The suite is dim, the soft hush of medical equipment breaking the silence like a steady heartbeat. Machines keeping my wife alive.
My wife.
The word cuts deeper than it should.
“Mr. Belov.” Dr. Katya Levitsky rises from her chair beside the bed. Yelena’s handpicked choice—a trauma specialist with ice in her veins and enough backbone to meet my eyes without flinching. “I was just checking her readings.”
“How is she?”
“Stable. The swelling has reduced. We’ve lightened the sedation. She could wake within the next twelve hours.”
I move to the bed. Three days, and still—still—the sight hits like a blow.
Bella’s face is a painting in bruises. Yellowing across her cheekbone. Neat stitches tracking a cruel line across her temple.Her lip split and swollen. The breathing tube is gone, thank God—but the cannula feeding her oxygen feels no better.
Her right arm lies strapped to her chest, broken in two places. Three cracked ribs taped down under the hospital gown. A gash across her thigh needed twenty-seven stitches.
I know. I counted every goddamn one.
“The children want to see her,” I say, not taking my eyes off her.
Dr. Katya hesitates. “Soon. Once the swelling reduces. Right now… it would frighten them.”
Of course. I picture Alya’s tiny face crumpling. Lev stiffening in silence. Nikolai’s rage.
Not yet.
The night nurse speaks from the door. “Night shift is here, Mr. Belov.”
“Thank you.” I dismiss Dr. Katya with a nod. “Send the morning reports directly to me.”
Once the door clicks shut, I allow myself one sin.
I take her hand.
So small. So fucking fragile in mine.
The bruises around her wrists are healing, but I see them. I feel them.
“You stubborn, impossible woman,” I murmur, tracing her knuckles. “What the hell were you thinking?”
The anger surges—and folds into something worse. Something that gnaws and howls under my ribs. Guilt.
I should have seen it. Should have noticed the way she started pulling back. Hiding things. I, who pride myself on reading enemies before they move, missed the most important one standing right beside me.
Because I was too busy watching the way she smiled when Alya crawled into her lap. The way she started leaning into my touch instead of tensing.
Because I wanted to believe.
“You are not expendable,” I whisper to her broken body. “Understand me, Isabella. You are not a sacrifice.”
The monitor beeps on, oblivious.
Even unconscious, she defies me.
I settle into the chair beside her bed, still holding her hand. I should be reviewing the raid plan for dawn. Coordinating with Timur. Pushing Arseny harder.
Instead, I sit here. Trapped between the man I was—and the man she’s forcing me to become.
