“What are you doing?” I demanded, my voice cutting through the soft, anxious murmur between Emilia and Isabella. “Forget the pulse. Search for a bullet entry point! We were fired upon. Find the wound.”
Alina looked up, her expression utterly detached. “Mr. Lobanov, the bleeding would be obvious. I am checking systemic function. And frankly, this dress makes finding anything complicated.”
“Tear it,” I snapped. “I don’t care about the fabric. I need a definitive, physical reason for this collapse. I don’t pay you to check pulse rates. I pay you to confirm a strategic threat.”
Alina paused, holding Liza’s limp hand. “And I am here to report facts. The first fact is, prima facie, there is no wound. No blood. No exit point.”
Isabella, who had been dabbing Liza’s forehead with a damp cloth, spoke up. “See, Roman? She’s a very good doctor. She would know if it was serious.”
Alina flinched slightly at the title.
“I am a nurse, Isabella. Highly trained, yes, but a nurse.” She didn’t look at Isabella, but the correction was firm. I filed the details away instantly. Professional caution. Good, but I didn’t care about her title. I cared about the diagnosis.
“Then give me the facts, Nurse,” I growled.
She finally finished attaching the monitors and looked at me, meeting my hard gaze. “The facts are these: heart rate is 145, dangerously high. Blood pressure is erratic. She is severely dehydrated. The entire episode, the syncope, the fainting, is triggered by acute stress and anxiety overload.”
I slammed my fist onto the nearby table, making the metal instruments jump. “Stress? That is an amateur, unacceptable answer. I put millions into ensuring your operation is the best. Liza Markova does not collapse from stress. Find the internal bleeding. Find the poison. Find something that confirms someone is responsible, not some psychological weakness.”
My protective fury boiled over. Accepting stress meant admitting I lost control of the environment, not just a direct attack. It meant this collapse was messy, soft, and indefinable, and therefore impossible to retaliate against cleanly. I needed a clear physical threat to blame.
“Mr. Lobanov,” Alina insisted, her tone measured, “The body does not distinguish between a physical threat and a profound emotional threat. She was nearly killed at her wedding. That is enough to induce vasovagal syncope, especially given the existing makers.”
Existing makers. That phrase snagged my attention, finally silencing my rage enough to let me listen.
“What existing markers?” I demanded.
Alina looked pointedly at Emilia and Isabella, then back at me. “The fatigue, the unusual paleness, and the lack of appetite were noted over the past week. Synonyms of a body running itself ragged, now pushed over the edge.”
I paced away from the bed, rubbing the back of my neck. Fatigue. Not feeling well. Liza has been too complacent lately. Too quiet. I had assumed it was strategic, a preparation for herown move, not a genuine medical issue. Had I pushed her too hard? Had her defiance been hiding genuine fatigue related to Arkady’s disappearance?
I stopped pacing. I was looking at the wrong kind of enemy. This wasn’t a bullet. This was an internal problem.
“Alright, Nurse,” I conceded, forcing my voice into a cold calm. “I am listening now. If it’s not a wound, what is it? And what do you do next?”
My voice went flat, finally giving up the desperate hunt for a bullet wound. I needed to know what invisible enemy was attacking my newly acquired wife.
Alina didn’t rush. She maintained her unnerving pace. She gestured toward the monitors. “The next step is to treat the dehydration and stabilize the heart rate, of course. But that would only address the immediate crisis. To understand the underlying cause of this systemic shock, we must acknowledge the non-lethal symptoms.”
She looked away from the monitor and directly at me. “Mr. Lobanov, the extreme anxiety, the rapid collapse without injury, the existing fatigue and paleness you noted, all these signs point away from an external attack and toward an external condition.”
She picked up a small, sterile pack, her hands steady. This woman had nerves of ice.
“Before I administer anything potentially harmful, or even anything strong for the shock, I must rule out the most common reason a woman of childbearing age, who is clearly malnourished and stressed, experiences these specific symptoms.”
My breath hitched. The thoughts, cold and ridiculous, slammed into my mind like a rogue wave, a fear I’d violently suppressed since that night in St. Petersburg. No, it couldn’t be.
“What reason?” I demanded the low menace back in my voice, but it was thin, shaky.
Alina ignored the menace. She was focused on her duty, not my rage. She looked at me, then back at Liza, and her face remained neutral, professionally distant.
“I cannot be sure until we take the test,” she said, her voice clear, delivering the news like a perfectly aimed bullet. “But I believe she’s pregnant.”
The word landed on me like a strategic detonation. It wasn’t a medical diagnosis; it was the complete, violent obliteration of my entire world.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. The color drained from my face so rapidly that I felt the cold sweat break out on my forehead. Liza’s voice, Isabella’s startled gasp, the insistent beep, beep of the heart monitor, all faded into a muffled roar.
My leverage was carrying my child, my heir. My strategic plan was utterly ruined. Liza wasn’t a temporary hostage or a political bargaining chip anymore. The truth I had intended to break from her over the next few nights had been replaced by a bond I could never break. She had been holding my entire future, my lineage, in her fragile body, and I hadn’t known. The thought made me furious and terrifyingly possessive all at once. My blood pounded with the weight of this new, catastrophic reality.
