It was a clusterfuck of epic proportions, but in the end, Gabriella won out.
“Take Sadie and stay with her,” she yelled at Luka. “You owe it to Emil to at least be there for her. If we dick around and don’t move it, she’ll have the baby here and could be in danger of not surviving it. Now shut up and go, and I’ll try not to have our baby ’til you get back!”
That settled it. Luka and another guard helped me into the car with one of the nurses.
Once we arrived, my contractions worsened. Hours passed but it felt like both a handful of seconds and eternity. Time moved too slow. Too fast. My grasp of time was a jumbled mess in my mind. The only timing that I could focus on with impatience and fear was how long it was taking Emil to get here.
Hooked up to monitors and pumped with medicines to assist me into labor since my blood pressure wasn’t behaving, I did my best to endure the pain. I was too far along in labor to have an epidural.
“Of all motherfucking times for a tropical storm,” I growled, gritting my teeth as Luka held my hand.
He furrowed his brow. “I never should have told you.”
“A fucking hurricane?” I seethed, unsure whether Emil would make it back to see his child be born.
Luka shook his head. “It’s bullshit. I know.”
I looked at him, grateful that he chose to be with me instead of his wife. I think she understood how scared I really was, though, havingnofamily left. She wasn’t in as much of a threat of delivering as I was, and I knew that played a part in it. She also was too deep in her trauma to want to come near another maternity ward. Therapy had helped her, but she refused to budge.
Having Luka here did help. In the calm in his eyes, I saw a reminder of Emil. And havingsomeonehere helped me ignore the pang of hurt that I wished my father could’ve lived to see his grandson be born. That he’d be here to support me.
“You’re doing great,” Luka said. “I think.”
“You are the definition of a badass,” the doctor said. A younger and grungier female doctor with tats up her arms was Dr. Hannan’s substitute, and I couldn’t complain. She didn’t hedge around telling me what was going on. I asked a question and she answered directly.
“You’re almost there,” she said. She smiled at Luka, seemingly not concerned that he was a Mafia boss. “Ready to be a grandpa?”
“I already am one,” he growled back.
She shrugged and faced me. “Ready to be a momma?”
“No!” I shook my head. “Not until Emil is here.”
“Sadie, he’ll be here,” Luka said.
I shook my head harder. “I need to know he’s okay. That they are… okay.” Saying anything more wasn’t possible. The nurses in this room and this hipster doctor weren’t privy to the confidential details of the operation Emil and the Dubinin men had left to handle.
“This baby isn’t going to wait,” the doctor warned. She lost her jovial tone. “Eyes on me, Momma. You’ve got to listen to me now. When I say push, you’re going to give me a good, hard push.”
I gritted my teeth as Luka held my left hand.
“One, two—” She frowned. “Is that Dad?”
A commotion sounded behind me, but I couldn’t tell.
“Emil,” Luka said, relief clear on his face.
I turned as Emil rushed to the right side of my bed. “Emil!”
Blood was smeared over his face. A gash on his brow still bled. But he didn’t care. He didn’t seem aware of his injuries. He gripped my right hand, then sucked in a breath with a hiss. He released it and took my hand with his other one, the one that didn’t seem wounded.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Stupid question!” I shot back.
“And push,” the doctor ordered.
I did, struggling through it but calmer just to see Emil back. Bloody and injured, but in one piece.
