Chapter Thirty-Eight
Venus's hand is holding my arm in a hard grip, stopping me from going to my Althea.
Just a few steps until I can get to her and crush her in my embrace and never let her go. Until she won't be able to think of something else but me.
My body is tensed, feeling every beat of my weak heart and the flow of blood running in my veins. I know my face shows pure fear. Devastation.
She just said goodbye. Althea actually thinks she will leave me alone on the earth, but she was supposed to know that where she goes, I will follow her without a second thought.
She opens her mouth again, and I know what she wants to say. It kills me that she wants to say those words to me now. That she didn't say them before, because she thinks I don't feel the same.
Althea still has the impression that I don't share her feelings because of her reckless behavior and lies, but what she doesn't know is that I burn for her harder than she will ever do it for me.
"Don't you dare say it, Althea. Not now." I warn her and my voice sounds desperate.
She locks her eyes with mine and it kills her too. We just stare at each other, silently begging for different things.
"Say it, Althea." I tremble again, but this time in anger.
I need Ivan's blood on my skin and his beating heart in my hands. I don't know what Althea found in there, but she got out of the cabin, she had tears dried up on her cheeks. Her eyes were haunted and disgusted and that makes me want to kill Ivan even more.
Althea opens her mouth and in hoarse voice, she decides to kill the last piece of my heart. "You are the love of my goddam life, Everest," My throat makes a sound of a whimper, and if Venus wouldn't have held my arm, I would've fallen on my knees in front of my wife.
My own heart.
"Take care of Vincent." She pleads and she raises her foot off the ground, a grenade exploding right beside her.
"Althea!" I roar when I see her body thrown to the left side of the minefield.
Other grenades around the cabin explode one by one, the smoke around making us cough.
"Bring the bastard to me," I tell my men and they start moving in the places that aren't grenades.
Without caring that I step on a fucking bomb, I run as fast as I could to Althea. She's on the ground, limp and bloody. I fall on my knees next to her, trying to control my own body.
She has scratches around her body, her clothes being ripped apart. There's blood coming out her mouth and head and the fear in me makes tears invade my eyes.
"Stay with me, Little Fox." I beg her and I put one of my arms under her knees and other one on her back and waist.
When I try to raise myself with her off the ground, blood comes out of her mouth like a waterfall. She tries to breathe but the blood chokes her.
"Just resist a little bit longer, Althea. Please just a little bit longer," I whimper and change her position, holding her body so that her head stays on a side, the blood falling from her mouth.
I move quickly, running desperately to the car. I now realize that the car in which Vincent was, it's gone.
One person that I know it's safe.
Venus holds the door to my car open, and I enter with Althea in one damn move. If I keep making thousands of moves, she'll bleed to death.
Venus enters behind the wheel, starting the engine in a roar. The car immediately starts speeding and now everything is in Venus's hands.
I look at Althea who is still trying to breathe, the color of her cheeks getting paler and paler. I pet her hair, whimpering that she'll be okay, but I don't even believe myself.
Don't take her away from me , I pray to the God above me.
If you are real, please don't take her. I need her more than you.
I look down at Althea and I start panicking when she stops moving, her eyes closed.
"Althea?" I ask with a tremble, taking her face in my hand, forcing my finger in her mouth to see if blood is still there, and when I open her mouth, another wave of black blood comes out of her mouth.
"Don't fucking do this, Althea. In what universe do
you think you'll escape me, baby? Because here it's a clue." I lower my head and kiss her bloody forehead. "In none."
Panic settles in my body when she doesn't answer me. My arms squeeze her harder, my nose inhaling her scent, trying to remember her in all the ways.
"Venus!" I roar as my sanity leaves my body.
"Almost there, Keaton," She yells back.
I look at her as her hand clutches the wheel in a deadly grip. I've never seen Venus lose her temper before, but seeing her best friend in this condition makes her crazy with rage.
My focus is back on Althea, petting her long hair, begging in her ear to wake up.
To show me the most beautiful shade of brown.
I kiss her cheek multiple times, her cold skin making me whimper. She's not going to leave me.
I am selfish when it comes to her. Althea's been through hell and back and the pain could've killed her. But my wife is strong. And she will survive this.
"If you want to hear me declare my love to you, you better open your damn eyes." I keep kissing her cheek, but she remains hard as a rock.
The car stops suddenly and I halt Althea in my arms again. I exit the car in a hurry, running into the hospital as fast as I can.
I don't yell for help because immediately as I see a nurse with a free stretcher, I put Althea on it and she knows what to do.
"You're okay now." I whisper to Althea as I take her hand in mine, running next to her stretcher. The nurse is yelling something and a doctor comes running too in our direction.
"Just hang on, baby." I talk to her, hoping she hears
me.
"Sir, you can't go further." A nurse touches my arm and I yank it away from her.
No one will touch until Althea wakes up and brings my soul back to life.
I walk in front of the doctor, spatting in his face. "If something happens to my wife, I will hunt you and your loved ones down until your bloodline doesn't exist anymore."
The doctor nods and rushes with the nurses to the surgical ward.
I look after Althea, feeling my chest numb. The adrenaline is out of my body and I feel myself falling on the dirty floor.
If Althea dies, so is my heart.
The first two hours while waiting for Althea to come out of surgery were full of threats, curses and walking in circles until the nurses almost sedate me.
The next three I made a plan with Venus to go into the room, demanding answers to why does it takes so long. We entered the surgery and some nurses fought with us, lying to us that Althea can hear us and we shouldn't upset her while she is opened on that table. A doctor then came to tell us her right lung collapsed and that explains the blood loss, her shoulder got dislocated and the elbow on the same hand was broken. They had to check her brain because she hit her head hard, and luckily there was no internal bleeding
After another two hours in which the nurses came
thrice for blood, Althea is finally out of the surgery.
I see the doctor walk in our direction with bags under his eyes and a sweaty forehead.
"How is she?" Venus demands before I had the chance to open my mouth.
The doctor shrugs and I have the urge to punch him, but he says immediately after. "Mrs. Moretti's injuries were severe, but not enough for a seven-hour surgery. We repaired her collapsed lung and adjusted her shoulder. Fortunately, she has no brain damage, but her forehead had a crack on the right side so we needed to put stiches. The reason why it took so long it was because your wife's heart didn't want to beat anymore."
The words hit me harder than anything.
Her heart didn't want to beat anymore?
My hand goes to the wall beside me for support and I feel the room's temperature getting colder.
"We had her on bypass because her heart was weak when she arrived, but after we finished her surgery, her heart just didn't want to start again." The doctor explains further.
My Althea doesn't want to live anymore?
My breathing makes my chest hurt and I walk two steps, grab the doctor's neck, and bring him closer to me.
"If you want to tell me that my wife died and that you're sorry, I will give you a five-seconds start to run before I kill you and make my promise from earlier come true." I growl but even that sounds like a whimper.
She can't just give up on me like I might survive without her.
I don't notice the doctor's face turning red and Venus's hand trying to remove mine from his neck.
"Just let him talk for God's sake." Venus snaps at me. We both tried to stand each other in those seven hours and as you can see, now we are best friends.
Probably over Venus's dead body.
I won't die because I know Althea is waiting for me in that room she's in.
Doctor Cooper, as his shirt says, clears his throat and speaks, trying to no stutter.
"We tried many methods to make her heart beat again, and after four hours we got a beat. Mrs. Moretti is still in critical condition. Her wounds will heal, but I'm afraid she fell into a psychogenic coma."
"A psychogenic coma?" I ask and I already have the worst nightmares in my head.
"That happens when a person has been through a big amount of trauma and stress. The human body is too tired to fight for survival and the brain doesn't want to experience another episode of trauma. The people that go into this coma are the ones that decide when they want to wake up or if they want to wake up. It can take a day, a week, a year. It depends on the person." He explains.
Oh, Althea , I sigh.
It kills me to know that she doesn't want to live anymore. That she finds this world a complete hell in comparison to death. All I can do is be here for her and pray to the God that I think laughs at me that she will wake up.
I will be here whenever it takes.
For how much time she needs.
"Can we see her?" I don't want it to be a question, but it's a manner of seconds until I'll be kicked out of the hospital.
"Unfortunately, Mrs. Moretti is in intensive care.
You'll be able to see her tomorrow morning."
Before I snap at him again for forcing me to stay away from my wife, I feel my phone ringing in my pocket.
Saved by the phone.
I look at the caller and see that Harper is calling me and I answer immediately.
"Do you have the bastard?"
"Yes, Boss, he's in your basement, but um, that's not why I called." I frown and then a bloody scream makes me take my phone from my ear.
What the hell is happening there?
"Vincent is out of control, Boss. He's crying since we arrived home and he looks pale. Your mother is here but she can't calm him down."
I close my eyes when another throaty scream echoes. How can I forget about Vincent?
The poor little bug is probably scared without his sister there.
"I'll be there as fast as I can." I tell him and motion for Venus to stay here, in case Althea wants to show us mercy.
"Do you want us to give him a sedative-"
"If anyone of you idiots will touch my son before I arrive, I will make your life a living hell." I growl and go straight to my car.
Sedate him.
How can he even suggest that? My son isn't a freaking toy they can play with.
My movements stop when I realize what I said.
My son.
I just called Vince my son.
I'd be lying if I say that I don't love that little dare devil. He, just like his sister, captured my heart without
even asking if it's okay. They made all the past forgotten. I don't even know how I survived without them.
Vincent is my son.
I don't care about his blood or who his father was.
Vincent is mine.
And now that I'm thinking about it, Vincent isn't Althea's brother. Now that I know Althea has a different father, I know that the pair of them aren't related either.
But somehow, we fit like three puzzle pieces.
And I will do everything in my power to give Vincent and me the person we both love more than the air we breathe.