She weakly turns her head. Her lips remain sealed shut so that the water spills down her cheeks onto the floor.
“Alina, please!” I grit out as I try to pour more water into her mouth by holding her chin, only for her to keep refusing me despite being in such a diminished state. When she coughs the liquid back up, I’m forced to stop and wait. Every minute creeps by like an hour. I don’t even feel like I can breathe until Yelena strides into the room with her leather medical bag in her hand.
“Out of the way. I need to assess her.”
There are only a handful of people in the entire world who can talk like that to me without consequences, and she’s one of them.
I release Alina’s wrist to stand up out of the way as she walks into the cage to take my place kneeling beside Alina to check her pulse. “How did this happen?” she asks in Russian. “Isn’t she Dominik’s girl?”
“The stubborn woman…she hasn’t eaten or drank anything in days,” I tell her, shame flooding me.
Yelena’s cold eyes snap to mine. “You allowed this to go on, like some sort of punishment for your brother? Did you want her dead?”
“No. No, of course I didn’t…”
“Because this is the quickest way to kill someone without a gun.”
I frown at her harsh words, even if they’re true.
Yelena looks away from me to check over Alina. She pinches the back of Alina’s hand, and the skin remains upright for a few seconds before going back to its usual position instead of snapping back like it should. “Do you see that? She is severely dehydrated.”
All I can do is stand there and watch helplessly as Yelena pulls items out of her bag and works on Alina to bring her back from what I know is the brink of death.
I consider going to get Dominick then dismiss it. There’s nothing he could do for her now. He would only panic seeing her this way. Panic the way I’ve been doing, and never fucking forgive me.
She was under my care, my responsibility. And I failed her.
Yelena wraps a blood pressure cuff around Alina’s arm before putting on her stethoscope. Her expression remains hard and tense as it has since the moment she stepped foot in the room. She slips the disk under the cuff and starts squeezing the pump.
Alina remains still, her breathing shallow.
I went too far. I thought I could provoke her into becoming the defiant woman I admired again when she was breaking instead.
She blamed me and Dominik for Archer’s death, but she also blamed herself.
“Her blood pressure is unstable,” Yelena tells me as she yanks off her stethoscope. “She needs IV fluids, electrolytes to stabilize her heart, and glucose because you’ve also starved her nearly to death.”
“Do it. Whatever it takes, just save her.” I don’t even bother trying to defend myself, to tell her how many trays of food and glasses of water I provided went untouched.
“Take her to an actual bed and put some clothes on her. I’ll need to find a coat hanger to set up an IV drip,” Yelena says before grabbing her bag and carrying it out of the cage.
I don’t hesitate as I carefully pick up Alina, holding her against my chest as I carry her to my bed. I set her down gently and grab one of my T-shirts to slip on her before pulling the covers up to her chest.
Yelena returns and motions for me to move out of the way again, and I do, standing at the foot of the bed while she sets up the IV.
Once Yelena is finally done, she tucks everything not needed back into her bag before turning to me, glaring at me like a mother about to scold her unruly child. “If she refuses water again, she could go into shock or kidney failure. You push her to that point, and even I can’t save her. You’re lucky she isn’t already dead.”
Her words hit me like a punch, leaving me breathless with my chest aching. As Yelena walks past me to leave, I turn back to Alina as she lays in my large bed, looking terribly small.
I thought I could break her out of this. I was wrong.
And that realization lands heavier than any threat I’ve ever faced.
“Fuck,” I whisper as I lower my head, my hands gripping the wooden footboard.
We almost lost her, and it’s my fault. I did this.
How do I rule a city if I can’t even keep one woman alive?
