“Okay.” She wiped her tears away quickly with the back of her hand, pulling herself together. “Okay. Let’s get him up.”
It took both our collective strength to lift Marc up. Alisa placed his right arm over her shoulder, and I took the other. He was deadweight, mostly, and we half-carried and half-dragged him out the back door to where I’d parked my car.
“Let’s get him in the back seat,” I said as I opened the doors. “It’s better if he lies down.” Alisa climbed into the backwith him and placed his head on her lap and her hands on his chest to keep pressure on her father’s wound.
“Where are we taking him?” she asked when I started to drive.
“We have a family clinic,” I explained, meeting her eyes in the rear-view mirror. God, they were red. Bloodshot. “We have good doctors there.”
“Hurry.” She choked on her own sob, and I pushed my foot on the pedal, praying, for Alisa’s sake, that it wasn’t too late.
***
By the time we arrived, the surgical team was waiting with a gurney, since I’d called ahead. The doctors and nurses rushed him into a private room, and Alisa ran to keep up with the gurney, her eyes never leaving her father.
I followed, watching Alisa like a hawk. After the unspeakable betrayal she faced at the hands of her own father, her capacity for forgiveness didn’t seem human.
How come she, even after suffering at his hands, still wanted to save him?
I didn’t think I could ever understand. But there was one thing I knew: If something happened to that man, she’d burn and crash.
I caught up with the doctors while Alisa held her father’s hands by his bedside, crying and whispering into his ear to hang in there while the team worked him over.
I chose not to give her company because I feared that if I opened my mouth, I’d tell her what I really thought: That Marc Montes didn’t deserve her tears.
But I kept quiet. This wasn’t about me or my anger. It was about Alisa and what she needed.
“Doc.” I pulled him aside. “What are the next steps?”
The doctor looked grim. “He’s lost a lot of blood. The bullet missed his heart but punctured his lung. We need to operate, but before that, he needs to be stabilized. We’ve put the IV in for fluids and given him meds to raise his BP. Then, we can operate.”
“So, he’ll be okay?” I asked, looking back through the room window at where Alisa still held her father’s hand.
“Honestly?” The doctor lowered his voice. “It’s not looking good.”
My eyes snapped back to the doctor. He looked pale. Like he knew something I didn’t, and that’s when I understood.
“Thank you, doctor,” I said softly, then walked over to Alisa and Marc.
I walked back into the room to stay close behind Alisa. Marc lay on the hospital bed, connected to machines and tubes of all sorts. His skin was ashen, and his breathing didn’t sound too good.
“Alisa,” he whispered.
“I’m here, Papa,” she said, taking his hand.
His gaze shifted to me, standing behind her, and I saw the panic and worry in his eyes, as though he realized just then that there was nothing he could do about his little problem. His daughter had made her choice, and I had made mine.
I knew he had enough information about me to know that I wasn’t a man he wanted on his bad side.
“You need to know,” he said, even though he struggled to speak each word. “Why I did it.”
I moved closer and placed a supportive hand on Alisa’s shoulder because something told me whatever came out of Marc’s mouth would only serve to disappoint.
“I was trying to retire,” Marc choked. “But they… the Pavlovs… wouldn’t let me go. They said I knew too much. They said they’d ruin me. Wipe out my accounts, take away my freedom, and ruin my reputation. That I had to leave this country and never come back, to someplace most have never heard of.”
He coughed, a wet, horrible sound. “Where would I go? What would I be? I needed… to prove my loyalty.”
“So you gave them me instead?” Alisa’s voice cracked.
