I’m stunned into silence.
A long, excruciating silence.
Did Rai just ask me who I am, or have I somehow lost my mind?
I gently touch her shoulder, trying not to inflict pressure, even though all I want to do is hold her close and make us both forget this morning ever happened.
She flinches, and for the first time, I see the current of uncertainty in her eyes. I’ve never witnessed such emotions in them before, like they’re fire in the ocean. No matter how much it whirls and embraces the wind, it’ll eventually be drowned.
“Why are you touching me? Who are you?”
“My name is Kyle. I’m your husband.”
She shakes her head the slightest bit. It seems like she wants to do it more, but the soft neck brace stops her. “I don’t know you, and you certainly aren’t my husband.”
I tighten my hold on her shoulder to feel her warmth as I smooth my voice. “It’s me, Rai.”
I maintain eye contact because I need the connection I’ve always had with Rai right now. She may change and gather her hair up to be the woman the world demands of her, but when I stare deep in her eyes, I see the burn for more, the flames that rise with the need of passion.
Not today.
Today, the connection is off, as if the fire and the flames were drowned by the sea. Her pupils are dilated and she’s stiff as a board in my arms.
It’s like she doesn’t know me at all. As if she’s being touched by a complete stranger.
“Let me go.” There’s a note of fear in her voice.
My fingers dig into her shoulder, perhaps not too gently because of the current of emotions traveling through me right now, but I try to speak as calmly as possible. “Rai, you might be confused, but I’m really your husband.”
“Let me go!” she screams. “Help! He wants to hurt me. Someone help me!”
The fuck? “I would never hurt you.”
The doctor and the nurse barge inside, but remain close to the door when I glare them both down. Ruslan and Katia join, too, their eyes studying Rai intently.
“Help me.” She tries to wiggle free, but I don’t allow her room to move.
“Stop asking for others to help you from me,” I snap, my temper getting the better of me. “It’s supposed to be the other way around.”
She flinches, but her lips thin in a line.
“You can’t talk to a patient like that,” the doctor scolds.
“Fuck off. You don’t get to tell me how I speak to my wife.”
“H-help me,” Rai whispers, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please help me, please.”
This is not the Rai I know. She would never plead with others, let alone allow them to see her cry.
“Do you need anything, miss?” Ruslan’s unsure gaze slides to me, then back to her.
“Who are all these people?” She stares between the three of us, and then back to her guard as if he is her only reprieve. “Ruslan?”
“Yes, miss?”
She sucks in a deep breath like a child about to throw a tantrum, then exhales again. Her voice turns hysterical. “Get them out of here! Get them all out!”
“Miss.” The doctor approaches her slowly. “You need to calm down.”
He tries to touch her, but I grab his wrist and twist it backward, making him wince in pain.
That causes Rai to scream louder. “Get out! Get out!”
“Sir.” The doctor strains, but he’s smart enough not to fight me, so I let him go. If he tries something funny, I’ll break his fucking wrist. “It’s better if you leave.”
“No.”
“If you don’t, she might have a panic attack.”
“Fuck that. She’s my wife and I’m not leaving her side.”
“Sir, it’s not in her best interest for you to keep staying here.”
“Out…out…” Her shaking has worsened and her lips are too pale. She’s not the type who has these strong visceral reactions, and yet she appears on the verge of a breakdown. I can’t be the reason behind that.
Even though there’s nothing I want to do more than hold on to her, I need to let her go. Just for a while.
It takes all my power to release her, stand up, and step back.
She continues watching me even when I’m far away from her bed, and I motion at Ruslan and Katia to leave with me.
“Ruslan…” she calls. “S-stay.”
“Yes, miss.”
Why the fuck is she calling for him but not me? Even Katia appears taken aback, but she steps outside with me.
The doctor and the nurse remain beside Rai, talking to her in soothing tones. Judging from the slowing rise and fall of her chest, that seems to have managed to somewhat calm her down.
I keep watching from the doorway, unable to look away. She appears so soft, fragile, and all I want to do is to hold her hand and protect her.
The nurse keeps talking to her while the doctor steps outside. I grab him by the collar and slam him against the wall. “What the fuck is wrong with her?”
“Sir, if you don’t release me, I can’t speak.”
I push him away with a shove. “Talk.”
He massages the back of his neck and fixes his collar. “Mrs. Sokolov seems to be suffering from selective amnesia.”
“Because she fell?”
“Yes, we believe the fall has caused some swelling in her brain and that’s why she has amnesia.”
“You said selective—does that mean she’ll regain her memories soon?”
“No, selective means she lost part of her memories.”
“What part?”
“From the initial questions we asked, she seems to have forgotten everything that happened for the past ten years.”
“What?”
“Mrs. Sokolov believes she’s eighteen years old. As a result, she doesn’t remember the events that happened in the past ten years. That applies to people she met in that period, too.”
I didn’t know her ten years ago. No wonder she thought I was a stranger.
“How can she get her memories back?”
“Unfortunately, there’s no cure for amnesia. Fortunately, it’s not completely irrevocable. If she’s surrounded by supportive family and friends, she might be able to recall things.” I don’t miss the way he stressed the part about being supportive. This fucker is exactly two seconds away from being throttled to death.
“How long will it take for her to remember?”
“There’s no definite answer to that. It can be a few days or a few decades. Most likely, she will never recoup those lost memories.”
Fuck!
“One more thing,” he says.
“What?”
“She needs patience and care during this period so she can get back to the outside world. Everything has changed for her, and ten years is a significant gap for a woman her age.”
I nod sharply. “But is she physically okay?”
“Aside from the neck sprain that should heal in a few days, she has no serious injuries.”
At least she’s safe. I’ll find a way to deal with her brain.
Ignoring the doctor, I step past him toward Rai’s room.
“Sir?”
“What?” I stop but don’t turn around.
“It would be better if you didn’t go inside. She had a strong reaction toward you, and if she has a panic attack while she is very confused, it might lead to serious health complications. Please limit your contact with her—for now, at least.”
My fists clench on either side of me, but I don’t step inside. The doctor leaves after I flop down in a chair in front of her room.
There’s no way in hell I will stay away from her, but at the same time, I could never put her health in danger.
I keep watching from the window. Ruslan stands beside her bed, both hands in front of him. The reason she’s not rejecting him like she did me and Katia is obviously because he’s been by her side for more than ten years.
He and Vladimir were always there, like fucking shadows.
“Katia,” I call out without ripping my gaze from Rai. “Go get her clothes and anything she’ll need for her stay in the hospital.”
She doesn’t make a move to leave.
“What are you waiting for? An invitation?”
“Do you want to go home to rest? Your injury must hurt,” she offers. “I’ll stand guard here.”
“I’m fine.” I throw up a dismissive hand. “Go home and bring the little rascal, Peter. Ask Sergei to send more guards here until her discharge, but don’t disclose anything about her condition to any of the Vory’s members. Rai wouldn’t want them to witness her in this weak state.”
She nods and storms out of the hospital.
I don’t care if Rai won’t see me now. I’m not leaving this place until she does.
Ever since I saw her lying at the bottom of the stairs, the thing beating in my chest has been burning and roaring like a volcano on the brink of eruption.
And the only way to extinguish that fire is through her.
My wife.
My Rai.
We spend three days in the hospital.
Three days of CT scans, analyses, and whatever the fuck the doctors come up with. None of them seem to provide the solution to making her remember.
Whenever I go near her, she screams at me to get out. When I don’t, she starts to hyperventilate and cry.
Every time I do that—insist on being by her side while she chases me out—Ruslan and Katia glare at me as if they are ready to cut me up limb by limb. Fuck them and fuck the doctors. No one keeps me away from my wife.
She’s slowly accepting Katia as her second guard, but Ruslan is the one she looks at the most, probably since she clearly remembers him.
After waking up, she asked about her grandfather. When Ruslan told her he’s dead, she spent the entire night crying.
Even though I was sitting by the door, I could hear her sniffles and deep intakes of air that came after a long time of crying.
I listened to her all night in silence, and when she fell asleep, I quietly stepped inside and watched her sleeping form in the darkness. I wanted to hold her and wipe the tears on her cheeks, but she has become a light sleeper and would’ve started a riot if she found me touching her.
So I spent most of the night watching silently like a fucking creep.
The fact that she recalls and accepts most people except for me has been slowly but surely eating away at me like acid.
She was friendly with the fucker Damien when he showed up to visit her. Even though Katia kept quiet, the elite group learned about her being in the hospital, and eventually found out about her amnesia. Sergei and Vlad came, too, obviously. Her only remark to them was that they’ve gotten old.
Sergei asked me about the baby, and I told him everything is fine. He naturally didn’t want to talk to her about it because it would freak her out in this situation. Since she’s not pregnant, the doctor didn’t mention anything about that, so she’s still clueless in that regard, and it’s best it remains this way until she hopefully gets her memories back.
Rai’s accident shuffled Sergei’s cards, and I could see the doubt about the future in his wrinkled eyes. Rai holds V Corp upright, and if she doesn’t remember the last ten years of her life or the education and experience that came with it, there’s no way she will be able to finance the brotherhood’s war with the Irish.
It’s a legitimate concern, but I don’t give a fuck about any of that.
Kirill is now inside with his closest guard, Aleksander. Damien came again, too, even though I told him to stop showing up. He just gave me the middle finger while strolling inside.
Kirill is here to confirm that his greatest foe is indeed out of it and won’t hurt him in the long run. Damien, on the other hand, is being a fucking leech who’s enjoying the fact that she doesn’t remember me a bit too much. Needless to say, I stand at the entrance to eavesdrop on their conversations.
The two leaders are sitting casually on either side of her while Ruslan, Katia, Aleksander, and Damien’s guard stand by the walls.
“What are you doing here, Kirill?” Rai slowly peels the skin off her apple with a small knife. She’s sitting, the hospital table in front of her. Thankfully, she appears healthier despite the brace around her neck. “I didn’t know we were close enough for you to pay me a visit.”
He readjusts his glasses with his middle finger. “We’re not. But you’re not close with Damien either.”
“Hey, motherfucker.” Damien snaps his fingers at him. “Shut the fuck up and fuck the fuck off.”
“He’s tolerable.” She points her thumb at Damien, then directs her attention to Kirill. “You’re not.”
“Wise. Very wise, indeed.” Damien retrieves a cigarette and places it in his mouth.
“No smoking in the hospital.” She scolds then frowns. “When did you get a haircut?”
“Last week. You like it?” He lights the cigarette anyway.
“It makes you look like an old man.”
“If I’m an old man, you’re an old woman, Rai, and Kirill is…ancient.”
She snickers at that before she glances at Kirill. “Are you going to tell me the reason for your visit?”
“I just wanted to make sure you’re fine. Can’t I do that?”
“Did you expect me to fall for that?”
“I can be a good sport, Sokolov.”
“Maybe in a parallel world, and even then, I won’t believe it.”
“Ouch.” Damien laughs. “Give him more, Rai. I’m interested to see how much his poker face can take on.”
Kirill ignores him and his body angles in Rai’s direction. “I heard you don’t remember.”
“I don’t. Not the past ten years, at least,” she says quietly before she chews on a small piece of apple.
“Does that mean you don’t recall the time you came into my club, drank until you nearly passed out, and then danced alone like a lunatic?”
“I would never do that!” She stares at Ruslan, who bows his head.
Wait…she did that?
My fist clenches at the thought that someone other than me saw Rai drunk. She becomes so loose and fucking adorable when drunk.
“Yes, you did.” Kirill tilts his head to the side. “You didn’t leave either and insisted on staying the night. You passed out in one of the rooms upstairs.”
“Yeah? So what?”
He narrows his eyes but soon goes back to his normal expression, which is blank, but in a welcoming kind of way instead of mean like Damien’s. “So do you remember coming on to me?”
She did that? I’m ready to punch Kirill in the nose when she laughs. “In your dreams. You’re far away from my type.”
“How would you know when you think you’re just eighteen?”
“I know I despise your guts and your face and your foxy nature and everything you do to get power. I would cut your dick off before letting you come near me.”
Damien bursts out in laughter, and I can’t help the smile that grazes my lips. That’s my woman.
“So you remember nothing of what happened that night?” Kirill probes.
“No, but that doesn’t mean I would ever come on to a psycho like you.”
Kirill smirks. “Isn’t your husband similar to me?”
She purses her lips. “I have no husband.”
“But we all attended your wedding.”
“I don’t remember it, so it didn’t happen,” she snaps.
Damien takes her hand in his. “That’s the spirit, Rai. Truth is, you and I were always meant to be together.”
My blood boils and I’m a second away from barging in there and throwing him to the floor.
“Really?” she asks slowly.
“Really. I’m the love of your life. It started when you saw me kill for the first time. You said it was hot.” He grins. “Then we had a lot of kinky sex.”
That’s it.
“You’ll have a kinky death if you don’t get the fuck out.” I barge inside, my fists clenched on either side of me.
Rai stiffens and tightens her hold on the knife. Kirill stands up and offers her a fake smile. “I hope you never get better, you little devil.”
Rai flips him off, and he smirks as he leaves with Aleksander following after him.
“What are you waiting for?” I motion at Damien. “Piss off.”
He takes a long drag of his cigarette and blows a cloud of smoke. “Isn’t it the husband whom she doesn’t remember?”
Fucker.
“Hey, Rai.” He grins at her. “The only reason you married this tool is due to being forced. Now, you can divorce him and come back to me. I don’t believe in the whole virgin kink so it’s a win for both of us. What do you think?”
I swing my fist at him, but her voice cuts me off. “Get out. Both of you.”
My eyes slowly close at her tone. Rai and I always had our problems, but the way she keeps on rejecting me ever so brutally is taking its toll on me.
“I’ll be back.” Damien staggers to his feet and smirks at me before he and his guard leave. I keep glaring at his back as he strides down the hall. Why does she remember this fucker but not me?
“Out.” She points at the door with her knife.
“You can’t chase me away for the rest of your life. I’m your husband.”
“Then I can just divorce you.”
I grit my teeth, then release them to not sound agitated. That’s the last thing she needs. “You can’t just divorce me. You have duties toward the brotherhood, remember?”
“Ruslan, get him out!” Her pitch rises, fingers trembling around the knife.
“I’ll come back,” I tell her matter-of-factly and step out of the hospital room.
I’m sitting on one of the plain chairs when a large shadow falls on me. I stare up to find Vladimir’s boring bloody face.
First Kirill and Damien, and now Vladimir. Fucking perfect.
“You should go home, Kyle.”
“I’m fine,” I spit out.
“You have dark circles and you stink.”
Of course I do. I haven’t changed clothes since the day I brought her here, and I’ve been washing up in the hospital bathroom. I also sleep sitting up in the seat because I can’t let my guard down.
“Do you want her to see you this way?” Vladimir asks, but it’s clearly rhetorical since he continues. “Go shower, change clothes, and then come back. She’s not going nowhere.”
I don’t like the way he speaks to me. It’s that fucking Russian condescension that runs in all their blood.
“I’ll stand guard in front of her room until your return. She’s asleep anyway.”
I throw a glance at her. She’s lying on her back, eyes closed, and her hand is splayed above her head on the pillow. It was one of her most adorable habits that she eventually got rid of.
If she’s really going to be the Rai from ten years ago, that means she might never accept me as her husband again.
I try to pretend that doesn’t slice me open in a hundred different painful ways.
Staggering to my feet, I motion at Peter to stay in front of her room. I lean in to whisper, “Tell me if anything happens.”
“Yes, sir,” he murmurs back.
He’s a useless kid in battle, but he’s good when it comes to spying, at least.
As I leave the hospital, I vow one thing.
I’ll make sure Rai remembers me, even if it’s the last thing I do.
