked in on only a few minutes ago. “We can fix this, right?”
He seems reluctant to tell me any more, most likely because of how I’m reacting. But how did he think I’d react to this? I narrow my gaze. “Why didn’t you tell me this? Is it because you thought I was too fragile to hear it?”
“It wasn’t that.”
“Because you thought that I didn’t care?”
“Elanee, it was none of those things,” he says quietly.
“Then what was it?” I demand, now furious. Layla knew, but I didn’t… and I can’t help but envy her for being his rock when I was simply this fragile little thing he was trying to keep intact. “I could’ve helped. I can help.”
“I know,” he says, cupping my face again, and this time I cling to it.
“Then why?” My voice cracks. Didn’t he trust me?
“I can have an operation for it. But…” He swallows. “I refused to do anything about it until I got you out.”
My heart is pounding, and I want to scream into an abyss. No. They can’t have Dmitri as well. But if there’s a cure… if it can be operated on…
He refused treatment because of me…
All this time, I had no idea.
“But it’ll make it worse, won’t it? I thought you weren’t getting any sleep.” My voice cracks.
How had he been putting me first this whole time, and I didn’t realize the magnitude of his sacrifice?
Tears spill over my cheeks. It’s not fair; they can’t have him, too. “You need to stop this. No fighting tomorrow. You go to the doctors now and—”
He kisses me and my train of thought is obliterated as his demanding presence pleads for me to give him everything. I can’t help but let him take and take as I kiss him back.
Hungry.
Deprived.
Scared.
My body rocks against his as I run my fingers through his hair, needing and wanting to touch all of him. I can’t help the dizziness it creates after days of not eating and drinking, but I ignore it. The only thing I need right now is Dmitri, but he pulls back.
I can feel his hard cock beneath me as I sit on his lap, and his expression has changed from that tormented anguish to the very possessive male that Dmitri oozes with.
“Don’t get any ideas; you haven’t eaten for days,” he says.
“And you have a tumor…” It doesn’t sound right coming from my lips, and that stark realization still isn’t setting in. But he’s quick to thread his fingers through my hair and pull my head back, so I have no choice but to simply look at him.
“Nothing will stop me from fucking you, Elanee. Even a tumor. The only thing that will is the fact that you need to eat,” he demands.
I side-eye him, and I can see what he’s doing, distracting me, turning my pain into pleasure as he always has. But this is different. “I’m scared, Dmitri,” I admit out loud for the first time. For he and I, both.
We were two completely fucked up people, and yet still, all I cared about was him.
“I know,” he says as he releases my hair slowly.
“Does it hurt?” I ask, brushing my fingers against his forehead at the hidden enemy.
He takes my hand and kisses the inside of my palm. “It started with headaches, but the other symptoms are more pronounced now.”
“Symptoms?” I ask, fear squeezing my chest. I think about when he stormed into the room. Is this what Layla meant when she said he wasn’t being himself?
He looks away as if not wanting to divulge further. But I force him to look at me. “Dmitri, you can’t keep me in the dark about this anymore.”
He swallows and nods. “The doctor advised I might begin to notice behavioral changes and aggressive outbursts. Numbness. Impaired vision and smell,” he begins to rattle off a list. “Memory loss. Lack of motivation. It’s quite an impressive list, really.”
I frown as he tries to joke it off, but suddenly remember small telltale signs. The medical book he’d been reading. At Lev, when he broke that guy’s hand and didn’t seem himself. He was constantly pinching the bridge of his nose, but I thought that was because he was tired. There had always been signs. Then, the most concerning one crashes into me and I take his hand. “Why did it look like your hand froze when you tried to touch me?”
His jaw tics, and I can tell he’s trying to conceal the truth from me again. But he thinks better of it as he confesses. “Because it can affect my motor skills as well, even paralysis at times. I’ve mostly had the numbness, but its effective enough even sometimes when I walk.”
My heart sinks into my stomach. “You can’t fight tomorrow! Are you out of your fucking mind?”
An arrogant smile stretches across his face, and I’m so lost for words as to how he can even use that against me right now.
“Sweetheart, I’ve been waiting my entire life for this fight. Not you or this tumor is going to stop me.”
I hate his masculine pride and stupidity, and I already know I can’t change his mind about the fight tomorrow. Trying to convince Dmitri Volkov of anything was like banging my head against a wall. His hand goes to the necklace around my throat, the one he gave me in Texas. His gaze dips to my breasts, most likely thinking of the piercings he’d branded me with.
If he still chooses to fight, then be fucked if he was doing it alone.
“Let me come with you tomorrow,” I gently say.
“Absolutely not. I’m not letting him ever look at you again.”
I cup his jaw, his stubble prickling beneath my fingers. “We’re in this together, right? This isn’t just your fight, Dmitri; it’s both of ours. I want to be there when the life dims from his eyes. And I’ll be there to make sure that you step out alive.”
A tic runs through his jaw. I think he’s about to argue with me, but instead, he asks, “And what comes after that?”
My breath loosens, grateful that he’s not putting up a fight against me this time. But it also pains me to see him so… tired as well. I strengthen my resolve one more time, if only for him.
Only he could find me in the abyss and pull me back out by my hair to keep me fighting one more time.
I have many wounds, scars and reoccurring torment.
But I wasn’t the only one.
At least we have each other.
“Then after… we heal. Together.”