Page 133 of Violent Pawn

She’ll despise that.

Hand gripping hers, I lower my forehead to her warm skin, forever reassuring myself she’s alive and here. That it could have been so much worse. Instead of a coma, it could have been a funeral.

“Fuck, cara mia, come back to me. I need you, Petrov. More than life itself. More than all the alcohol in the world.”

She keeps on dozing.

I don’t recall much from this week. Only that after she was admitted, Zeno forced me away from the hospital. He drove me to the villa to change out of my bloody clothes and shower. When we returned a few hours later, Lev reported the coma, and that we could take turns visiting her. Vanessa, Lev, and all the others got their turn first before giving me time.

I’ve yet to move from the chair since. If I leave, she might wake up. The doctor said it may be for short spurts at first, and fuck if I’ll miss a second of them.

Steps come up behind me, and still, I don’t budge. I’ve been allowed here overnight only because of Zeno’s influence in this place—the same hospital Serafina stayed in a few months ago. It’s sad this is becoming a habit of ours. Everyone who’s passed through has tried to convince me to go home and get proper rest, but sleeping and eating feel like privileges I shouldn’t be allowed to have until she’s better.

The heavy hand that lowers onto my shoulder isn’t the nurse nor the doctor, all of whom learned early on not to piss me off. I lift my head from Anastasia’s skin to regard Zeno.

“Hey,” he greets, scanning her sleeping form. “No change, I see.”

“Not yet.” Toneless, lifeless… I sound pathetic even to myself.

“I spoke to your father earlier. He called because you disappeared days ago and haven’t checked in. You haven’t answered your phone, so he got worried.”

“Phone’s dead.” I think. It’s somewhere in my pocket, but it’s been dead weight ever since hanging up with Zeno on my way to the warehouse.

“Elio and Madre also checked in. They’re worried about you…both of you. I had to stop Madre from bringing snacks, but she gave a message to pass along. ‘If you insist on damaging your back by sleeping in a plastic chair, at least do it with food in your system before your muscles grow weak and useless.’”

Despite having no reason to smile, Gabriella manages to make it possible. “Tell her I will. She scared me into it.”

“Good, we’ll grab something on the way. We found Vasilyev.”

The afternoon Anastasia was brought into the hospital, Elio scoured through the dead soldiers’ phones and found the easily discoverable and damnable evidence that the mastermind in all this was Georgy Vasilyev, someone who’d been apparently attempting to get Vanessa to wed him over Zeno.

He’s been behind everything from the missing gun shipment to the cancelled contract, the missing drugs, and the dead soldiers. He had the guns somehow planted within Anastasia’s brothel and kidnapped her last night. Since figuring out the culprit, both Zeno and Vanessa have had people hunting for him.

“Already? I can’t leave. I can’t…” My fingers clench her tighter. “She’s coming out of the coma soon.”

“Ten minutes soon,” he says. “The doctor was telling Lev out in the hallway. He’s expecting her to sleep for the next few hours. You’ll have time to get some food in you and then finish this.” He pauses. “I assume you want a hit in there.”

“I want all the hits.”

As the room goes silent, the machine beeps. Her chest moves up and down again, which I take as a sign. I’m at fault for her injuries. Had I lingered, she’d never have chased me and gotten taken. To resolve this, the fix is simple.

A man’s death. He set it all up. Anyone who hurts my ballerina isn’t allowed to continue breathing.

Pressing my lips to her hand, I stand to cup her face, aware of my best friend observing. I lower a gentle kiss to her bruised forehead as well, inhaling the scent of her before whispering, “You saved yourself, Petrov. Now, let me clean up the ashes. Keep breathing, cara mia.”

Zeno follows me out of the room with only a low, “Hmm.”

“Don’t say it, Z.”

“Don’t say how I’m fuckin’ proud of you? Alright.” He claps my shoulder with a grin before striding into the nearby waiting room to take Vanessa into his arms. He murmurs something to her, who nods, and then she and Lev start by me. Lev turns down Zeno’s offer to join us, seeing as he’s the only one authorized to receive medical news about Anastasia.

Vanessa pauses, a hand to my chest. “Thank you.” Sincerity runs in her tone. “For what you did for her, now and before. Thank you for finding her and bringing her home. She’s basically my sister, Nero. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“She saved me too.”

Vanessa’s brows draw together, but her smile reassures me it isn’t confusion that drives her away. Once she and Lev disappear into Anastasia’s room, and Katya, Dimitri, and Serafina wish us luck from the row of chairs in the waiting room, Zeno and I head out of the hospital.

We get into his SUV, and as he’s starting the car, his gaze drifts back to the doors we exited from. “I get it,” he murmurs. “In so many ways, Vanessa saved me as well. Something about this Bratva is just different, don’t you think?”