Not one of Anatolij’s pawns waits to pick me up from the airport in Moscow. Julij’s there, sitting by the arrivals gate, staring at the screen of his phone, a suitcase beside him.
“How did you get here before me?” I ask.
He peers up. The look on his face matches what I’m going through inside. Bloodshot, puffy eyes, and a pale face; a true testament to his feelings… I couldn’t care less.
Nothing matters except Layla. I want to see her, be with her, and I want her to look at me with those beautiful, big, gray eyes of hers.
“I landed half an hour ago. Don’t forget it’s a direct flight from New York. You had a change-over in Warsaw, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. How’s Layla?”
“Stable,” he pushes all air down his nose and tucks the phone away, getting to his feet. “She was in surgery for almost four hours. She’s still unconscious. I spoke to Anatolij. I’ve never heard him so shaken up before, Dante. He’s taking this really hard. Try not to kill the guy, alright?”
Julij still has no idea my soon-to-be-wife and the love of his life is, in fact, his cousin. This is neither the time nor place to drop that kind of a bomb on him.
“I’m sure he did more than he could to keep her safe, Julij. I don’t blame him. How is he doing?”
“That’s not what I expected, but I’m glad you see it that way. I don’t know how he’s doing. He says he’s fine.”
We leave the building and hop into the car Julij rented. Neither of us speaks as he navigates the maze of Moscow’s streets. Less than half an hour later, we walk through the long hospital corridors side-by-side, climbing several flights of stairs and passing hundreds of small rooms on our way to the private suite in the intensive care unit.
My step falters as we reach room number six-hundred and twenty-two. I’m afraid to go inside. I’m afraid I’ll break down. I’m afraid I’ll lose my shit when I see the most important person in my life unconscious in a hospital bed. I close my eyes briefly, inhaling a deep breath. The door swings open, pushed by both of my hands, my eyes on the floor for the first two seconds.
The potent, irritating smell of disinfectant hits the back of my nose. The hum of life-support machines fills the air: heart monitor, pulse oximeter, mechanical ventilator. That last one turns my stomach. I let my eyes roam over the bed, starting with the white sheets, then climbing up slowly to Layla’s face.
Her light, pale skin tone blends into the sheets but she looks calm. Peaceful. If not for the patient monitors around the bed, I could easily believe she’s asleep, not unconscious. Her blood pressure is low. Her heartbeats are slower than I remember her heart beating three weeks ago under my fingertips.
Multiple IVs drip through long, plastic tubes and into the veins on her hands. A part of the dressing covering the gunshot wound on her chest peeks from underneath the bedsheet.
On elastic legs, I walk further inside the room one step at a time. The door behind my back opens with a quiet creak. I don’t need to look over my shoulder to know it’s Julij. He sucks in a harsh breath, equally as distraught by the sight of Layla as I am. I lean over her and press a gentle kiss on her forehead. She’s warm, but her lips are almost blue. Long eyelashes cast small shadows on her bony cheeks. Even now, she’s so fucking beautiful I’m not sure why she’s with me. She could make any man beg. I sit in the chair beside the bed when Julij stops at the foot, eyes on the mechanical ventilator helping my star breathe.
“I’ll go find Anatolij. Maybe he can tell us more about what the hell happened.”
“I want to be there when you talk,” I say.
With a curt nod, he leaves, taking care to close the door behind him quietly as if he’s afraid he’ll wake Layla.
“I’m here,” I whisper, ghosting my lips along her knuckles. “Your turn, baby. Don’t you dare leave me now.” I swallow the lump clogging my throat and rest my forehead on her hand, eyes closed. “I love you so much. I’ll take you home. You’ll be just fine.”
Time stands still and moves forward at warp speed. An hour goes by before a quiet knock brings me out of the haze I found myself in, staring at Layla, willing the dark scenarios to stop tormenting my tired mind. This isn’t the time for what-ifs. This is the time to believe. The time to make sure she’s well cared for and monitored from every angle.
Julij’s pushes his head in the door. “Got a minute?”
“Yeah.” I kiss Layla’s temple first, then follow him out.
Anatolij waits in the bright corridor, a fresh dressing on his neck. The aura of superiority I got used to is absent now, his face an open book. The guilt-ridden expression is close to what I expected, but the fear tainting his steel-gray eyes isn’t. He’s not afraid of me, though. He’s afraid to lose Layla hours after telling her she’s his daughter.
“Dante, I’m—”
I stop him, raising my hand. Apologies won’t help the situation. They’re also unnecessary. “Don’t apologize. You think I don’t know you’d have taken that bullet for her if you could? I do, Anatolij. All I want to know now is the prognosis.”
“She’ll be okay. I don’t doubt it for one second. The surgery went according to plan. She’s got the best doctors looking after her.”
No, she doesn’t. Not for about five more hours. “The best doctor is on his way. Once he arrives, whatever he says, goes. Can you make sure the hospital staff knows he’ll be in charge? He’ll call all the shots.”
Before he answers, a blaring noise starts behind Layla’s door. Among the alarm noise, the air is pierced with a flat-lining heart monitor…
Heart-bursting terror consumes me whole, filling my lungs with ice-cold vapor. Blood freezes in my veins. I throw myself at the door, bursting inside the room like a wrecking ball.
Hundreds of cold hands squeeze my throat. The image becomes blurry when I register the long, green line on one of the monitors. She’s dead. Her heart’s not beating.
Julij and Anatolij grab me by the shoulders, yanking me back and out of the room to make space for several doctors who rush past me to Layla’s bed. The door slams shut in our faces as soon as we’re out in the corridor.
My legs fail to hold my weight. I stumble back and slide down the wall throwing an arm over my face, my body nothing but a shell. In the magnitude of emotions too painful to bear, my mind isolates the sound of the flat-lining heart monitor. It’s all I hear while I’m silently falling apart. I’m blinded by emotions, by rage and pain incomparable to anything I’ve ever lived through. No fucking words exist to describe this; no words to verbalize the agony or the fury. It seeks an escape route out of my body. I pull on my hair, but the physical sting doesn’t numb the anarchy seizing my mind.
Before I met Layla, I wanted power. When she entered my life, I wanted her. When I fell in love, I wanted a future with her at my side. Now, I’m losing my way; my goal in life. My goddamn purpose.
My imagination summons memories from a few months ago. I see Layla in a red dress as she walked through Delta with enough confidence to rival my own. The whole evening comes back to haunt me; Layla’s gestures, smiles, and every time my heart skipped a beat when she looked at me. I remember the crushing desire that washed over me when we kissed for the first time.
I cup her face and catch her lips with mine.
Fuck… she tastes like everything that’s right with this world. Like sunshine, rainbows, and candy. Adrenaline throbs in my limbs, the sensation comparable to the first time I pulled the trigger. I slip my tongue inside the silk of her mouth, deepening the kiss. The touch of small hands on my neck ignites every nerve ending in my body.
This isn’t sweet and tender. Not how I imagined it’d be. Not how I wanted her first kiss to be, but there’s fuck all I can do about the burning need that consumes us both. The floral scent of her skin, the sweetness of her lips, and the quiet sigh that escapes her strips me of all inhibitions.
She grips a handful of my jacket, pressing herself to my chest, there’s enough power in her kiss to light up downtown.
The cool evening air fills with the sound of blaring horns but I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. Fulfilling her wish is the most gratifying moment of my twenty-eight years. Merciless desire starts in the pit of my stomach when her fingertips ghost across my jaw and with that delicate touch, the kiss evolves… slows… deepens.
And I want more.
So much more.
Pieces of all the best moments flicker in my mind, inflicting more pain—her laughter; her warm, naked body covered by a mist of sweat; every smile; every I love you.
I never told her how much she means to me or that I’d do anything for her.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got you, and I’m not leaving you here alone. There’s a line of men waiting to take my place. No way in hell I’ll let that happen.”
She chuckles as she drapes her hands over my neck. “There’s no one I’d rather be with. You make me the happiest I’ve ever been. I mean it, Dante. I love you so much. I really love you. More than you can imagine.”
“I know, Star,” I press my lips to her forehead.
For the first time in my life, tears sting my eyes. I hold my head, rocking back and forth like an orphan.
“Don’t ever leave me again,” I whisper, resting my forehead on hers, eyes closed. “Never leave me, baby.”
“I promise.” She steals another kiss.
“You promised,” I whisper. “You fucking promised…”
I’d rather get a bullet than go through this, whatever it is. Mourning? Agony? Both and more. If I hadn’t agreed to send her away, she’d be okay. She’d be safe.
Everything ceases to exist. Without her, there’s nothing.
I’m nothing.
The terrifying sound echoes down the corridor and resonates all over my body, constantly announcing that Layla’s heart stopped beating.
