Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hailey
The sharp bite of disinfectant replaced the slaughterhouse stench—blood and smoke and rot.
My eyes flew open. I gulped air like I'd been drowning. My lungs felt packed with broken glass, every breath tearing me up. Cold white fluorescent lights stabbed at my vision. Somewhere close, a machine kept a steady, relentless beep in the emptiness.
"Hey. Deep breaths, Hailey. Look at me."
Warm hands clamped down on my arms as I tried to rip the IV out. Samantha's face crashed into view—tear-streaked, wrecked. Her red hair sat in a messy knot, her eyes bloodshot like she hadn't slept in days.
"Sam..." My voice scraped out, raw as sandpaper.
And then memory came roaring back—an explosion that shook the world, a wall of heat, and that broad back that had covered me, shielding me from the blast like nothing else mattered.
"Viktor!" I fought to sit up. Pain yanked low in my belly, and I sucked in a harsh breath, but I didn't care. "Where is he? Where the hell is that maniac?"
"Lay down, you suicidal idiot!" Samantha shoved me back into the pillow, eyes blazing. "You've been out for twenty-four hours. The doctor said you have a mild concussion and soft tissue damage, and if you keep thrashing around, you'll lose the little one in your stomach for real!"
The baby.
My hand slapped down on my flat belly on instinct. My heart locked up like a fist had closed around it. I was alive. The baby was still here.
But the man who'd used his own body as a shield—
"Tell me the truth, Sam." I stared at her, nails digging into the back of her hand. "How bad is he?"
She bit her lip. Before she could answer, the door swung open.
Dmitri walked in, suit wrinkled, blue stubble shadowing his jaw like he'd forgotten what sleep was.
"Pakhan is in ICU," he said, cold and clipped, like a battlefield report.
But his eyes held that tightly leashed exhaustion.
"His back took eighty percent of the blast. Thirteen fragments lodged in muscle.
Three ribs broken. He made it through surgery.
He's not in immediate danger. He's a monster. Death can't take him."
Tears hit hard, instant. I didn't even think about the IV in my hand as I threw the blanket aside.
"Take me to him. Now." I locked onto Dmitri, red-eyed. "Don't give me the mafia rules, Dmitri. Wheel me over there."
The ICU corridor got sealed off by a wall of black-clad guards—armed, alert, ruthless. When Dmitri pushed me toward them, they lowered their heads in perfect unison and stepped aside.
Through thick glass, I saw Viktor.
The man who always looked untouchable lay there like someone had unplugged him. Clear tubes ran into him. An oxygen mask covered half his face. On the monitor, a green line crawled and jumped—slow, stubborn proof he was still here.
I pushed inside. The rubber wheels of my chair made no sound on the sterile floor.
I told Dmitri to wait outside. Then I forced myself up, shakier than I wanted to admit, and inched to his bedside. I lowered into the chair beside him.
My hand trembled as I covered his right hand—the one without an IV. That big, callused hand felt icy. No warmth. I pressed my face into his palm and tried to keep my sobs quiet. I failed.
"You absolute bastard," I whispered, tears sliding through his fingers. "Why do you think you can just step in front of me like that? Aren't you the guy who controls everything? If you die... how the hell am I supposed to live?"
I stayed.
Two full days and one long night, I stayed. Samantha forced food into me, forced me to rest a few hours, but I refused to leave that room for anything else.
Until the fourth evening.
Outside the window, Manhattan burned red under the sunset. I slumped back in the chair, half-asleep, drifting.
Then the big hand I held shifted—barely. It turned in my grip and closed around my fingers like it had decided it was done letting go.
I jolted awake and looked up.
Viktor's ice-blue eyes were open. They didn't focus right away. His brow pulled tight with pain as the anesthesia wore off. His chest rose hard. He lifted a hand toward the oxygen mask, trying to tear it off.
"Don't—Viktor, don't move." I grabbed his wrist and slapped the call button. "Doctor! He's awake!"
He turned his head. The second he saw me, he snapped his hand around my wrist.
His lips moved under the mask. The plastic fogged with his breath, cleared, fogged again. He tried to speak, but I shook my head, refusing to let him push it.
Doctors and nurses flooded in.
They worked around him for nearly twenty minutes—checking pupils, blood pressure, adjusting the pain pump. And the whole time, Viktor's hand stayed locked on my wrist. Not once did he loosen it.
"Mr. Ivanov's vitals are basically stable." The attending physician pulled down his mask, still looking a little stunned. "In thirty years of medicine, I've rarely seen a patient with this kind of recovery speed. But the back wounds need absolute rest. No major movement for at least two weeks."
"I get it," I rasped. "Thank you, doctor."
When everyone finally cleared out, it was just us.
They'd switched him to a nasal cannula. He lay there pale as paper, but his eyes—those brutal, beautiful eyes—pinned me in place. They tracked over my forehead, my cheeks, my bandaged arm.
"Where are you hurt?" he said, voice shredded and rough.
"I'm fine." I shook my head fast, tears rising again. "Just scrapes. Viktor, you look like this and you still—"
"Let me see you," he cut in.
He ignored the tubes, ignored the monitor's angry chirp. His bloodshot stare burned over every inch of me, frantic, searching for anything broken.
Only when he seemed convinced I'd walked away with all my bones intact did he exhale. Fear flickered in his eyes—hard-held, barely contained, and it wrecked me.
"You're okay," he murmured. "I put you in that danger. I damn near lost you."
"I'm here, Viktor. I'm not going anywhere." I held his hand and pressed it to my cheek.
He looked at me for a long time. Then that big hand, shaking just slightly, slid down my arm—slow, careful. It stopped over my still-flat belly, hovering an inch above it like he didn't even trust himself to touch.
His throat worked. When he spoke, it came out as a cracked, cautious scrape. "And...our baby... still there?"
I caught his hand midair—trembling so hard it looked like it hurt—and guided it down, inch by inch, until his palm rested against me.
"Still there."
Viktor went rigid.
His hand stayed over my belly through the thin hospital gown. He didn't move. He barely breathed, like the slightest pressure might shatter something precious.
"He made it with me," I choked out, covering his hand with mine. "The doctor says he's fine. Strong heartbeat."
I watched the scariest man I'd ever known fall apart in a single second.
He shut his eyes. His throat bobbed hard. His chest rose and fell, tugging at the wrecked skin on his back, and he still didn't make a sound.
Hot tears slid from the corners of his eyes, silent, disappearing into his messy blond hair.
"Fuck," he rasped, voice shaking. "Fuck, Hailey."
"You knew," I said quietly, watching him. "Back at the slaughterhouse, you knew."
"Dmitri found footage of you buying a pregnancy test." He opened his eyes. Red-rimmed blue locked onto mine. "One clip. That was all. In the car on the way to that hellhole, I kept thinking—if it's real, if you're carrying my baby, and I drove you both into hell with my own hands..."
His voice broke off.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked. Not accusing. Begging. A cracked whisper. "Hailey. Why didn't you tell me?"
I opened my mouth.
That answer had sat in my throat for a month, choking me awake night after night. But when it finally came time to say it, my whole body shook.
"Because I was scared."
"Scared of what?"
"Scared to face you." My tears hit his hand. "And scared to face myself."
The room went quiet except for the steady machine-beep, counting time like it didn't care.
"That night," I said, dragging in a breath and dumping every last thing I'd buried, "I was angry. I was terrified. But when you touched me... my body betrayed me. I answered you, Viktor. I held you back. I wrapped my arms around you."
Viktor's jaw snapped tight. "Hailey..."
"I hated myself," I said, tears falling faster. "I hated that I should've pushed you away and I couldn't. I loved you so much it felt disgusting. You were a killer. You were mafia. And I still fell for you anyway. Completely."
He stared at me like something inside him had caught fire—hot, savage, almost insane.
"Say it," he ordered, voice ragged.
"Say what?"
"Say you love me." His hand tightened, like he needed to prove I was real. "Say it again."
"I love you," I sobbed. "I love Viktor Ivanov."
And then he moved—forgetting pain, forgetting wounds—and yanked me in by the back of my head, mouth crashing onto mine.
The kiss came brutal and scorching, full of that sickening mix of relief and despair you only get when you survive something you shouldn't have. I tasted blood—his wound had opened.
He didn't give a damn.
"Viktor... your back—" I panted, trying to pull away.
"To hell with my back," he growled against my mouth, teeth catching my lower lip. "Hailey. Marry me."
I froze.
"Now. Right now." He let me go just enough to look at me, eyes terrifyingly serious. "I don't want to wait anymore. I almost died in that godforsaken place. I'm not wasting another second."
"But you don't even have a ring," I said, crying and laughing at the same time.
"I'll make it up to you," he said, gaze burning. "I'll buy you the biggest, most expensive diamond on the planet. But right now, I just want to hear you say yes."
I looked at him.
Bandaged to hell. Pale enough to scare me. Still staring at me like he owned the air I breathed.
"You'll regret it," I said on purpose. "I'm a pain in the ass. I'll boss you around. I'll make you kill fewer people—"
"I'll do it," he cut in. "All of it. Anything you ask."
"You mean that?"
"I've never been more serious in my life."