Leo.
Fuck.
Was karma finally catching up to me? Because this wasn’t just another body. This wasn’t just another problem to clean up. This one was linked to Leo, and if he found out I covered up the death of another person close to him, the slim chance I already had with him would be obliterated.
13
LEO
The door hadn’t even fully closed behind Sergei before my body gave out on me. One moment I was standing there, staring at the space he’d just occupied, trying to convince myself I still had control over what had happened, and the next, my knees buckled. A violent wave of nausea surged up my throat, stealing the breath from my lungs. I barely had time to turn before I was stumbling toward the half bath, my shoulder knocking into the wall as I went.
I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet and got sick.
It came hard and fast, my body heaving in harsh, uncontrollable waves that left my arms trembling from the effort of holding myself upright. The sound echoed loudly in the small space, mingling with the pounding in my skull and the burn in my throat. By the time it passed, I was left shaking, sweat clinging to my skin, my breath coming in shallow pulls that didn’t feel like enough air.
I slumped back against the wall, my head falling into myhand as I pressed hard against my temple, as if I could quiet the storm building there. My stomach twisted again with a heavy sense of wrongness.
“Get it together,” I muttered, but my voice sounded distant, unconvincing.
The moment my body stopped reacting, my mind took over, dragging me somewhere I hadn’t let myself go in weeks. The day they let me see Brad’s body.
“You don’t need to view the body, Dr. Cavanagh,” the coroner said, clicking the gold-tipped pen he had in his hand. “We’ve already confirmed identification, and usually in cases like these, we try to spare the loved ones of the deceased.”
Deceased.
My breath caught in my throat. How was it possible for Brad to be gone? We were supposed to fix our marriage and grow old together. What about the children we’d planned to have one day but never got around to? How was I supposed to keep our picket-fenced dream alive by myself?
We were standing in the corridor at the morgue, and I had my arms folded. I wasn’t taking no for an answer. I didn’t care if all that was left of him was a finger. I needed to see him. To tell him I was sorry for not making his coffee this morning.
“I’m a doctor,” I said with as much authority as I could muster. “I understand what I’m walking into.”
“That may be,” he said gently, “but I must warn you that this is different. This is personal.”
Of course it was personal.
That was the point.
“I said I want to see him.” The words came out sharper than intended, but I didn’t care. I needed to see him. Needed to know that it was real, no matter how much it hurt.
“Okay, but I reiterate that this is something that you can’t unsee. Follow me this way, please.”
“Thank you. I hope you know I do appreciate your concern, but I need to do this.”
The doors opened with a low mechanical hum, and cold air rushed out to meet me, sharp enough to sting my lungs. The cold seeped into everything, into my skin, into my bones, into my heart.
The smell came next. Sterile and clinical, layered with a faintly metallic odor. I’d felt many things since Brad’s death—mostly anger and an intense sorrow. Walking into that room was the first time I felt fear, but I pushed through my hammering heart and the churning in my gut.
The drawer slid open with a soft scrape, and for a second, my brain refused to process what I was looking at. Because that man on the table?—
That wasn’t Brad.
That wasn’t my husband.
I thought I would get to see him one last time, but all I got was an empty, shattered shell. Without consciousness, it was no longer him.What was left of him was even worse than I’d thought. The structure beneath the skin no longer held him together the way it should. His limbs were set at unnatural angles, and the swelling and trauma to the head had rendered him virtually unrecognizable.
There were just enough pieces of him remaining to make it possible to identify him.
“What were the injuries?” I heard myself ask, my voice distant, detached, like I was standing outside my own body. The moment felt surreal.
