A pause came over the line. “Mila screamed Kellan’s name, so he had time to react.”
Fuck. This was bad. This was so very, very bad. If Mila had chosen Kellan over her family, she was in grave danger with Father. As much as I hated to, I had to shift my concern from my sister to Dima.
“What about D-Dima?”
At Aleks’s anguished breath, my blood ran cold. “Not good.”
“What d-do you mean?”
Another agonized breath. Another knife to my heart and sledgehammer to my soul. “When they went in to get the bullet…something went wrong.”
“What?”
“He had a stroke on the table, and now he’s in a coma.”
“Jesus Christ, Aleks. How’s he having a stroke at twenty-eight?”
“I don’t know. That’s just what they told us a little while ago. We’re just landing from Pittsburgh.”
“Wait, what the fuck were you d-doing there?”
“It was Leonid Kleist’s birthday, remember?”
With my mind reeling, I recognized the Pittsburgh pahkan’s name. “Right,” I murmured.
“We won’t know more until we get to the house.”
Like most Bratva families, our mansion included a full medical bay. “P-Please keep me p-posted.”
“I will. Where are you?”
“Heading home from Jersey.”
Normally, Aleks would’ve inquired what I was doing out of state. But he was too rattled today to be nosy. “Get here as soon as you can.”
“I will.”
When I hung up, all the rage I’d felt towards Dima evaporated in an instant and was replaced with crippling anguish. As my chest clenched in a vise, I wished for a way to expel the pain. If I’d had a knife, I would’ve cut myself. I always said I would bleed for him.
I wasn’t one for tears. I only allowed them on the anniversary of Irina’s death, which coincided with the night that changed the trajectory of my life.
But suddenly, the interstate became wavy before me. Swiping my eyes, I eyed the moisture on them.
The tears came.
And they wouldn’t stop.
And I couldn’t stop.
CHAPTER FOUR: MAKSIM
It had been forty-eight hours since my phone call with Aleks. In that short amount of time, my entire world had shifted on its axis, and I remained on a hellish rollercoaster of emotions. After racing to Dima’s side, I refused to allow myself to imagine a world where he didn’t wake up. I’d never been an optimistic person–life had beaten it out of me.
But I clung to hope.
I’d even made a pilgrimage to St. Andrews Cathedral to light candles for a miracle. I hadn’t been inside the church since Irina’s funeral. A part of my faith had died with her. I couldn’t imagine a world where someone as beautiful and kind as her could be taken by someone vile like my father and nothing happened to him.\
I’d been at the church when Mila had called to tell me Dima was awake. With my faith renewed, I’d raced back to the house to join my siblings to hear from the doctors after they’d evaluated Dima.
