34. Sloane
SLOANE
When I wake, my neck aches from sleeping at the wrong angle and one of my hands is still curled around the edge of Ethan’s blanket, as though some part of me believed holding on to the fabric would keep him exactly where he was while I slept.
The room is dim except for the monitor beside his bed and the faint wash of morning beginning to gather beyond the window, and for a few seconds I sit there without moving, trying to remember what woke me before realizing nothing did.
I simply slept longer than I meant to.
Ethan is still asleep. His breathing is shallow but steady, his face turned slightly toward me, and I reach across to touch his hand before glancing toward the glass panel beside the door.
Vadim is gone.
There’s no dark figure standing in the corridor, no Anton waiting several feet behind him, no security men pretending not to watch me while somehow noticing every time I move.
I look farther down the hall. Nothing.
The disappointment arrives so quickly that I hate myself for it.
Isn’t this what I wanted? I told him to leave me alone.
I told him I couldn’t survive having him tear apart what little remained of my life, and after everything between us, after the anger and the accusations and the way he looked at my stomach as though the ground had disappeared beneath him, maybe he finally listened.
That should feel like relief. Instead, the corridor looks strangely empty without him.
I turn back toward Ethan before I can examine that thought any further.
Then the door opens, and Vadim steps inside. My heart gives one humiliating jolt before I notice the people behind him.
There are at least six of them. Two men in medical scrubs, a woman carrying a hard black case, another man in a white coat speaking rapidly to one of the hospital nurses, and two orderlies pushing equipment I have never seen before.
I stand immediately. “What’s happening?”
Nobody answers me.
The room fills with movement so quickly that I have to step backward to keep from being pushed aside. One of the doctors checks Ethan’s monitor while another begins examining the IV line, and a nurse I don’t recognize reaches for the controls on his bed.
“What are you doing?”
The woman in scrubs looks at me briefly. “Please stay out of the way, ma’am.”
“I’m his sister.”
“We understand.”
“No, you don’t understand. What are you doing to him? You’re not even his doctor!” I all but scream.
I move toward Ethan. Vadim catches my arm before I reach the bed.
“Let go of me.”
“Sloane.”
“What the hell is going on?”
Ethan stirs at the noise. His eyelids open slightly. “Sloane?”
“I’m here.” I try to move toward him again, but Vadim’s grip stays firm.
One of the doctors injects something into Ethan’s IV, and I lose whatever control I had left. “What did you give him?”
Nobody answers quickly enough.
“What did you give him?”
The doctor finally looks toward me. “A sedative.”
“Why?”
“We need to move him.”
“Move him where?”
The orderlies are already releasing the brakes on the bed.
I turn on Vadim. “What did you do?”
His face remains infuriatingly calm. “Relax.”
The word detonates something inside me.
“Don’t tell me to relax while strangers drug my brother and roll him out of his room.”
“He is safe.”
“You don’t know what safe means.”
His jaw tightens. I barely notice because everything I’ve wanted to say to him for months begins coming out at once, all of it dragged loose by the sight of Ethan unconscious while men I don’t know move him toward the corridor.
“You think you can just appear and start making decisions because that’s what you do with everyone else, but he’s not one of your men, Vadim, and he’s not one of your fucking businesses, and you don’t get to decide what happens to him just because you’ve decided you know better than everyone around you. ”
“Sloane.”
“No.” I pull against his hand. “You already took away my choices once. You kept me in your house, you decided when I could leave, you decided what I was allowed to know, and now you come here and start doing the same thing to him because apparently everybody becomes property the moment you decide you care about them.”
His fingers tighten slightly around my arm, not enough to hurt, but enough that I notice.
I stare at his hand. Then at him.
“Maybe this is what you do when people become inconvenient. Maybe Camille was easier because you could just shoot her, and maybe I should be grateful you haven’t decided I’m inconvenient enough yet.”
Something moves through his face—a mix of anger and pain. Both gone too quickly for me to be certain.
He leans closer. “It’s good that you finally see me for the monster I really am.”
The words are quiet enough that nobody else hears them.
I know what he’s capable of. I know the things he has done. I know how easily violence fits into his hands.
And I still love him.
That’s the part I accepted only after I left.
Somewhere between hiding in unfamiliar hotel rooms and sitting beside Ethan’s hospital bed at three in the morning, I stopped trying to convince myself that what I felt for Vadim had been fear or obsession or some temporary madness created by proximity.
It was love.
When I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified. I cried until I could barely breathe because I knew exactly who the father was and exactly how impossible it would be to tell him.
But underneath the fear, buried somewhere I felt ashamed to admit existed, there was happiness too. A selfish, private happiness that even if I never saw Vadim again, some part of him would remain with me.
Abortion never entered my mind as a choice I could make. The baby became the one piece of him nobody could take away.
And now he stands in front of me telling me he’s a monster as though I haven’t spent months loving him anyway.
My hand moves before I think. The slap cracks across his face.
Everything around us seems to stop for half a second.
Vadim’s head turns slightly. When he looks back at me, his eyes are furious.
I’ve seen that expression destroy men.
He does nothing. His hand drops from my arm. “Your brother has been taken to the top floor.”
I stare at him. “What?”
“The top floor.”
My brain supplies the worst possible explanation immediately.
The helipad. I saw it when I arrived.
He’s moving Ethan. Taking him somewhere.
“Oh my God.”
I turn and run.
“Sloane.”
I ignore him.
The elevator is too slow, so I head toward the corridor, only to nearly collide with someone coming around the corner. Iosef. I practically run into him. He looks alarmed when he sees me.
For several seconds I simply stare at him. He looks thinner than I remember and moves with a stiffness that immediately reminds me of Camille’s knife, though there’s nothing threatening about the man in front of me now.
His expression changes when he sees my face. “Sloane?”
“Where is my brother?”
He blinks. “What?”
“They took him upstairs.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I try to move past him.
He catches my elbow lightly. “Wait.”
“I don’t have time.”
“You are confused,” he says, frowning, as if he’s debating something with himself.
“I watched them sedate him.”
Understanding finally crosses his face. Then, incredibly, he almost smiles. “They are not kidnapping your brother.”
I yank my arm free. “How would you know?”
“Because they moved him to the Grand Suite.”
I stop. “The what?”
“The private medical suite on the top floor.”
My anger stutters. “What private medical suite?”
Iosef gestures toward the elevator. “Come.”
I hesitate.
He’s probably the only man in Vadim’s circle I have never been afraid of. Even now, after everything, there’s something mild about him that makes following him feel less dangerous than standing here imagining helicopters.
We take the elevator together. Neither of us speaks.
When the doors open, I realize immediately that this part of the hospital is nothing like the floor Ethan has been on.
The corridor is quieter, wider, with private nursing stations and rooms that look closer to expensive hotel suites than medical wards.
I follow Iosef to the end.
Ethan is there.
For a second, I can’t process what I’m seeing.
His new room is enormous compared to the old one, with a separate sitting area, private nursing station and enough medical equipment around the bed to make the previous room look almost temporary.
Two doctors are speaking beside the monitor while another specialist I’ve never seen before reviews scans on a large screen mounted near the wall.
Ethan is still asleep. But he’s here.
I turn slowly. “What is this?”
“Courtesy of Vadim.” Anton’s voice comes from behind me.
I look over my shoulder. He approaches with his phone in one hand.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“It means your brother is staying here now.”
I glance toward Ethan again.
Anton continues, “He will have round-the-clock private nursing, and the specialists Vadim contacted started arriving this morning.”
My mouth goes dry. “Specialists?”
“Three so far. Another is flying in tonight.”
I stare at him. “Flying in from where?”
“Different places.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
Anton’s expression barely changes. “The people considered best at treating his condition.”
I look through the glass again. One of the doctors is speaking to Ethan’s regular physician. Another is reviewing his medication history. Everything I’ve spent months begging people to take seriously is suddenly happening around him at once.
“He did this?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“Yes.” Anton puts his phone away. “Your brother will get the best treatment available, Sloane. Vadim made sure of that.”
I can’t speak.
A soft chime sounds behind us, and the elevator doors open. I turn, to see Vadim standing inside. The faint red mark from my hand is still visible across his cheek.
Our eyes meet.