“I’ll have someone take you home,” Kaz told Violet. “You can change out of those clothes and relax for a bit. There’s nothing you can do here, yes?”
She heard him, of course, but her mind was not cooperating enough for her to give him a response.
“Let me through! I need to see my son! Please!”
Kaz stood fully, spinning fast on his heel at the sight of his mother forcing her way past two large men who had been standing in the family waiting room of the OR.
“Mama,” Kaz said, a thickness coloring his words.
He’d been so carefully managing his emotions, Violet noticed. From the moment he’d arrived on the scene to the point when Rus had been shoved into the back of an ambulance, Kaz barely gave away a thing. Schooling his features, he had shouted for someone to call his lawyer when the cops had shown up on the scene only seconds after the ambulance left.
Irina was let through, the twins following right behind their mother with red, watery eyes and with matching expressions of fear. At Violet’s right, Vera stood from the seat she’d been seated in, baby Anastasya in her arms.
Alfie, a man Violet rarely spent time around, put a hand on Vera’s shoulder, and pushed her back into her seat with a quiet, “Sit, dovie, you’ll do no good for her like you are. Let your brother handle it, yeah?”
“But—”
“Arguing is fucking pointless today, innit?” Alfie asked, seemingly emotionless despite the affection implied in his words toward Vera. “Not the best time, luv.”
Violet took her daughter from Vera. The two stepped off to the side, and the harsh whispering began as they settled in a set of seats in the far corner. She was too focused on her husband approaching his stunned, heartbroken mother.
“Ma,” Kaz said, his arms outstretched toward Irina, “he’s in surgery, we’ll know more—”
“You have one job that matters,” Irina interrupted softly.
Kaz’s back tensed, his next words hesitant. “You don’t understand what happened, Ma.”
Violet doubted he was about to explain it to his mother.
He hadn’t even explained it to her yet.
“One job, Kazimir,” Irina repeated, “and that is to protect your family—all of them.”
Kaz said nothing, but Violet could see the pain reflecting in his profile as he glanced away.
The twins began to ask questions, shooting one after the other.
“What happened?” Dina asked.
Nika’s question came at the same time. “Will Rus be okay?”
“How long before we know something?”
“Can we see him as soon as he’s out of surgery?”
Dina peered over at Violet. “Why is she all bloody?”
“Was she there too?” Nika asked.
The questions kept coming.
One after the other.
Violet could see Kaz’s control beginning to wane with each one.
Finally, he said, “That’s enough.”
His words came out quiet but forceful.
It was a tone she rarely heard Kaz take with his younger sisters.
Still, it did the job, and the girls quieted.
Irina pushed the girls toward a line of chairs, ordering them to sit and be quiet for a while. Once the twins settled, phones in hand, she turned her attention back to her son.
“What will you tell me?” Irina asked.
Kaz’s gaze traveled over the people around them. Many watched the exchange, but they were too far away to get the full conversation.
“Things happened,” Kaz offered blandly.
“Your brother was nearly kill—”
“I know, Ma.” Letting out a harsh sigh, Kaz scrubbed a hand down his face. “I just … mind the girls, I have calls to make.”
His cold, sterile response gave away nothing.
Irina only stared at her son, sadness dawning her gaze. “I’m so tired of doing this, Kazimir. I have been doing this—getting these calls and spending nights in these same rooms—for years. You have one job that truly matters, do it well.”
Kaz hadn’t even allowed his mother to finish talking completely before he was walking away, leaving the waiting room entirely without so much as a look over his shoulder.
But Violet had seen something his mother probably hadn’t noticed in her spiel.
His fist, shaking, had been shoved in his pocket.
His jaw, tight with stress, clenched.
Kaz was hitting his limit.
Violet didn’t know why exactly, but she knew that look on her husband.
He was losing his control.
Entirely.
Violet was on her feet, passing her daughter off to Irina before she followed behind her husband. She only saw his back a second before he disappeared behind locked doors that lead out of the OR floor.
“Kaz, wait!”
He didn’t stop.
Violet jogged to catch up, pushing through the doors in time to see Kaz take another corner, one she knew led to a line of elevators. She only caught up with her husband once she was in front of the elevators, the door just closing as she slipped in, making sure to put her hand up to keep a woman from entering the elevator as well.
“Take another one,” she told the scowling lady.
The doors closed, and Violet turned to face Kaz. His back was to her, and his whole body was tense, as though he were readying for a battle and fit to kill.
“Kaz.”
“Let me think.”
Violet flinched at the venom in his tone.
She wasn’t accustomed to this Kaz.
“I want to help,” Violet stressed.
Kaz barked out a laugh, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes as he turned around and leaned against the elevator wall. “You can’t help. You, like my mother, have no idea—”
“Because you’re not explaining it, Kaz! I don’t know what’s wrong beyond Ruslan, but something is, and you can’t blame us for not understanding when you’re not giving us the ability to. Don’t you get that?”
He dropped his hands, that flashing darkness back in his eyes as he waved toward the elevator door. “I can see it on her face, you know? It’s all there, even if she’s not saying it. I can fucking see it.”
Violet’s brow furrowed as she took a hesitant step closer. “What do you mean?”
“My mother—she’s thinking if this was Vasily, if this had been him today, this wouldn’t have happened. Rus wouldn’t be nearly dead in an OR. And the worst fucking part is she would be right. She would be entirely right, Violet.”
She still didn’t understand.
“How would Vasily have made a difference?”
Kaz spat out another bitter laugh. “Because he would have made a different choice. See, I had a choice today—you, my child, or my brother. Do you get it yet? Do you understand the choice I had to make?”
Violet just blinked, feeling so unsteady on her feet.
Like the floor was about the swallow her whole.
“My father.”
It didn’t even come out as a question.
He hadn’t explained to her what had come before the shooting, or why it occurred. There was really no time, and there were too many people around listening and wanting information.
Now … now, she understood.
“He made you choose,” Violet whispered.
Kaz looked away, refusing to meet her eyes. “My mother—what’s she thinking—is right. Vasily wouldn’t have made the choice I did. No matter how much he loved his wife, she could be replaced with another. One of his daughters? Fuck, he has three. He can afford to lose one. But one of his men—his sons? Even the one who disobeyed him, shamed him … no, he would have never made that choice.”
Violet let out a shaky breath. “It’s ok—”
“Don’t. It’s not.”
“You’re not Vasily.”
He nodded, though it looked a little sardonic with the way he sneered. “You’re right, I’m not. Because I’m that fucking selfish, yes? I couldn’t pick my wife because I can’t live without her, and I didn’t pick my daughter because I couldn’t stand the thought of living with you knowing what I’d done. So I picked someone else—even if I love him, too—because that was the easy way out. And she …”
Kaz choked out another laugh, waving wildly again at the doors. “She doesn’t understand because I wouldn’t ever say these things to her to explain. I would never want to make her understand just how much of a bastard her husband really was; I wouldn’t want her to feel the way I feel right now.”
“Kaz …”
Violet saw the way his hands shook, and his face hardened, though pain filled his gaze. She stepped forward, close enough to grab him and force him to stop moving; close enough to hug him tight, so tightly that her arms ached. She just wanted to hold him together.
Because that was what was happening …
He was falling apart.
She felt his hands find her sides, squeezing painfully hard, but she didn’t say a thing or ask him to stop.
When his face buried into her shoulder, his words and sounds muffled from the thick fabric of her ruined, bloodstained coat, Violet shivered.
Not because he was close … not because he had calmed a bit.
No, because he used her, the closeness, the elevator, and the privacy to scream, letting her coat muffle a shout filled with so much rage and agony. She held on to him tighter, wrapping one arm all the way around his back and letting her other hand tangle into his hair to weave within the strands.
She had never hated her father more than she did at that moment. Alberto was still, in a way, doing what he had promised. Violet was stuck, not quite knowing what to do or how to help her husband when he was so clearly struggling to maintain control over the events happening around them.
It was killing him, and if it didn’t, it eventually would.
Violet would be the one watching all the while.
Her heart hurt.
“You made the right choice,” Violet told Kaz.
For him, he had.
His choices didn’t have to reflect what others would have decided.
“Should I tell Ruslan that, too, yes?”
Violet didn’t respond.
She didn’t know how to.
Five minutes later, Violet walked out the elevator with her husband like nothing had happened. They looked no different than they had when they’d gone in, dry-eyed and expressionless masks firmly back in place.
What else could they do?
He would do anything for her. How many more times did he have to prove it?
She could do this for him.
Hours crept by as Kaz remained at his brother’s bedside. Men came and went, and after a few last reassurances from Rus’ doctors, Kaz had finally been able to convince Irina and the girls to leave. Alfie had reassured him with a clap on the shoulder that he would take care of them, even convincing Violet that she and the baby needed to come as well.
Now, he was alone, left with the guilt of the choice he’d made.
And that guilt, that all-consuming emotion, was only made worse because he still didn’t regret the decision he made, not as he was hearing the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor connected to Rus.
How many times had he thought Rus was infallible?
This wasn’t the first time Rus had been shot, not even the second, and more damage had been done to his body than anyone could fathom—what was once more? The question had plagued him relentlessly as he raced across the city and even when he slammed on the brakes and hopped out of his car.
That fear …
He wondered if Rus had felt the same when he found him all those months ago, a breath away from death. Did he feel as helpless as Kaz felt when he’d come upon his body, his blood staining the asphalt, thin lines of red streaking down the street?
But even seeing him there, he knew he would have made the same choice because hearing Anastasya’s wails and even Violet’s cries had felt like music to his ears.
They were alive.
And selfishly, that was all that had mattered to him then.
Now, knowing that Rus would be okay and that infection was all they had to worry about while he healed, Kaz allowed himself to feel the guilt of his actions and the ramifications of his choice.
Once Rus woke up, he would have to explain what had happened, and he wasn’t looking forward to his brother’s reaction.
“Sir!”
Kaz glanced up a second before Nathaniel—the man who ran Rus’ club, and his sometimes lover—appeared in the doorway, his gaze barely landing on Kaz before he was looking for Rus.
Four years Kaz had known the man, and not once had he ever seen such a broken expression on the man’s face. He had always been so careful, Rus too really, never showing anything as to their relationship because of how others would react.
Especially Vasily.
Had he known about Nathaniel, Vasily would have made it a point to make an example out of him.
For one unguarded moment, Nathaniel looked at Rus the way Kaz knew he looked at Violet. Kaz didn’t interrupt, giving the man as much privacy as he could by turning away, though he did not intend to leave his seat.
A second, maybe two, passed before Nathaniel cleared his throat. “How is he?”
When Kaz looked back, all traces of emotion were gone from his expression. They weren’t the only ones feeling the pressure of battles both won and lost. “Stable. He’s got at least another week in here. They want to make sure he stays clear of infection.”
Nathaniel dug his hands into his pockets, leaning a shoulder against the wall. “You didn’t have to call me.”
Kaz shrugged, patting his pockets for the pack of cigarettes he had on him. “I would like to think that if the positions were reversed, he would make sure Violet was here.”
“It’s not—”
“No worries,” Kaz said before the other man could finish, getting to his feet. “Your secret has always been safe with me. I need a smoke, so I’ll give you some time. There are a few of my men out here already, but anybody who even looks remotely Italian tries to come in this room, you have my blessing.”
He had given his men the same order.
Taking the elevator down to the front entrance of the hospital, he stepped out the door, immediately stepping over to his left where the lights couldn’t reach. When he got that first big inhale, burning nicotine saturating his lungs, he felt a bit of that pressure inside his head dissipate.
A plan.
That was what he needed.
Until now, he had been playing defense, waiting for the moment Alberto made a move against him to strike out. Now, he needed to take a page out of his father-in-law’s book and hit him where it hurt.
And he didn’t have to hurt him, not really. He just needed Alberto to come out of hiding, to show his face once more to give Kaz the opportunity to end this once and for all.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been out there with his cigarette dangling from his lips when a taxi braked to a sudden stop in front of the hospital, and a girl in a modest black dress scrambled out of the back, practically throwing a twenty at the driver as she started for the entrance.
It wasn’t until she got to the light did Kaz actually recognize her.
Kira …
Rus’ something.
He still wasn’t sure how all this shit worked. “Hey.”
Kira slowed, blinking and squinting at him until he came back toward the building. “Kaz, hey.”
“I would have called,” he said, walking with her into the building and toward the bank of elevators. “But I didn’t know how to contact you.”
“Right, yeah, I know. Nate called, so it’s all good.”
Despite the flippant way she’d said that, Kira looked nervous about something. It could have been worrying about Rus, but watching her, he didn’t think that was it at all.
“Something wrong?”
She looked up at him with wide eyes. “It’s just been a long night.”
Yeah.
He understood that all too well.