I just sit.
And wait.Eight hours. It has been eight goddamn hours since they rushed him in there. Since I watched them drag D’s lifeless body, blood pouring out of him like a faucet, through those double doors.
The clinic is too quiet. That eerie calm you get when something bad is happening, but nobody’s saying it out loud. I can hear the soft shuffle of nurses’ shoes on the tile, the beep of a heart monitor that isn’t D’s. My chest is tight, every second ticking by feels like a gut-punch.
Eight hours.I count each one in my head like they’re running out.
The hallway outside is a blur of motion—nurses rushing past with carts, muttering under their breath, but none of them are talking to me. No one even looks in my direction.
What the hell are they waiting for?
Tick. Tick. Tick.
That fucking clock. Each tick grates on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard.
I take a deep breath. It doesn’t help. I lean back, my head hitting the wall with a dull thud. My eyes close for a second, then snap open.
No, Wren.You can’t go to sleep now.
I look at my hands. Shit. They’re covered in dried blood—some Elena’s, but mostly… mostly D’s.
“Yob tvoyu mat!Watch it,suka!” a man’s voice, raw and pissed, echoes from a nearby room.
“Zatknis’, mudak!” a woman fires back. “Lay down before I sedate your ass!”
The other guy who took bullets for his boss is still kicking up a fuss.Oleg.The one who put Zimniy in the ground. But even that victory doesn’t matter. None of it fucking matters if D doesn’t make it.
The clinic reeks of antiseptic and fear. It’s a mini-hospital tucked away in the Ivankov mansion compound, all gleaming white tiles and fluorescent lights that make everything look sickly. D’s blood is probably still drying on the floor where they dragged him in.
Two bullets.Two fucking bullets meant for our boy, and that stubborn prick took them both.
Alex is safe. Thank whatever god is listening; he’s safe. Curled up with Lenny in a room inside the main mansion, far from this mini-hospital tucked away in the Ivankov Bratva’s compound. He’s fast asleep, snuggled against Lenny like nothing had happened.
My fingers drum against my thigh.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Matching that fucking clock.
What the fuck is taking so long?
I squeeze my eyes shut. I want to scream, to throw something, anything, but my chest is too tight for even that release.
When I open my eyes, the doctor stands over me. He looks like something out of a nightmare—tall, gaunt, and dressed in a dark suit under his lab coat, which only serves to make his skeletal frame more pronounced. His skin is pale, almost gray, pulled tight over sharp cheekbones that give him the appearance of a living specter.
My lips part, but my voice is a dead thing, lying silent in the back of my throat.
He glides toward me, and he stops.
My heart thumps in my throat as I speak the words that could shatter my world. “D… he’s alive, isn’t he?”
The silence that follows is agony.
His thin lips press together in a straight line, and his eyes—dark, sunken, and piercing—look like they have seen too much death.
Clasping his long, bony fingers in front of him, his coat barely sways as he stands unnaturally still. Even the air around him seems colder. If the Grim Reaper had a twin brother who went to medical school, this would be him.
I stand up immediately, trying to rush into the room. But the doctor stands before me, blocking my path.
