“She’s in good health,” a quiet voice says. Lev. The old doctor closes the book he was reading and returns it to my nightstand. He stretches and stands from the chair at the side of the bed.
I pull her closer to me, ignoring the ache of my ribs. She yawns and slides her leg higher up mine, but stays asleep.
“Between your chest, arm, and face, you needed one hundred and forty stitches,” he says. “You have three ribs broken and the bullet could’ve done more damage to your foot, but all things considered, the surgery was easy enough. You needed a lot of blood.”
“Where is he?”
“Nikolai?”
“Tenneson.”
A small smile turns up Lev’s lips and he nods at Marianna. “She killed him. That’s why she was held overnight.”
I startle, remembering another detail from the mess of the day. “My brother?”
Elise had said Sasha was on his way to bleeding out, and that news was excruciating to me. He never got the respect he deserved as the Orlov bastard—my father never claimed him, and even when I had, many didn’t respect him enough to care.
“Alexei is recovering,” Lev says. “He’s in rough shape, but I believe he’ll get through it.”
My eyes fill at this news and I press my nose again into my wife’s soft hair. Alive and well, both of them, and me too.
Lev presses a plunger on my IV, administering something that immediately makes me feel softer around my swollen edges.
“Sleep, son,” the old doctor murmurs, and I let myself drift off.
41
MARY
Willa is exceptionally persuasive,which is maybe what makes her such a damn good lawyer. I had to spend a night in jail after half of the cops in Boston found me with a gun pointed in the direction of a dead Colton Tenneson. I would still be in said cell if Willa hadn’t called in fifteen favors to get me in front of a judge before lunch the next day.
The cops wanted to get me on murder, but my story spoke more to kidnapping and self-defense—especially with my husband in surgery at the hospital. Willa made a case for me, and apparently Nikolai’s testimony helped a great deal. At least my refraining from killing him had been good for something.
At some point in this long night, Nessa’s government agent friend got her shit together and took over the investigation from the local police, barging in and waving her badge around. Agent Louisa Portillo and her partner asked me a long list of questions about my involvement with Tenneson, the events of the night, and my knowledge of what he planned. I told them what I could, and most of it was the truth.
I said that I hadn’t heard from Maxim and was able to track his phone to the old factory, where, as soon as I arrived, Sasha was shot and I was apprehended by Elise. I told themthat Maxim was already cut up when I got there, that Colton Tenneson held a gun to my head until Maxim promised to comply with their demands, and that Tenneson swore to kill us once he got what he needed from Maxim.
They let me have a few quiet hours to myself in the cell and even brought breakfast before Willa returned. She escorted me to a courthouse where we stood in front of a female judge who ruled that I could go free until the trial—a nonnegotiable, since I shot a man point blank in front of a dozen cops.
Reasonable enough.
When I was finally free to go with amurder triallooming over my head, Leo took me home. I had no sleep and no shower, and came to learn that Maxim almost had a damn aneurysm when he found out the police were holding me. Willa, once again the most persuasive person on the planet, was able to get an unconscious Maxim transported to the penthouse where she promised our private physicians would look after him.
I showered, ate the food Nate brought for me, took more of my sister’s nausea medicine, and promptly knocked the hell out next to Maxim and the cat. Nate, Vanessa, Leo, and my mom hung around presumably the entire day, because when I wake again, I hear the chatter of their voices downstairs.
I rub my eyes and groan, stretching out before looking up at Maxim who is already awake, watching me with that steady intent he has. His hair is a mess, his jaw unshaven, and there are bandages covering the many wounds that I know will leave scars once they heal.
He will be just as handsome, even then.
“Hi,” I say, when a long minute of studying him passes without a word spoken.
“Hi,” he echoes.
The last words I’d spoken to him were my hurried proclamations of love. I was so afraid he would die, and if nothim, then me, and I wanted to protect him but I needed him to know where I stood more. It’s where I still stand.
I like to think that when my father died, he knew where I stood, knew I cherished him. We were playing cards when he had a heart attack, and even through his anguish, he told me I was a good girl, told me he loved me between his pained breaths, thanked me for always helping him while I screamed out for anyone in the house to come help him. I performed chest compression for thirty-seven minutes while waiting for the ambulance. He never regained consciousness.
“Don’t cry,” Maxim soothes, wrapping his arm around me and pulling me closer to him. I didn’t think I was crying, but when I wipe my cheeks, sure enough they’re wet. “You’re alive.”
