There was fear.
And then there was terror.
The two might have seemed similar, but they couldn’t have been more different.
Fear was the extra beats of a racing heart, the anxiety simmering below the surface, and the trembling hands hidden from view.
The terror was all-consuming. Debilitating. It wasn’t just a fast heartbeat, but the belief a heart would stop altogether. It wasn’t just anxiety thrumming through the nerves, but the inability to even speak through the emotion.
Terror was vomit in the throat.
White-knuckles.
Dry mouth.
Aching sobs.
Fear and terror were not the same.
Violet Gallucci had never considered the differences between the two until terror was staring her straight in the face and laughing.
First, it came as a phone call. A simple call that silenced the men milling around her house who her husband had left behind to watch her. Then it came as a hand grabbing her wrist hard enough to leave bruises as she was shoved into a car with a gruff, “We gotta go.”
Go where?
Why?
Violet’s questions, asked quietly from the backseat of someone’s SUV, had gone unanswered. She listened as more phone calls were made, and sharp, angry Russian was spewed between men.
She heard his name said.
A few times.
Kazimir.
Terror was being shuffled from one car to another without an explanation. It was someone’s coat being thrown over her head as she was pushed into another backseat with a quiet, “Keep her face hidden.”
She didn’t bother to ask questions after that, knowing good and damn well they wouldn’t be answered anyway.
Terror was streets whipping by in a blur and worried eyes watching her in a rearview mirror after she’d yanked the coat off her head. It was streetlights that seemed too bright in the middle of the night with the snow falling down in heavy flakes. It was pulling into the emergency parking lot and seeing cars already waiting.
A fleet of them.
Men leaning against the driver’s doors.
Gazes trained on their car as it slowed to a stop.
Like they knew …
Like they were already waiting.
But she didn’t know.
But above all else, more than all that had come before, terror was seeing Ruslan Markovic sitting on the floor of a trauma triage room, bloodstained and silent.
Violet just … stared.
At the blood on the man’s hands and his clothes. At the bloody shoe prints smeared across the tiled floor that spoke of rushed chaos. At the handprint on the curtain where someone had flung it open.
And the wheel marks …
Violet’s gaze followed those to where a janitor was just starting to clean them, the heady scent of bleach filling the hallway.
Someone said something—a question, she was sure—but she didn’t really hear it. She couldn’t hear anything over the rushing in her ears or the tightening of her lungs with every breath that seemed to be a little more painful than the last.
Ruslan finally looked up, but he stared past her to someone else. Bloody fingers lifted high to his throat, slashing back and forth without even saying a word.
It took a while, more questions and silence, before sound began to bleed through Violet’s overworked senses.
Throat.
Cut.
Bled out.
Touch and go.
But worst of all was the I don’t know’s.
She’d heard the question that came before that answer, but she really didn’t want to.
Is Kaz alive?
“I don’t know.”
“Dim those goddamn lights.”
Violet’s words weren’t heeded, and the people around her were talking far too loud. The beeping monitors, hissing oxygen, and the respirator pump surely didn’t help.
Words like pneumonia, coma, and infection were being thrown around among medical jargon like she was supposed to fucking understand.
Oh, Violet understood.
She understood that Kaz was dying.
“Dim those fucking lights,” Violet snapped louder the second time.
Finally, the nurses, doctor, and Ruslan realized she was talking. For a long while, they stopped what they were doing, all their movements and conversation, to just stare at her as if she’d grown a second head.
Maybe—somewhere in the back of her numb senses—she understood why they were looking at her like she was crazy.
What would it matter to the man in the bed if the lights were as bright as day or dimmed to a bearable level? What would he care if they talked in hushed tones instead of loud voices that would wake the dead?
Why would he care, as he was unconscious and immobilized?
Still keeping one eye on Violet, a nurse close to the door where the switches were located reached over and dimmed the lights.
Violet’s attention went back to Kaz.
Gray skin.
Cold hands.
His eyes were closed—taped shut, actually. A tube attached to the respirator machine that was keeping him breathing had been shoved down his throat. Bandages, stained pink and needing to be changed soon—for the third time since she’d been allowed in his ICU room—wrapped his throat, hiding the damage beneath and the staples from the surgery.
He might need another, one doctor had said.
Another surgery, depending on how the night went.
More time in an OR.
Violet didn’t know how to deal with any of this, how to manage the torrent of terror and grief sliding down her throat with every swallow. A while ago, hours ago, she’d turned off somehow, and her heart went sort of numb.
That was the best way she knew how to explain it.
The conversation to her left continued, medical jargon being simplified when Ruslan barked at the doctor to give him something he could fucking use.
“We did what needed immediate attention,” the doctor said, sounding tired. “The bleeding and the damage in that area—that’s what we stopped. The nerves, his vocal cords …”
“That’s the second, then?” Rus asked.
Violet blinked over her shoulder, taking in Kaz’s brother who seemed smaller than she knew he really was. Like the world had just come along and sat itself down on his shoulders, and he wasn’t ready for the weight.
God.
She knew that feeling.
That and more.
“We’ll go back in and see if there was damage we missed,” the doctor continued. “But tonight, stabilization was more important. He came in coded; we had to worry about that first.”
Rus didn’t seem like he wanted to venture further on the topic of Kaz coming in coded, instead saying, “And the other … stuff. What of it?”
“Pneumonia from the cold. Coma from the blood loss. Infection from the wound. It’s all made this hurricane of circumstance for him—we have to take it one thing at a time, minute by minute.”
Not even day by day, Violet thought to herself.
No.
Minute by minute.
The doctor went on to explain how the infection was likely caused by the dirty snow Kaz had been lying in when he was found, but battling that was hard to do when his white blood cell count was so fucking low, and they were still working on replenishing what he’d lost.
Medication could only do so much.
His body had to do the rest.
“But we will give him time to do that,” the doctor added, passing Kaz’s prone form a pensive look. “The blood loss might have caused the coma, but we can keep him in it for as long as his body needs. Almost like a way to let his body focus on what needs care now and not all the other things that aren’t as important. And his brain—”
Violet’s head snapped up at that statement, and she cut off the doctor with a sharp, “What about his brain?”
The doctor didn’t answer.
Ruslan did. However, he never looked at her when he said, “He came in coded—they already said that, Violet. Loss of oxygen for even a minute can cause …”
Violet tuned Rus out, not wanting to hear the rest of his sentence. Didn’t they have enough to deal with where Kaz was concerned without having to add in the sorts of variables that meant even if he did survive, it might only be for a life that wasn’t really worth living?
No, she wasn’t going to entertain that at all.
For the first time since Violet had been allowed into Kaz’s room, she reached down to his side and tangled her fingers with his, feeling their cold slackness offer her nothing in response to her touch.
Maybe that killed her the most.
That he was so cold.
That he didn’t respond.
That he didn’t even know she was there.
Violet snatched the white grocery bag the guard—one of the many men that Ruslan had watching the ward and room Kaz was staying in—and didn’t even bother to thank the man for doing what she’d asked of him. It was hard to do anything, or get anything done, without someone else looking over her shoulder and overhearing every single thing she said.
This was not the sort of thing she wanted talked about, and she didn’t want to discuss it, either.
Two days into Kaz’s hospital stay and there wasn’t much change. It was still just as touch and go as it had been that first agonizing night. He still had machines doing all the work for him, heated blankets warming him because he couldn’t keep his body temperature stabilized, and his monitors indicated little to no activity.
It was terrifying and confusing.
When Ruslan had gone down to grab the takeout he’d asked someone to get them for dinner, Violet used that time to her advantage. While she was sure her brother-in-law wouldn’t have anything negative to say about what she needed, it still wasn’t something she felt the need to share.
Not yet, at least.
Disappearing into the private bathroom attached to Kaz’s room, Violet shut and locked the door behind her. She dug through the bag, tore open the cardboard boxes, and unwrapped pink and white plastic with blank window panes waiting to give a definitive yes or no.
She took the pregnancy tests with shaking hands, set all six of them up in a row on the edge of the sink, and then stared at anything but the thin pieces of plastic as she waited.
White grout.
White tile.
White porcelain.
Anything but those tests.
All too soon, the minutes ticked down to zero, and Violet didn’t have a choice but to give the tests her attention.
She already knew what they were going to say.
Double pink, bright lines crossed every single window on each of the six pregnancy tests.
They couldn’t be more fucking positive than they were.
Alone in the bathroom and knowing she didn’t have someone to share the news with was hard—the only person she wanted to tell wouldn’t hear the words, anyway.
Violet sat on the toilet for minutes, the silence of her world deafening, and the reality of her situation crushing.
A muffled shout from outside the bathroom finally broke her from the daze. Forgetting about the pregnancy tests lined up on the sink in their neat little row, she flew out of the bathroom to investigate the commotion. Ever since Kaz had been brought into the ICU, it had been relatively quiet. Rus didn’t allow people in and out of the room—he didn’t permit guests beyond the family waiting room, and usually, he would be the one to go down and talk if someone wanted an update on Kaz’s situation. Violet wasn’t entirely sure why Rus was so adamant about doing things that way, but she believed it had a lot to do with the way Kaz’s current situation was being handled.
That Rus would not, no matter what, allow Kaz to be seen in a weak state.
Partly, anyway.
Violet wasn’t sure of the rest.
Ruslan didn’t offer a whole lot.
At the sliding glass doors of Kaz’s room, Violet peeked out into the usually quiet and somber hallway of the ICU. Down at the far corner where their room was, the very edge of the nurses station was only slightly visible, though she was well aware their position did nothing to hinder the nurses and doctors from getting to Kaz’s room damn near instantly if they needed to.
But she was grateful for the privacy it afforded from the other patients and their families coming in and out. Their room was the only room at the end, so no one other than the nurses and doctors needed to be down that far, disturbing their privacy and peace.
For a second, Violet stared at the two men just a couple of feet down from the doorway of Kaz’s room, unsure of what she was seeing. She thought—maybe—she recognized the tall, broad-shouldered man who was standing toe-to-toe with Ruslan. He didn’t look like he was the least bit afraid of the anger gracing Rus’ features even if he was the one backed against the cinderblock wall.
But despite the familiarity Violet felt as she took him in, she couldn’t bring a name to his face.
“How did you get in here?” Ruslan asked.
The man shrugged. “Came in with a patient’s family as they were bringing in coffee.”
Ruslan’s gaze darkened. “Why?”
“I thought—”
“You shouldn’t be here, Nate,” Ruslan interjected, his tone as sharp as a razor’s edge.
Violet still wasn’t sure what to make of the whole scene, or why the two men seemed to inch a little closer to one another with every word they spoke.
Like they were close.
… familiar.
Friends, maybe.
Violet didn’t know why, but even friends felt wrong.
“I’m worried,” Nate said, “about you, your brother. It means I fucking care, Rus, but you’re so caught up in your own shit you can’t even realize that, huh?”
Ruslan moved forward fast, taking back the bit of distance Nate had gained by moving away from the wall. Violet quickly realized no space was between the men as Nate’s back was to the wall and Ruslan was close enough to the man that their hands brushed together.
Violet’s gaze traveled down to the men’s hands, and she almost missed it … just the slight sweep of Nate’s pinky finger against the side of Ruslan’s hand, and then Ruslan’s thumb stroking back.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Ruslan repeated quieter.
“I was—”
“Worried, I got that.”
“I’m sorry,” Nate muttered.
“For what?” Ruslan asked.
Nate sighed, his dark gaze never leaving Ruslan’s. “You’re right—I shouldn’t be here. You’re already on with her, yeah? You didn’t want me involved, now. I knew better than to be coming here, anyway.”
“You didn’t want to do this,” Ruslan responded. “Your words, not mine. You, Nate.”
The man chuckled dryly. “But wasn’t it you who didn’t want to do this for years, Rus? Who really did this, huh?”
Shaking his head, Nate pushed off the wall, taking a step away from Ruslan with his hands up high, like he was surrendering.
“I’m gone—I’m already so fucking gone, Rus.”
“You don’t know any—”
“I know about her,” Nate interrupted with a sad smile. “Isn’t that enough?”
“Wait a minute.”
Nate already had his back turned to Ruslan and was heading back toward the way he must have came. Violet thought then that she probably should have gone back inside the room.
She’d seen too much.
She hadn’t known … not about this.
Maybe she wasn’t supposed to.
Still, she stayed, watching as Ruslan took three long strides, fisted the back of Nate’s dress shirt, and pulled the man into the cinderblock wall again only to kiss him in a way that spoke nothing of friends but everything about lovers.
“You don’t know anything,” she heard Ruslan say when she slipped back into the room and out of sight.
Three silent minutes later, Ruslan strolled into Kaz’s room looking as if nothing had happened and like he didn’t even know she had been there watching the whole thing unfold. He barely spared her a glance as he crossed the room and dropped the bags of takeout on the small table.
Violet’s questions burned in the back of her throat, demanding to be asked.
It wasn’t her business.
She knew better.
She still asked. “What about that woman you brought to our wedding—Kira, right?”
Ruslan’s shoulders tensed, his hand clenching into a tight fist at his side as he turned to stare hard at her. “Do you know what happens to men who spy?”
Violet shrugged.
She wasn’t a man.
“Those rules don’t apply to me,” she replied.
Ruslan’s jaw clenched. “They can, Violet.”
“But they don’t. What about her—the woman?”
“What about her?” he asked gruffly.
Violet had a million things she wanted to ask, but she figured only one really summed up the whole thing. “Is she a cover for … all of that?”
Ruslan barked out a laugh that made Violet straighten in her chair and caught her off guard.
“A cover? No.”
“Then what is she?”
Ruslan’s humor faded. “Complicated.”
That explained nothing.
“Oh?” Violet settled on asking.
“It’s all fucking complicated.”
Not offering anything else, Ruslan made a beeline for the bathroom, his hand just grabbing onto the inside doorknob as he froze. Violet only realized her mistake—the tests she’d forgotten sitting on the sink—when Ruslan swore under his breath.
“Did he know?”
That was all he asked.
Violet answered truthfully. “No.”
What else was there to say?
Time always moved slower when a person was waiting for something to happen. It was almost as if the world just knew Violet needed something good—something worthy of hope—and it was willing to torture her just a little bit longer.
The days bled together.
Three, then four.
Five jumped to seven in a blink.
She slept when she felt tired, and that didn’t always mean when the sky was dark outside of Kaz’s windows. She measured days in the number of meals Ruslan shoved in front of her to eat, not the dates scribbled across Kaz’s charts by a different nurse on a new shift.
It was easier that way.
Time didn’t feel so slow.
It seemed like more was happening that way rather than the nothingness there actually was.
Hot chocolate in hand, Violet had just stepped onto the elevator that would take her back up from the cafeteria to the ICU when a hand slid between the closing doors, forcing it to open. At the sight of that hand, adorned by rings she would never be able to forget, Violet took a huge step backward and bumped into the railing attached to the wall of the elevator.
Her father stepped inside with a smile.
He said nothing; simply let the doors close behind him.
When they finally slid shut, he turned his back to her, facing the doors, hitting the top floor button and making Violet curse inside her head. She hadn’t hit the button for her floor, and now, the elevator would just bypass it altogether. Violet’s hand twitched, fear curling hard in her stomach as she reached for one of the few items in her messenger bag hanging down at her side. Her hand just wrapped around the butt of the handgun when her father turned back around.
The elevator began moving upward when Alberto Gallucci said, “You look tired, topina.”
Violet’s throat tightened, threatening to keep her quiet. Still, she managed to say, “Of course, I’m tired.”
She left a hell of a lot unsaid in that statement.
Things she believed her father likely already knew without her saying it for him.
“Unfortunate, what happened to your Russian,” Alberto said softly.
Untrue.
Too caring.
Lilting sympathy coloring the words.
Violet could hear the falseness dripping from her father’s words. “How much of a hand did you have in it all?”
Alberto smiled, cold and cruel. “Very little, actually. Had I of known Vasily’s plans in that regard, I would not have wasted my time with the other nonsense.”
“Nonsense like having me kidnapped and beaten?”
“You don’t look beaten.”
“Now,” Violet snapped back. “And the first thing Ma ever taught me was how to cover a bruise with a makeup brush, Daddy.”
Alberto’s gaze narrowed just enough to tell Violet she’d hit a nerve.
Good.
That was her every fucking intention.
She was done playing her father’s games. Done feeding his whims and wants over her own. She did not belong to this man, and she wasn’t going to let him keep thinking otherwise.
It was over.
“What do you want?” Violet asked.
At first, Alberto didn’t respond.
Violet wondered how he had even managed to get past the men watching the hospital, although if truth be told, she didn’t know exactly where all the men were posted other than the ones on the ICU floor.
“You,” her father finally replied.
“What?”
“You asked what I want—I want you. That’s an easy enough answer for you to understand, dolcezza, surely.”
Violet shook her head, her grip tightening around the gun even more, though her father couldn’t see it inside her bag. “I’m not yours to have. You don’t get to come into this hospital where my husband is recovering to make demands or threaten me, Alberto.”
“I have done neither of those things, Violet.”
Yet.
She knew that unspoken word was meant to be tacked on there.
With Alberto, it was always tacked on.
“Your Russian … He’s not doing well, is he?”
Violet forced herself not to respond. She wouldn’t give her father a goddamn thing where Kaz or his current condition was concerned.
“Is he even awake yet?” Alberto asked. “Will he be the same when he is awake, girl?”
Violet’s heart ached. How dare he throw those statements at her as though they were nothing—like they meant nothing—when he had to know how real those possibilities actually were for Kaz.
“Fuck you.”
Alberto didn’t even flinch at her words; he merely smiled again. “This can all go away, Violet. That offer is still there—nothing is unfixable. Don’t you remember when I told you that, sweetheart? I meant those words, and I still do.”
“I don’t care.”
“Is that what you want—an invalid for a husband, useless in all things and incapable of caring for you? I’m sure he was wonderful before, but how wonderful will it be when—”
Violet moved fast, pushing past her father to hit the button that would force the doors to open on the next floor. It was one higher than the one she would need to be on, but that didn’t make a fucking difference to her. She’d take the damned stairs as long as she could get away from Alberto and his vileness.
The elevator jerked suddenly as it came to a stop, doors flying wide open to an empty hallway. Alberto’s hand closed tightly around Violet’s arm before she could get out of the elevator, his fingers digging hard enough into her skin that he would surely leave a bruise.
“I’m not finished,” her father snarled.
Too fucking bad.
Violet was done.
The hand that she’d kept hidden inside her messenger bag lifted, exposing the handgun she held as she pointed it right at Alberto’s face without hesitation. There was no loosening of her grip as her father moved back an inch, no shake to her hand as his eyes widened.
No, she just flicked the safety off and pulled the hammer back, letting the click echo between them.
“Let me go,” Violet said quietly.
Alberto’s grip tightened momentarily before it loosened.
It still wasn’t enough.
“If you think I’ll come running back to you, wanting your praise and approval in exchange for your love and affection, then you’re sorely fucking mistaken,” Violet told her father, never once letting the gun move even a fraction of an inch. “And if you think for one second that I won’t blow your face off if you don’t let me get out of this elevator so I can get back to my husband’s bedside, then keep touching me and I’ll get to see what kind of art we can make on these walls, Daddy.”
Alberto let her go, and she stepped out of the elevator.
Violet didn’t lower the gun until the doors closed.