Chapter Twenty-Nine
April
Guilt ate me up over the fact that Ivan got stabbed.
Sure, on a logical level I knew that I wasn’t the knife-wielding asshole who’d plunged the blade into his body, but it was my stupid pregnancy cravings that put him in harm’s way.
Maxim assured me—more than once—that Ivan would be fine.
That no major organs or veins had been hit.
None of that, not even the weirdly delicious combination of dill pickles, both spicy and sweet, and peanut butter could ease the guilt.
It just felt as if everything was going wrong when this sacrifice, this odd agreement, this unorthodox arrangement was meant to make everything better.
Jacob could live his life without worrying about how he would pay for necessary medical treatments and Igor would have an heir to secure his family line.
All of that was happening but it just felt as if it all had gone wrong.
Totally fucking wrong.
Probably because I decided to get the money, though unknowingly, from a Russian mobster.
That was the part I hadn’t counted on.
My gaze slid from the beautiful and vibrant landscape of the compound to the half-eaten plate of food sitting on the table just a few feet away.
Just a few more bites, I told myself. It was the least I could do since Igor hadn’t stormed into my room—yet—and asked why I was straying from the approved eating list. I told myself it was that he was a busy man, but my heart believed he would rather have me eat pickles and peanut butter than deal with me and that stung.
A hell of a lot more than I anticipated.
“Whatever,” I groaned before I stood and walked a few steps to pick up the plate, hoping the beautiful view outside my window would be enough of a distraction for me while I finished the plate of food that was the rare combination of delicious and nutritious.
It didn’t matter that Igor was ignoring me because I decided that I was now—just in this moment—ignoring him. I didn’t need him as a man, not at all. The only thing I needed from him was for him to keep his end of our agreement. The end.
Liar, my conscience taunted me.
Maybe. Maybe today it was a lie but tomorrow was a new day and one of these days it would be true.
With that thought buoying me, I finished every last bite with a satisfied smile and then I rewarded myself with a giant pickle slathered with crunchy peanut butter.
This grand plan to save my brother wasn’t working out the way I thought it would, but it was working and wasn’t that really all that mattered anyway?
Yep. It was the only thing that mattered.
A quick knock sounded on the door and instinctively I rolled my eyes, but I stood up and reluctantly made my way to see which of Igor’s employees had decided to grace me with a visit, because I was certain it wasn’t him. “Mikhail,” I frowned. “What’s up?”
His gaze looked everywhere but at me, which put me on edge until he shoved a paper bag in my direction. “Ivan wanted me to give you this.”
My brows knitted in confusion, but Mikhail jerked his hand away so fast I had no choice but to grab the bag or let it fall to the floor. “Um, thanks. Is he around?”
“What? Oh, no he’s not here.”
“Okay. Well, thanks,” I offered up and closed the door before I looked inside.
It was a sweet gesture but one that didn’t make any sense.
Only Maxim knew how I felt about Ivan’s stabbing, and he surely wouldn’t have shared that information with anyone other than Igor.
But the chocolate candy bars also threw me for a loop.
Ivan and I weren’t familiar, and we weren’t friends so it didn’t make sense that he would give me chocolate when he’d been out to get my savory treats.
Stop reading into every damn thing.
It was a good point, still I shoved the chocolate into a desk drawer and went back to gazing out the window like some tragic fucking heroine.
Minutes later Kelsie’s ring pulled me from my racing thoughts and with a smile, I picked up the phone. “How did you know I needed to hear your voice?”
“April,” she began in a tone I hadn’t heard from her since she had to be the one to tell me she’d walked in on my boyfriend getting a blow job from someone who wasn’t me.
“What is it, Kels?” But of course I already knew what or rather who it was. “What’s wrong with Jacob?” He was the only thing that would put that tremor in her voice. “Talk to me Kelsie. Please.”
There was a long silence followed by sniffles.
Fuck, she’s crying so it’s bad. Really fucking bad.
“J- Jacob was having trouble breathing,” she began.
“He did all the things he’s supposed to do but it just kept getting worse.
N- nothing was working and then he started coughing,” she stammered out. “Eventually passed out.”
Unconscious? “That’s not good. You have to get him to the—”
She cut me off. “I’m in the ER now. I rode with him in the ambulance, and I couldn’t call.”
Tears streamed silently down my cheeks as I listened to Kelsie tell me that my brother stopped breathing but that the paramedics had managed to get him to open his eyes and soon after he sent a flirty smile her way.
It was a relief, but my focus was on the fact that Jacob needed me, and I wasn’t there.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I assured my best friend.
“April, I called because you needed to know but you don’t need to be here.”
“He’s my brother,” I insisted because that was easier than saying he’s all I have.
“And it’s bad enough he has to be here in this germ infestation with his health problems. We don’t need you both engaging in this kind of risky behavior.”
I appreciated the sentiment, but my mind was made up. “I’ll see you soon,” I told her and ended the call, yanking my bedroom door open to go in search of Maxim. I took the stairs quickly but carefully as I worked out all arguments I could use to get Maxim to listen and take me seriously.
“April, what is the matter?”
I stopped just shy of the last step and looked up at Maxim’s worried expression. “Just the man I’m looking for. I need to get to the hospital immediately.”
His body stiffened as his gaze slid down my body to rest at my growing belly. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s not me,” I assured him with a protective hand over my belly as I launched into an abbreviated version of what happened to Jacob. “I have to get there, Maxim.”
“I understand,” he began in that calm almost sympathetic manner. “But I cannot.”
Emphasis on almost sympathetic. I shook my head and reached for any semblance of patience I could find. “You misunderstand, Maxim, I am only asking you for a ride. Not permission.” I hit him with my best determined stare to let him know that I wouldn’t budge on this.
“April,” he sighed as if I was the unreasonable one.
“No Maxim. I have done every damn thing required of me, but this is my brother. My and if you think you can keep me from going to the hospital to see for myself that he’s all right, well you don’t want to know what will happen if something happens to him and I’m not there.
” I turned around and marched right back up the stairs to put on shoes and grab my phone.
Behind me Maxim spoke quietly into the phone, no doubt tattling on me to the boss.
Two minutes later I walked down the stairs once again with my phone clutched in my hand, determined to summon a rideshare if Maxim continued to be an obstacle.
Instead what I found was Igor wearing an unhappy expression that closely resembled mine.
He opened his mouth to say something, but I was sure that I didn’t want to hear it, so I shook my head. “Let’s go then.”
The tension in the car was thick enough to cut with a knife with me on one side of the back bench seat and Igor on the other side.
The tension didn’t bother me, not when I couldn’t think about anything but getting to Jacob.
Sometimes his breathing issues could go away as if they never existed and other times required days in a hospital bed.
It wasn’t lost on me that the last time Igor and I were in the back of a car together things were much different.
“What happened with Jacob,” he asked in that gravelly tone that skittered over my skin like a live wire.
A heavy sigh fell from my lips and I shook my head. “He’s having trouble breathing which happens often. Listen you don’t have to pretend to care, I appreciate you making sure I could get here safely.”
“Who says I don’t care?”
Your silence. “It doesn’t matter,” I replied as the hospital came into view.
“It matters to me.”
“No,” I sighed again. “It doesn’t and that’s okay. I don’t expect you to care Igor, that’s not what our agreement is about.” I said it out loud as much for his benefit as for my own.
He didn’t reply and I was grateful, but what I wasn’t grateful for was his constant presence as I stepped from the car and weaved through people inside the hospital to get to the nurse’s station and then to my brother’s room.
He was right there, too close and smelling too good for me to hang on to my anger, but I tried.
Oh, I tried like hell.
I stopped in front of the door with the number on it the nurse gave me, and I sighed.
It was time to be strong, like usual. I couldn’t rush inside all frantic and worried because it would annoy Jacob as much as it would stress him out.
I was the calm presence so that he had the room to freak out over his illness.
Igor’s hand pressed against my back, and I froze. “It’ll be all right, April.”
I shrugged off his touch and his reassurance. “You don’t know that.” There could be anything on the other side of the door. It could be worse than I imagined or better, the only way to find out was to push the door and step inside. To see for myself. “Stay here.”
“No. Absolutely not,” he growled and laid a possessive hand on my shoulder.