Chapter 16
ANYA
Waking up hurts. I can handle the pain. It’s a language I’ve been speaking my entire life. This is worse than just pain. It’s like my body is refusing to cooperate with my brain, and nothing irritates me more than feeling weak.
I try to sit up, but the movement triggers a sharp, terrible stab under my ribs that steals my breath and turns everything into a tight blur for a second. The bed creaks. My shoulder tenses. My vision darkens, warning me that unconsciousness is imminent if I don’t do something different.
I force myself to stop moving. I take short, shallow breaths because deep ones make me feel like I’m being stabbed in the lungs. I force myself to take in the room instead, hoping that taking my mind off the pain will make it stop.
I stare up at white ceiling tiles. The lighting is fluorescent and harsh. It’s not like any hospital room I’ve been in before. For one, there are no windows. An IV line runs from my arm to a bag hanging beside the bed.
That should be reassuring. It’s not. The IV means blood was taken. Labs were probably done. Shit. The pain under my ribs pulses again when I swallow.
The memory comes back in pieces. I remember the sharp gunfire and the blasting of car horns. I can hear Viktor shouting in my mind. I can see bodies falling to the ground in my memory. Then a man is stepping out of an alleyway and pointing his gun right at Viktor.
Why did I shove him out of the way? I could have ended this whole nightmare. I could have ended my captivity and made a run for it. Instead, I chose to take a bullet for Viktor. I chose to save his life.
My throat tightens at the memory. Tears spring to my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. I knew that Viktor living gave me a better chance at surviving Mikhail. That’s all it was. It doesn’t have to mean anything else.
The room is quiet, and there isn’t the flurry of activity I would expect at a hospital. No voices in the hallway or footsteps running toward a critical patient. No, Viktor wouldn’t bring me to a hospital. There would be too many questions involved. Too much risk.
A woman steps in a moment later. She’s older, with her hair pulled back tight, and she wears a calm expression that suggests she’s seen worse than whatever I look like right now. She moves to the IV line and the bag before she even glances at my face. She isn’t over-friendly.
“You’re awake,” she says when she sees my eyes open.
Her tone is neutral. She’s not necessarily happy that I’m awake, but as my nurse, I have to imagine she’s at least a little glad I’m not dead.
“Unfortunately,” I rasp, and my voice comes out dry and rough.
She checks my pulse with two fingers, then shines a light briefly in my eyes.
“Are you experiencing a headache?” she asks.
“No,” I answer.
“Nausea?”
“Yes,” I say.
She looks at my face for a beat, then glances down at the blanket. “What’s your pain level on a scale from one to ten?”
“It’s enough,” I say.
She doesn’t react.
“From one to ten,” she repeats.
I stare at her.
She stares back like she’s had this conversation with tougher men than me. “I need a number.”
“Six,” I answer, though it’s closer to a nine.
She nods once and adjusts the bed slightly, raising the head so I’m not flat. The movement sends pain slicing under my ribs again. I keep my jaw tight and refuse to make a sound. The nurse watches my face like she’s measuring whether I’m about to do something stupid.
“You have two cracked ribs,” she says casually.
“Is that all?” I mutter.
“And bruising. A lot of it. The bullet didn’t penetrate. You’re extremely lucky.”
Funny, I don’t feel lucky. I feel pain and I feel shame. There’s also the confusing emotions from choosing to take a bullet for a man I thought I hated. Lucky, though? Not one bit.
The nurse checks the monitor, then the IV again.
She makes a small adjustment to the drip, hopefully letting in a little more pain reliever than I’m getting.
Her hands are steady, and I notice myself watching them the way I used to watch my mother’s hands when she cooked.
Like I’m hoping to find comfort in her movements.
“The doctor will be in soon,” she says.
My stomach tightens. I know Viktor is out there somewhere, just waiting to hear that I’m awake. I’m not ready to face him just yet.
The nurse finishes and steps toward the door.
“Try to rest,” she says, then hesitates like she’s deciding whether to offer sympathy. She decides against it. “You need it.”
The door shuts behind her. My breathing stays controlled, shallow enough to avoid lighting my ribs on fire. My hands curl under the blanket, nails pressing into my palm. In the back of my mind, I think of the pregnancy.
He knows. He must know. He brought me here and he’s not the kind of man to care about HIPAA laws. That thought makes my pulse jump, and I hate it. This isn’t something I was ready to share, and the choice was taken away from me. How am I supposed to face him now?
The door opens again and I’m out of time.
Viktor walks in and shuts it behind him.
He stops a few feet away from the bed like he’s forcing himself not to crowd me.
His eyes move over me in a quick scan, not lingering on my face for long, dropping to the IV, then to the blanket over my ribs.
His jaw is tight. His hair is slightly messy. There’s dried blood on his cuff.
“You’re awake,” he says nonchalantly, though I can see the tension rippling under the surface.
“I wish I wasn’t,” I rasp.
My voice sounds weak. My throat feels tight, though I’m not sure if it’s from pain or fear. Viktor’s eyes flick to my mouth in concern. His gaze drops to the monitor again.
“How do you feel?”
“Everything hurts,” I answer.
He nods once then steps closer to the bed. His hands stay at his sides. He doesn’t touch me.
“The doctor says you have two cracked ribs,” he says slowly.
“Might as well be all of them,” I mutter.
His mouth twitches faintly, but he doesn’t let himself smile.
“I wish you could have more pain medicine, but…”
He trails off, but he doesn’t have to finish his thought. I know what he’s thinking. If I confirm it, though, it’s out there forever. There’s no taking it back. I’m not sure if I’m ready to be the first one to break.
Viktor’s gaze sharpens. “You shouldn’t have moved me out of the way.”
That’s not at all what I expected him to say. Maybe he doesn’t want to be the first one to break either.
“I saw the shooter,” I say, because I refuse to let him rewrite the moment into reckless stupidity. “You didn’t.”
His jaw tightens slightly. He doesn’t argue the logic. He can’t. A thick and uncomfortable silence settles between us, and the truth is too much to bear. I force myself to say the thing that has been clawing at my throat since the moment I opened my eyes.
“I should have told you,” I breathe out.
He blinks once. “Told me what?” he asks, playing coy.
“Stop pretending you don’t know what I mean,” I say with as much frustration as I can muster. “I should have told you about the baby.”
His gaze drops to my stomach immediately, even though there’s nothing to see there. That automatic movement makes my spine stiffen. It makes me want to curl around myself like I can hide it.
He looks back up at me with an emotion I can’t quite decipher.
“You should have,” he agrees. “So why didn’t you?”
His voice is calm and controlled. I think I would prefer anger.
“Because it wasn’t safe,” I answer.
His eyes narrow. “Safe for who?”
“For anyone,” I say bluntly.
Anger crosses his face for just a moment, but I know he knows I’m right. A baby in this world is a liability. Not just for me, but for him, too. It’s something his enemies can use against him. It’s something Mikhail would absolutely kill me over.
“We’re in this together now,” he finally says. “No matter what, we both have to keep our child safe. That means no more stupid maneuvers. When I tell you to stay in the car, you sure as hell better stay in the car.”
“That doesn’t work for me,” I argue. “You can’t dictate everything I do just because I’m pregnant.”
“I thought you were going to die!” he nearly shouts.
He doesn’t sound angry, though. He sounds desperate. He sounds afraid. Like he watched his whole life slipping through his fingers and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Did he feel that way before he knew about the baby, or was that fear just for me?
My throat tightens instantly. I hate the sensation. I hate the way my eyes sting for a fraction of a second. I don’t want to cry in front of him.
“My death has always been an inevitability,” I say calmly. “Since the moment you took me from that car. It’ll either be a quick death from one of Mikhail’s soldiers, or a slow, agonizing death being married to that monster.”
“Those aren’t your only options,” he argues tensely. “Why don’t you trust that I can keep you safe?”
“No one is safe from him, Viktor. That’s the point. Unless you’re prepared to kill him and deal with the fallout, we will never be safe from him. Neither will this baby. So what is the point of pretending differently?”
“Do you really think I would let anyone hurt my child?” he asks carefully, moving closer to the bed and resting his hand on mine. “Do you think I wouldn’t move heaven and earth to keep that baby safe?”
His gaze holds mine for a long moment.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to the mother of my child either. No one is touching you.”
“You’re being delusional,” I try to argue, but I can feel the pain meds starting to kick in and I grow incredibly tired. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I never have, and I don’t intend to start today,” he says, with a small smile on his lips. “No matter what happens next, I promise you that I’ll always protect you.”
Maybe it’s just the nice feeling I’m getting from the meds, but I start to believe him. I start to imagine a future where Mikhail doesn’t find me, and I’m able to give this baby a relatively normal childhood.
“That’s a nice idea,” I say out loud, though I’m not sure if I’m talking to Viktor or myself.
My body is so heavy and I’m so exhausted. I feel like I’m floating away from this room, toward a place where his promises might actually mean something.
“It’s not just a nice idea,” he says firmly. “I mean it, Anya. No one will ever hurt you again.”
His eyes are so sharp as he says it. I’ve never noticed before what nice eyes he has. If my mind were sharper right now, I wouldn’t. I would never allow myself to notice the handsome cut of his jaw or the kindness of his smile.
Just for the moment, though, I let myself notice. I let myself get carried away in this fantasy. It’s a nice thought as I drift back off to sleep.