Chapter 27
twenty-seven
Elijah
Time doesn’t move the way it should.
It stretches out, flattens, loses any kind of structure until it stops meaning anything at all, and the only way I know it’s passing is the shift of people moving through the hallway, the change in light overhead, the way the sounds around us dull and sharpen again without ever fully settling into anything I can hold onto.
We’ve been here for hours.
I don’t know how many.
I don’t check.
Because the moment I start counting, the moment I let myself measure how long she’s been behind those doors, the wrong thoughts will follow it, and I can feel them there already, waiting just beneath the surface, pressing in at the edges of my control.
And I am not letting those thoughts exist.
She is alive.
That is the only thing that matters.
That is the only thing I allow.
Everything else, doesn’t get space.
I sit forward in the chair, my elbows braced against my knees, my hands clasped together so tightly I can feel the pull in my knuckles, the dried blood on my skin cracking faintly every time my fingers shift.
It’s everywhere. On my hands. My arms. My shirt.
The fabric has stiffened where it soaked through, clinging to my skin in a way that I am very deliberately not thinking about.
Because if I start, if I let myself remember what that blood looked like on her, I won’t stop.
Across from me, Zach leans back against the wall, shirtless, his skin still streaked with her blood, his hands resting at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them now that they’re not holding her together anymore.
Every now and then his fingers flex slightly, like the muscle memory is still there, like his body hasn’t caught up to the fact that she’s not in his hands anymore.
His head tips back briefly, his eyes closing for a second.
Then opening again almost immediately.
Like he doesn’t trust himself to lose focus for even that long.
Jackson is the only one who hasn’t stopped moving.
He sits, stands, sits again, the clipboard in his hands like something solid he can anchor himself to, the pen moving in sharp, deliberate strokes before pausing, hovering, then pressing down again.
“Full name,” he mutters under his breath as he writes, his voice tight, controlled in a way that tells me exactly how close he is to breaking. “Liana Bellandi. Date of birth—”
His voice catches.
It’s small. Barely there. But I hear it. He swallows it down hard enough that I can see it in his throat.
Keeps writing.
“Emergency contact,” he continues, quieter now, like the words cost him more this time. “Elijah Bellandi.”
The sound of my name lands in the space between us and something in my chest tightens in response, something sharp and immediate that I don’t let myself follow.
I don’t look at him.
I keep my gaze fixed ahead.
On nothing.
On everything.
On the doors she went through.
On the last place I saw her.
On the point where she disappeared out of my reach.
“She’s not dead.”
The words leave me before I realise I’ve said them.
Jackson’s pen stills. Only for a fraction of a second. Zach’s head tilts slightly where he stands.
Neither of them respond. They don’t need to.
Because it isn’t a reassurance.
It isn’t something I’m saying to convince them.
It’s a fact.
It has to be.
I feel my phone vibrate in my hand.
I don’t remember picking it up.
I don’t remember deciding to look at it.
But I am. Christian. I open the message.
We’ve got him. Killian’s with me. Taking him to the warehouse.
The words settle into place cleanly. Quietly. No immediate reaction. No spike of rage. Not like before. My thumb moves over the screen without hesitation.
Keep him alive.
There’s a pause before he replies.
He won’t die unless you say so.
Good.
I lower the phone slowly, my grip tightening around it as something shifts in my chest, something that feels nothing like the violent, consuming rage that had me tearing into him in that cabin.
This is different.
This is quieter.
Colder.
More deliberate.
The image comes back anyway.
His hands on her.
The blood.
The way her body didn’t move.
And this time there’s no explosion of anger with it.
No loss of control.
Something worse settles in its place.
Something patient.
When I get my hands on him, I will not rush it.
I will not lose control.
I will take him apart slowly.
Piece by piece.
I will make him understand exactly what he did.
Exactly what he took.
Exactly what he almost cost me.
The doors open.
All three of us look up at once.
The doctor steps out, his expression professional, controlled, the kind of look that doesn’t give anything away, and that alone puts something sharp in my chest because I know what that means.
I know what it looks like when someone walks out with bad news.
“Are you the ones who brought in the young woman?” he asks.
I’m already on my feet before he finishes the sentence.
“Yes,” I say. “That’s my wife. Liana Bellandi.”
The word wife lands heavier now.
Different.
“My name is Elijah Bellandi.”
His eyes flick briefly to Jackson and Zach before settling back on me.
“Alright,” he says, nodding once. “She’s made it through surgery.”
The words land.
And for a second nothing happens.
Not relief.
Not reaction. Just stillness.
Like my body doesn’t know what to do with it yet.
Then Jackson exhales sharply, the sound tearing out of him like something that’s been trapped in his chest for hours.
“Fuck.” he breathes, dragging a hand through his hair. “Thank God.”
Zach’s head falls back against the wall, his eyes closing again, his chest rising in a slow, controlled breath that looks like it hurts.
Relief.
Thin.
Fragile.
Barely there.
I don’t move.
Because I’m waiting.
Because I can see it, there’s more.
“But,” the doctor continues, and the word lands exactly where I expected it to, settling into my chest like something heavy, “she’s lost a significant amount of blood, and there are high levels of narcotics in her system.”
My jaw tightens.
Not visibly.
But I feel it.
“We’ve stabilised her,” he says, “and we’ve repaired the internal damage. The knife missed any major organs, which is what saved her.”
Saved her.
The words echo.
He gestures slightly as he continues, explaining, clinical, detached in a way that makes it easier to hear.
“It entered the lower abdomen, just off to the side. There was internal bleeding, but we were able to control it and repair the damage before it became catastrophic.”
I see it again.
Too clearly.
Her on that floor.
The blood. The angle of it. I force it down. Hard.
Alive.
That is what matters.
“But right now,” he continues, “it’s touch and go. Her body has been through a lot. We don’t know how she’s going to respond over the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, or when she’ll regain consciousness.”
The relief shifts.
It doesn’t disappear. But it changes. It stretches thinner. Turns into something unstable.
Waiting.
Uncertainty.
A different kind of tension.
I nod once.
“Is she stable?” I ask.
“For now,” he says.
For now.
The words settle badly. They don’t give anything solid to stand on.
Then the thought I hadn’t even wanted to consider surfaces in my mind.
“She was...She had been taken by a man. He was...” I swallow, not wanting to say it out loud and give it any weight. “When we found her he was on top of her. Can you find out if he... took advantage of her?” I say, the words bitter in my mouth.
The doctor studies me for a long moment before he nods.
“We can run some tests.” He says softly.
If Paul had touched her like that... I stop the thought before it forms because I can see there is something else as the doctor looks at me.
He hesitates.
“What?” I ask.
My voice is sharper now.
His expression shifts, something more careful settling into it.
“There’s something else,” he says.
Everything in me stills.
Completely.
“Are you aware your wife is pregnant?”
The world stops.
Like everything inside me has been cut clean through in one precise motion.
“What did you say?”
My voice comes out quieter this time.
Controlled in a way that takes effort.
Like I’m holding something back that wants to break through.
“Your wife is pregnant,” he repeats. “From what we can estimate, she’s around six weeks along. It’s very early.”
Six weeks.
The number lands.
And this time...it hits.
It collides with everything else already sitting in my chest.
The blood.
The surgery.
The waiting.
And now this.
Pregnant.
My chest tightens hard enough that I have to force a breath in.
“Is she still pregnant?” I ask.
The question comes out immediately. There is no hesitation. No space for anything else.
“Yes,” he says. “From what we can see, everything appears stable.”
For now.
Everything is for now.
But...she’s alive.
And...the baby... the weight of it lands fully this time.
Not just what it is. But what it almost wasn’t. What was at risk. What he put at risk.
What he took from us before we even knew it existed.
This...should have been something else.
Something quiet. Something shared. Something where she tells me. Where we find out together. Where there isn’t blood on my hands and a surgeon explaining how close we came to losing everything in the same breath.
My jaw tightens.
Harder this time.
Paul didn’t just take my wife.
He took...this.
When I get my hands on him again, there will be nothing left of him.
Nothing.
The doctor continues, his voice steady, moving through details I only half hear now.
“We’re moving her into a private room,” he says. “A nurse will come and get you shortly.”
I nod.
He leaves.
The silence that follows feels different.
Quieter.
Heavier.
Full.
Jackson lets out a breath that almost turns into a laugh.
“She’s alive,” he says, like he doesn’t quite believe it yet. “She’s...fuck, she’s alive.”
Zach pushes himself off the wall slowly, dragging a hand through his hair.
“And pregnant,” he says quietly.
The word settles again.
Heavier this time.
Real.
I don’t speak.
Because if I do, everything under the surface will come with it.
And I don’t need that.
Not yet.
What I need is to see her.
A nurse steps out into the hallway, her gaze finding us.
“Mr. Bellandi?”
I look at her.
“Yes.”
“You can come through now.”