The moment I lay eyes on Tess, and I take in the blood on the right side of her face, the broken mirror, her in a small bundle – murderous rage rips the air from my lungs.
Jesus Christ.
I dart forward, dropping to my knees in front of her. “Who did this to you?” is all I can think to ask, wanting to kill whoever dared touch my wife.
Tess’ breaths are too fast, some strangled by sobs, then she grabs hold of my jacket and pulls her body up against mine. When she buries her face against my chest, her sobs turn to agonizing cries, her body jerking uncontrollably.
Something shifts inside me.
It’s dark and lethal.
I wrap my arms around her, but her breathing grows too shallow. “Tess.” Taking hold of her chin, some blood smearing on my fingers, I try to look at her face. She’s so fucking pale, her eyes drifting shut and hiding the unadulterated terror. “Theresa!” I snap, panic flooding my veins. She loses consciousness, and a hellish fear explodes in my chest. Pushing my arms beneath her body, I lift her to my chest as I climb to my feet. “Baby,” I groan, holding her as close to me as I can while rushing out of the restroom.
Andreas shoots past me, his features tight with worry.
Guests spill out of the entrance hall.
I hear Helena’s concerned questions.
But I don’t stop. I run out the front door, my wife’s limp body in my arms, sending fresh waves of fear through me with every step I take.
Andreas has the backdoor to the SUV open, and careful not to hurt Tess, I climb inside with her firmly in my hold. I settle her on my lap and freeing my one arm, I’m able to brush some hair from her ghostly pale face.
“Tess, can you hear me?” She remains unresponsive as Andreas climbs behind the steering wheel. Soon we’re racing down the driveway.
“Is she okay?” Andreas asks, his eyes darting between the road ahead and the rearview mirror.
“I…” I shake my head, crippling dread darkening my life. “I don’t know. Faster!”
Andreas floors the gas. Tess’ head lolls to the side, her bloody cheek coming to a rest against my shoulder. Her eyelashes flutter, and hope pours into me, causing me to feel dizzy.
“Baby.” I lean closer, using my fingers to wipe some of the blood away from her cheek, but I only make a bigger mess. “Can you hear me?”
She lets out a disorientated groan, her eyes finally opening.
“I’ve got you. We’ll be at the hospital soon.”
“Two minutes,” Andreas adds.
Tess keeps her eyes on me, her breaths steady, but there’s no expression on her face. She just stares at me, and it makes my worry explode into absolute chaos.
“Can you hear me?” I ask again, needing some kind of response from her.
Tess blinks… blinks… fucking blinks.
“Baby,” I groan. It’s unbearable seeing the woman I love more than life itself covered in blood and fucking unresponsive.
Christ, help me.
I’m going to kill whoever hurt her. Their days are numbered.
The SUV comes to a screeching stop in front of the emergency room. Andreas jumps out then hurries to open the door for us. He helps me maneuver Tess so I can get out, and once he’s sure I have a firm hold of her, he runs inside to get help.
I carry Tess inside, then as the emergency staff gestures for me to place her on a bed, I press a quick kiss to her forehead. I’m careful as I set my entire heart down on a stark white sheet. It takes all my strength to let go of her so the doctors and nurses can get to work.
“What happened?” A nurse asks.
“I…”
When I can’t focus long enough to form a coherent sentence, Andreas answers, “We found her like that in a restroom.”
“Do you know if she has insurance?”
“We’ll pay for everything,” Andreas again answers for me.
“No matter what,” I say, my voice strained, “give her the best care. A private room.”
Only the best for my wife.
“What’s your relation to the patient?”
“She’s my wife. Theresa Stathoulis.” My eyes don’t leave Tess, and when the nurse tries to nudge me backward, I level her with a threatening glare. “I’m staying.”
“Sir, we need you to wait in the waiting room. There will also be paperwork to fill out.”
This time Andreas takes hold of my arm. “Come. We’re in the way.”
My eyes find the doctor. “You do every fucking scan and test on her. Money’s not a problem. You give my wife the best care and fucking fix her.”
I don’t want them missing a thing because they took shortcuts.
Andreas pulls me out of the emergency ward, and I blindly follow him to a waiting room. I can’t bring myself to take a seat, and instead, pace up and down.
“Find out what happened,” I order my friend as I strip out of my jacket, throwing it on a chair.
“Already on it. James is looking at the security footage in the house.”
“I want the person taken to the office.” Rolling up my sleeves, I stop to lock eyes with Andreas. “Strung up and ready for me.”
He nods, then his phone rings. “James? Did you find anything?” Andreas listens, his eyebrows draw sharply down, then his gaze flicks to mine. “Are you sure? … Fuck … Take her to the office and hand her over to Elias and Craig … yes, after that, you come here with your team. We need the security.”
When he cuts the call, I bark, “Who was it? Who fucking dared to hurt Tess?”
There’s confusion on Andreas’ face as he says, “Irene Drakatos.” He shakes his head. “But why?”
Irene. The fucking snake.
I knew there was something off about how Tess tensed up around her cousin. How she fucking trembled.
I fucking knew and should’ve taken Tess aside and found out why she was reacting that way.
“Tell Elias and Craig to string her up. No food. Only water to keep the bitch alive until I can deal with her.”
“You sure?” Andreas asks, questioning my order for the first time. “She’s family.”
“She’s no fucking family of mine. She gets treated the same as any enemy.”
Andreas nods then makes the call to Elias.
Knowing the fucker responsible for hurting Tess has been found, I walk out of the waiting room, only to be stopped by a nurse.
She holds out a stack of papers to me. “Can you please complete these?”
Needing to get this shit done and over with, I grab the papers from her hand. I take a pen from the breast pocket of my dress shirt and fill out Tess’ details. When I get to a section where it asks if she’s on any medication, I remember the pills scattered over the restroom’s floor.
Yanking my phone out of my pocket, I dial Helena’s number.
“Nikolas? What happened? Is Tess okay? Where are you?”
“Is Tess on any kind of medication?” I bark the question out.
“Ah… Xanax for anxiety.”
What the fuck?
I write the information down, hand the papers to the nurse, then pay attention to the call I’m on. “I’m at the hospital. They’re working on Tess. Irene attacked her.”
“What?” Helana gasps. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure!”
“Theè mou… Theè mou… Theè mou…,” she repeatedly rambles God, shock evident in her tone.
“Why is Theresa on medication for anxiety? For how long?” I demand. I wasn’t even aware of this, and it doesn’t sit well with me.
There should be no secrets between us.
“After her father passed, Theresa had some problems dealing with the loss. It led to anxiety attacks. She also can’t handle confrontations, so the medication helps keep her calm.”
Jesus.
All the times I threatened Tess flash through my mind. How many of those fucking pills did she take because of me?
Every time she flinched away from me…
When she tensed up…
The fear in her eyes when she looked at me…
Guilt rears its ugly head.
“I’ll be in touch,” I mutter before ending the call.
Standing in the middle of a hall in the fucking hospital, I realize there’s a lot about Theresa I don’t know. She never opened up to me, which means the hope I had of her falling in love with me was… just fucking hope. During the past weeks, when I hopelessly lost my heart to her, she kept a firm grip on her own, refusing to let me in.
Fuck.
And I can’t blame her after the way I treated her.
I suck in a breath of air, an itchiness spreading beneath my skin.
I was the only one under the false illusion that we were happily married the past two weeks.
