Chapter 57
My eyelids fluttered,as if they were attempting to open. They were heavy and steadfast against me, but somewhere in the depths of my soul, I willed them to do as I bid.
I gazed at a stark white, texture-free ceiling that I didn’t recognize.
Anxiety at not knowing where I was assaulted me, causing my heartbeat to skyrocket.
The machine at my bedside began to beep incessantly.
An alarm went off.
Heavy leather boots hit the floor and suddenly Bones was there—at my bedside.
“Hayden,” he whispered.
His eyes were bloodshot, and though he had the healthy sprout of a beard, his skin was wan. Dark hair fell across his forehead. He didn’t bother pushing it away.
I moved my tongue in my mouth, and slowly the feeling began to return to my face.
“You look like hell,” I croaked.
The plaster of his face finally gave way and he smiled. A smile so bright it was nearly blinding.
Questions filtered through my wool-stuffed head, getting trapped as they attempted to rise to the surface.
“Water?” I asked.
He walked slowly around the bed to the nightstand and poured water from a pitcher into a plastic cup with a straw. He brought it to my lips and I greedily sucked down the cool liquid.
It tasted stale and overly chlorinated, and yet it was the best thing I’d ever tasted.
When my thirst was quenched, I leaned back and stared at him.
“Nurse is on her way,” he stated. “You set off the alarm. She’ll be here in a minute.”
I blinked but said nothing.
“Where the fuck is she?” He grimaced and ran a hand through his dark hair and then he marched to the door. He almost yanked it off its hinges in his haste.
I stared at the ceiling and waited for him to return.
My mind played over the last thing I remembered. The gunman cornering me in the bathroom. Charlie opening the door and hitting him by accident. The gun going off?—
And then nothing.
Charlie.
I struggled to sit up as I looked around for my phone. Panic swelled in my chest. I needed to know what had happened to Charlie.
The door to the hospital room opened and Bones returned with a blonde, middle-aged nurse. “Easy, sugar,” she crooned.
“Where’s Charlie?” I asked, my pulse spiking, causing the alarm to go off again.
“With Walker,” Bones replied. “She’s been by your bedside the last four days—Walker finally convinced her to leave the hospital and go home and get a few hours of sleep in her own bed. She’s okay.”
I took a deep breath.
The kind nurse gently placed her hand on my shoulder and urged me to lean back. She checked the monitors, tapped out some notes on her device, and then said, “Your anxiety is off the charts and I need you to try to relax. How’s your pain?”
“Pain?” My body wasn’t registering pain. “I don’t feel much.”
“Good. If you start to feel pain, you press the call button. I’ve paged the doctor to let him know you’re awake. He should be here soon.”
“Thanks, Janet.” Bones took my hand and laced his fingers through mine.
Janet left and I looked at Bones.
“Four days?” I asked softly. “I’ve been out of it for four days?”
“No, Duchess. You’ve been out for a whole week. We didn’t know if…”
“If what?”
“If you were going to wake up.” His eyes filled with anguish. “Your mother’s been here constantly. They brought in a cot for her to sleep on, and she’s stayed by your bed. Charlie and I slept in the chairs. The Old Ladies and brothers have stopped by. Oliver, too.”
“Oliver,” I murmured. “A week? Really?”
He nodded.
“Tell me what happened,” I insisted.
“You were shot,” he said, his hand tightening. “The fact that you’re alive is a miracle. The bullet didn’t hit dead-on. The angle…it came in shallow and slid underneath your skin instead of punching through. It zipped around underneath your scalp and then shot out the side of your head. If Charlie hadn’t opened the door when she did…”
“And that’s why I was unconscious for a week.”
“No, you were unconscious for a week because you hit the floor so hard your brain swelled. They put you in a medically induced coma to give your brain a chance to heal and relieve the pressure. You were intubated. They removed the tube this morning and you breathed on your own just fine.” He paused for a moment. “After that, they began to wean you off the drugs so you could wake up.”
I sat with the information for a moment. It felt like it had happened to someone else.
“And Charlie…she’s okay?” I frowned. “He didn’t go after her?”
“No. She was focused on you, and he used the chance to get away.”
“He got away?” I whispered, fear striking a heavy chord in my chest.
The door to the hospital room opened and a doctor in a white coat entered.
“Mrs. Dalton,” he greeted with a wide smile. “I’m glad to see you’re awake. I’m Dr. McCullough. I’m going to ask you a few questions, and while I do, I’m going to need to check your pupillary response. A little light coming on. Open your eyes for me…”
Mrs. Dalton. Right. I’m married.
I wanted to shout at the doctor to leave. I didn’t care about anything else except getting an answer from Bones about the man who’d shot me in the head.
Bones squeezed my fingers in support and then he let go. He moved back to give the doctor room.
“You were lucky,” Dr. McCullough said after he finished my exam. “No memory loss that I can tell. No permanent damage. You just need time to heal and recover. And may I suggest counseling. You’ve been through a lot.”
“When can she be discharged?” Bones asked.
“In a few days,” the doctor said. “I want to monitor her a bit longer. Just to be safe.”
Safe. I wasn’t safe. None of us were safe. There was a gunman still out there who hadn’t finished the job. No doubt he was waiting for the perfect time to come back and finish it. And kill anyone who stood in his way.
Dr. McCullough left the room and the door closed behind him.
“Bones,” I said. “The gunman? He’s still out there?”
“I need you to stay calm,” he said. “I need to tell you some things, but not at the risk to your health. You have to promise me you’ll breathe and keep your heart rate low.”
“Not knowing is causing my heart rate to spike,” I stated. “So please. Just out with it.”
Bones reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He turned it off and then took it into the small bathroom in my hospital room. Bones turned the sink on and left it running, and then he shut the bathroom door and came back to my bedside.
“My brothers have been on guard duty outside your room since you were brought to the hospital,” Bones said. “You haven’t been alone. But we found out who he is…”
I frowned. “You found him?”
“Not me, personally. I haven’t left your side. Until I knew you were going to wake up, I couldn’t leave you. The club…outsourced it.”
I closed my eyes as my head swam. “You outsourced what, exactly?”
Bones sighed. “We got the security tapes from the hotel. And with the help of several…acquaintances, we found out who he is and grabbed him. It wasn’t long before he gave us the name of the man who hired him. Pyotr Novikov.”
“Russian?”
“Yes. We didn’t have the full picture. Novikov was behind all of it, including your father’s death.”
I stared at him. “None of this makes any sense.”
“It will. Novikov found Arnold several years ago and made a deal with him. Novikov was going to use Arnold to get rid of your father and take over Spencer Pharmaceuticals. The plan was to get control of the board and tank the company so Novikov could buy up shares for pennies on the dollar. After he’d acquired the shares, he was going to have Arnold begin to sell off the company patents one by one to fund the company again and cook the books. That kind of cash inflow would send the stock price to the moon. Then Novikov would sell everything he’d bought and make out like a bandit with clean money. It was in the works—but our marriage put a stop to it.”
“It screwed Arnold completely,” I murmured. “But why would Novikov still come after me if the plan was already ruined?”
“Because instead of letting the share price fall, you started buying up stock over market value. While you and I were at breakfast, Novikov’s plan was crumbling. A plan that had been in the works for years. Tens of millions of dollars vaporized, for him at least.”
Dread filled my stomach. “And Novikov and his hitman are still alive?”
“For now.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means they’re being held somewhere that no one will ever find. It means I’ll deal with them.” He gripped my hand. “I’ll end this for you, without mercy. No one will ever know what was done.”
“Will you tell me? How you plan on…handling this?”
“Duchess…” His eyes softened. “You said you loved both Royce and Bones. But if you find out what Bones is truly capable of, you might not be able to lie to yourself anymore. You think you want to know that side of me, but be careful what you wish for.” His look was solemn. “I’ll leave it up to you. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you.”
I knew he was capable of violence. I knew the lengths he’d go through to ensure I never had to look over my shoulder again. But he was offering me the truth, if I was strong enough to handle it.
“Would you think I was weak if I said I didn’t want to know?” I asked softly.
“No. I wouldn’t think you were weak.”
“You’ll have blood on your hands. I’ll know that much. That’s enough for me. I don’t need details.”
“All right.” He squeezed my fingers. “There’s just one thing…”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Novikov is Bratva.”
My eyes widened. “Bratva? You mean Russian mafia?”
“Yes.”
“But if you kill him, won’t that just mean more violence?” I asked. “Won’t they come for you? For me? And everything we love?”
“No. Pyotr Novikov is the younger brother of Alexei Novikov. Pyotr was planning a coup to supplant his older brother. Everything he was doing was part of that plan. It was a power move to gain the funds to hire mercenaries to kill his own brother and prove he could pay his allies. Alexei doesn’t want it known by his men or his enemies that his own brother was planning to kill him. We have an agreement with him now; we take out Pyotr and there will be no retribution from Alexei, even though we’re technically engaging directly with Bratva.”
I frowned. “And how did you get Alexei to agree to that? It’s his brother, and things like that are usually dealt with internally, aren’t they?”
“Ramsey Buchanan,” he said quietly. “Ramsey has ties to a very powerful Russian who has sway despite living in Europe. Ramsey’s…friend parlayed on our behalf.”
I swallowed. “When are you going to…”
“When you’re safely home. When I can stand to leave you for longer than five minutes.”
“Will you ever let me out of your sight again?” I asked with a quivering smile.
“Doubtful,” he said, his tone gruff. “It’s my fault this happened.”
“What? No. No, it’s not.”
“If I hadn’t left you alone, he wouldn’t have tried anything.”
“How did he get into the hotel?” I asked. “There was security.”
“He went to the worker’s entrance, dressed as a cater waiter.”
“He was determined to find me,” I said. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
“I could’ve lost you.”
“But you didn’t,” I said gently. “And you were by my bedside when I woke up.”
“I didn’t leave the hospital for the first three days,” he admitted. “They gave me a pair of scrubs to change into because of…”
“Because of…oh, the blood. My blood.”
“There was a shit ton of blood,” he mumbled. “You’re not allowed to scare me like that ever again. I can take a lot of shit, but I can’t take that again. I love you, Hayden.”
I looked at the man I loved. The man who’d kill for me to ensure I was safe. Tears threatened to spill down my cheeks.
“Then hold me, and never let me go.”