Chapter 46 - Alexei
The feeling I had when they said it went well was indescribable.
No, that isn’t true. It wasn’t indescribable. I could describe it very well if I wanted to. It felt like someone had been strangling me from the inside for days and finally loosened their grip.
I could breathe again.
When the surgeon stepped out and said the it went well, something in my body finally gave up the fight it had been fighting since Marco collapsed.
It went well.
It went well.
I think if he had said anything else, I would have torn the hospital down with my bare hands.
When they let me see him afterward, when I held him in my arms again, I have never felt happier.
That sounds too clean for what it really was. Happiness is too simple a word. It was relief so violent it made me dizzy. It was gratitude so deep it nearly humiliated me. It was the feeling of having your entire soul dragged back into your body.
My baby was back.
The others were happy too.
His parents came a little after I was allowed in. His mother cried the instant she saw him. She kissed his head over and over, murmuring in Italian.
His father stood beside her with one hand over his mouth and the other braced on the bed rail. He leaned down and kissed Marco’s forehead with a sort of stunned reverence that made it look as if he still couldn’t believe his son was still physically in front of him.
I watched from the corner.
That had become my place when family arrived. I stayed close enough to intervene if needed and far enough not to intrude on blood.
Then Rei and Ilya came.
And peace, apparently, had to leave with them.
Ilya came in first. He saw Marco in bed and his entire body lit up with reckless intention.
“Mario!” he blurted, already lunging forward.
He fucking launched.
Rei grabbed the back of his shirt so fast the fabric jerked tight against Ilya’s throat.
“Are you insane?” Rei hissed, yanking him back. “Don’t you see he’s fragile? Where are you jumping like a monkey?”
Ilya stumbled backward with all the offended dignity of a cat thrown out of a room.
“I was not jumping like a monkey,” he said. “I was approaching with enthusiasm.”
“With stupidity,” Rei shot back.
“Excuse you. My enthusiasm is one of my best traits.”
“Not in a surgical recovery room.”
Marco looked between them, back and forth, like he was watching a tennis match.
Ilya pointed dramatically at Rei. “You are being mean to me in front of a patient.”
“You are being a hazard in front of a patient.”
Ilya put a hand over his chest as if wounded. “That is deeply hurtful, coming from someone whose boyfriend threatened a florist into staying open at midnight.”
Rei straightened. “That was not a threat.”
“It was absolutely a threat,” I said from the corner.
Three heads turned toward me.
Rei narrowed his eyes. “I don’t remember asking you.”
“You didn’t need to. It happened.”
Ilya, opportunistic as always, immediately pointed at me. “See? Mafia consensus.”
Rei rolled his eyes so hard I was surprised he stayed upright. “You’re both ridiculous.”
Marco made a small sound that might have been a laugh.
That sound hit the room like sunlight.
Everyone froze for half a second.
His mother pressed a hand to her mouth again. His father looked down. Rei softened instantly. Even Ilya shut up long enough to just stare at Marco.
Then Ilya ruined it by whispering, “He laughed at me. I win.”
“You did not win,” Rei snapped.
“I absolutely did.”
“How.”
“Because he finds me charming.”
“He finds you noisy.”
They kept going.
Marco’s eyes kept moving between them, and I could see the exhaustion under the small amusement. He didn’t have the energy for this level of noise, but he also loved them. I stepped forward from the corner. “That’s enough,” I gave them both a hard look.
Rei scoffed then, in open rebellion against both my tone and my existence, he turned back to Marco, leaned down, and kissed the top of his head.
That still pissed me off.
I understood that Rei loved him. I understood that there were bonds between them that had nothing to do with me, and that trying to compete with that would be pathetic and beneath me.
None of that stopped me from wanting to drag him backward by the collar every time his mouth touched Marco’s hair.
But I held it in because Marco didn’t need my jealousy filling the room.
Ilya, unfortunately, had no such discipline.
He leaned around Rei with exaggerated care and whispered, “Can I at least hold one finger? Or is that also a criminal act now?”
Rei did not even look at him. “If you breathe too hard in his direction, I will throw you out the window.”
“There are no windows that open in here.”
“I’ll make one.”
Ilya considered this. Then he looked at me. “You’d help him, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. Betrayal from every angle.”
Marco’s mouth twitched again.
I decided not to kill either of them.
After they all left, I stayed.
The chair beside Marco’s hospital bed had become more familiar to my body than my own mattress. I went to him and kissed his head.
“How are you feeling?” I asked quietly. “Was that too much?”
His lashes fluttered once before he looked at me. He was pale still. He would be pale for a while. But there was color in his mouth again. His eyes, though still tired, were more awake than they had been a week ago.
He shook his head. “No. I am okay. How long do I have to stay here?” He looked away for a second, then back at me. “I want to go home.”
A sigh left me before I could stop it. “Two to three weeks. And don’t ask me to take you home. Please. Okay? You need this this time.”
He studied my face for a second. Marco had gotten very good at reading the cracks in me. “Don’t worry. I won’t make it hard on you.”
I gave him a smile and kissed his lips.
From then on, every day belonged to the hospital.
I slept in the chair.
If what I did could be called sleep. My body would shut down for an hour, maybe two, head tipped awkwardly against the wall or folded over my crossed arms on the side of his bed, and then I’d wake at the slightest shift in his breathing.
I left only when absolutely necessary. To shower. To change. Otherwise, I wasn’t leaving.
And I fucking wouldn’t.
If they wanted me out, they could drag me out. And if they tried, they’d regret it.
It’s been a week since the surgery and I still haven’t told him about what I did, I wasn’t sure if or when I was going to tell him.
Right now he was sitting on the bed, legs over the edge, his hands folded in his lap, looking at me with that expression he got when he wanted something and knew I was already predisposed to saying yes.
“Can we go out a bit?”
I looked up from where I was rearranging the blankets for the third time in twenty minutes.
“The doctor said I can go to the hospital garden,” he added, too quickly.
Of course he came armed with medical approval.
I stared at him for one moment longer than necessary, just to let him feel that I knew exactly what he was doing.
Then I nodded. “Yeah. I’ll help you.”
I reached for the wheelchair.
He could walk, technically. But technically wasn’t good enough for me. So I brought the chair to him, locked the wheels, and helped him into it.
He frowned at me a little.
Not genuinely upset. Just faintly offended. “I can walk,” he murmured.
“I know.”
“Then why—”
“Because this is better.”
He opened his mouth, probably to argue, then looked at my face and decided against it.
Smart boy.
I wrapped a blanket over his legs. Adjusted it twice. Then once more because it still wasn’t sitting right. Then I crouched in front of him and tucked the edge under his knees.
His fingers found my hair. “I’m okay,” he said quietly.
“I know,” I lied.
Then I stood and wheeled him out.
We weren’t technically allowed in the garden this late.
I didn’t give a fuck.
If anyone said anything, I was entirely prepared to remind them that I had recently murdered a city block’s worth of people over a donor list and was not emotionally equipped for institutional push back over fresh air.
When we reached the garden doors and stepped outside, the night air touched us both at once.
I wheeled him slowly along the paved path between trimmed hedges and low flower beds. Marco tipped his head back against the wheelchair, eyes lifting to the fractured sky above.
The stars were sparse tonight, half-swallowed by low cloud, but he smiled at them anyway.
From the inner pocket of my coat I drew the two ribbons.
Green. I stepped behind the chair, careful not to startle, and gathered a small section of his dark hair.
The silk slid through my fingers as I tied the first ribbon, then the second, the colour vivid even in the dim light.
He felt the gentle tug and turned his head just enough to catch my eye. A real smile curved his mouth.
“There they are,” he murmured. “I thought I’d lost them.”
I rested my hands on the back of the chair, voice low.
“You used to wear only black. Why green?”
His gaze drifted back to the sky for a second, then returned to me. “Because whenever I closed my eyes I saw yours. I wanted something that felt like looking at you even when you weren’t there.”
Marco reached up, caught my wrist, and guided me down until I was kneeling beside the chair the way I had once knelt beside his hospital bed. His fingers slid into my hair and he drew me the last inch forward.
The kiss was soft. When he pulled back just enough to speak, his breath warmed my lips.
“I missed the way you look at me,” he whispered. “I missed you baby.”
Heat rushed up my neck and across my face before I could stop it. Fucking hell. Even now. Even after everything. He still undid me with a single word.
I rose just enough to gather him carefully into my arms, mindful of every wire. He settled against my chest as though he had never left it. Together we tipped our faces toward the broken scatter of stars above the garden.
He was here. He was breathing.