Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
The big bear chuckles. “How about a little of both?”
“More of one than the other,” I counter, and Dmitri’s laugh confirms my point. “How are you feeling?”
“Better each day. Mostly.” Dmitri pushes himself up on the pillows and flinches, his breathing going shallow for a moment, making my own breath catch.
“As long as you’re getting better.”
I say it to cover my concern. There were many tense days and nights when that wasn’t a given.
“Hey. At least I get a chance to relax. You can’t keep me running around when I’m tied to this.” He lifts his arm, showing the IV and the medication drips attached to it.
“As long as it’s not that damn ventilator.”
We both fall silent, the lack of conversation taken up by a strained truth neither of us wishes to air.
“The Sokolinaya Bratva is still in chaos,” I tell him. “They won’t be challenging us any time soon.”
Dmitri’s eyebrows rise toward his hairline at my change in subject. “Still no one in charge?”
“No.” I try to keep a scowl on my face, but a smirk breaks through anyway. I can’t help but be satisfied. “Three of Tsepov’s vor have staked their claims.”
“A fight for succession?” Dmitri smirks. “Have to say I don’t feel too sorry about that.”
I chuckle, tacitly agreeing, then shift as my phone buzzes.
I smile as I read the words, Almost there.
“Eva?” Dmitri asks, a knowing grin in place.
“She has her thirty-week checkup today, and then we have a final review meeting with the designer before they lay the new foundation for the house rebuild. The site is finally clear of debris, and they’ve secured the library.”
“And I’d thought building a fireproof room just for some books was ridiculous. The safe room behind the bookcase for the Fabergé shit, I understood, but not the books.”
I stand, slipping my phone back into the inner pocket of my suit coat as a nurse comes in. She eyes me and then Dmitri, who gives her a wink. The nurse blushes and sets to work checking his vitals.
“Eva said you were giving the nurses trouble here. Maybe you should switch to all-male nurses.”
“If I have to be in the hospital, I may as well have some fun.” Dmitri gives the nurse another wink, and this time, she giggles.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Just behave yourself. And get better. I want you back at my side.”
“Yes, Boss.” Dmitri flashes me his shit-eating grin, and I do roll my eyes this time. “Say hello to the twins for me.”
I send a wave over my shoulder. “Just make sure you get home to do it yourself.”
“When I get tired of the nurses, Boss.” His voice follows me out the door.
The big, black SUV pulls up to the curb as I step outside. I can’t see anything through the ultra-tinted windows, but my entire body knows who’s inside. I feel Eva’s pull like a magnet, like the pull of the tide, just as inexorable, just as unchanging.
A Kucherov man comes around the side of the SUV, giving me a nod of acknowledgment, and opens the door to help Eva down. She grips the door and his hand as she navigates the big step down from the SUV with her awkward, pregnant body.
She gives me a tired smile as I step up and take her into my arms, grateful simply to have her there again. I am always aware of how close I came to losing this great joy in my life, to losing Eva and the twins.
Letting Eva out of my sight that horrible night had been one of the most challenging things I’d ever done. But Dmitri needed help. I needed help. And I’d hoped someone could help Vasya, though I had shot to kill.
The EMT crews had found us all minutes later, splitting off to attend to Dmitri and then me as I knelt there, still holding on to Vasya’s hands as they lost their warmth. With their help, I made it to the front of the estate and to Eva, who flew into my arms as soon as she saw me.
My brave wife, who had kept it together through the entire ordeal, through the EMTs seeing to my wounds, until we had seen Dmitri alive, at least, and off to the hospital. Until first, the fire captain and then the police detained us for preliminary questions as the fire crews finally beat back the blaze that had been my estate.
That’s when Eva disappeared, and I only found her again in the back of an ambulance after a frantic search of the rescue vehicles that had turned the street into a parking lot.
“What’s wrong with her?” I’d demanded.
“She needs to be checked out,” the female EMT replied, calm and measured. She ignored the anxious bite to my tone as she moved around my wife with the ease of experience. “Miss, I need you to look at me and breathe.”