Vlad
No.
No, no, no.
I talk Mika through giving Alessia a shot of glucagon at the same time I throw on some clothes and run out the door. I stay on the phone with him the whole time, my heart racing faster and faster when he tells me that she hasn’t woken up. Hasn’t responded.
“I’m going to hang up and call an ambulance,” I tell him with a calm I don’t feel. “Then I’ll call you back.”
I hear the wail of a siren as I run into the building. Because I can’t stand to wait even an extra few minutes, I carry her down to the hotel lobby in my arms, her head lolling on my shoulder.
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
Mika’s eyes are wet and he’s scared. “She said she would check her blood sugar later. And then she fell asleep. I’m sorry, Vlad. I should’ve woken her up.”
“No. It’s not your fault. And she’s going to be all right,” I promise, even though I’m not so sure. Nothing feels right about this.
And it’s definitely all my fault.
Alessia
I’m in a hospital.
The room comes into focus. The low chatter of Russian coming from the hallway provides the next clue.
Moscow.
I was in a hotel with Mika. And I fell asleep without taking my insulin. But I shouldn’t feel this bad.
I feel horrible. Groggy and tired. I try to move and find blood-filled tubes are coming out of my arm. I try to sit up, but I’m too weak. Too tired. I lift my head and look around. “Vlad?”
Movement comes from the corner, and Mika’s pinched face comes into view.
“Where’s Vlad?”
“He’s here, he’s talking with the doctors.”
“I don’t feel right. What’s this?”
Mika’s chin wobbles. I realize his eyes are red. “You had problem. Your-I don’t know how to say it in English-” He touches his back.
“Kidney?”
“Da. Kidney failed. Vlad is getting you transplant.”
Fear shoots through me like lightning.
A transplant.
Am I already here? It’s that bad? This is the place I’ve been avoiding even thinking about since my diagnosis in Italy. My worst fear.
And now it’s happening. My kidney failed. The tubes of blood must be the dialysis. Oh God, my body totally failed me.
And I’m all alone in Russia. No family, no friends.
My vision blurs. I haven’t felt this scared or alone this entire time in Russia. Even when Vlad first brought me here and I didn’t know what he had in store for me. Nothing compares to the fear I feel now.
I don’t like being here in this hospital bed, with tubes coming out my arm, surrounded by nurses who only speak Russian.
“Your brothers are coming,” Mika says, as if he guesses my thoughts.
That gives me pause. I try to sit up again, but it’s too much work. “They are?”
“Da. Vlad called Junior, told him to come.”
I sink back, relief pouring through me. I’m going home.
But things with Vlad are too unresolved. I need to see him. I have this sense of being torn in half, ripped right down my center without him by my side.
“Where is Vlad? I need him.”
Mika’s jaw tenses. “He can’t come now. He’s with doctors.”
I reach out and touch his sleeve. “Is he really here, though, Mika? Or are you lying to me?”
Mika’s alarm seems real. “Nyet.” He looks over his shoulder. “I will see if the doctors are through with him.”
My relief is short-lived, because I suddenly don’t want to be left alone in a hospital where I don’t speak the language and don’t know another soul. “No, wait-” I call as he heads to the door. “Don’t leave me here alone. Please.”
He comes back. “Vlad is here,” he says firmly, like he’s afraid I still don’t believe him. “He is getting you a kidney.”
“Okay. We’ll wait for him, then. What should we do?” I look up at the television on the wall.
Mika turns it on and flips through the channels, but all the shows are in Russian. “I know,” he says, retrieving his tablet from the chair in the corner. He stands beside me and boots it up. “You like Friends?”
I give a watery laugh. I thought I’d seen him watching it back when we were in Las Vegas. He settles the tablet on my lap and we watch together as the time passes interminably slowly.
Vlad
When I wake after the operation, my vision swims from the drugs. Even with pain-killers, I feel the incision, the loss of my organ. As my eyes struggle to focus, I hone in on the dark, well-dressed figure looming over me.
He presses the hard muzzle of a pistol against my temple. “Give me one good reason not to shoot you.”
Junior. And behind him stand the two Tacone brothers from the Chicago outfit, Gio and Paolo.
I blink up, unafraid. If they want to kill me, they can. I deserve it. I suppose I expected to die by one of their hands the moment I decided to take Alessia.
I wronged their sister and now she lies recovering in a hospital bed because I couldn’t even keep her safe.
So no, there isn’t a good reason not to shoot me. Not really.
In the corner of the room I catch movement. It’s not another brother. It’s Mika-pale and scared, eyes as big as his face.
My chest tightens. The kid’s been through a lot. First his mother runs out on him. Then the entire Chicago bratva is wiped out by the man in front of me. Then I bring him back to Russia and teach him to trust me, only to wind up with a gun at my head and the kid about to witness my demise. Well.
Maybe there is one reason, then.
“She wouldn’t want you to,” I grate out, my voice rough from intubation.
That much is true. I know her well enough.
“And why is that?” Gio snarls from behind Junior.
My eyes shift to Mika, and I lift my chin in his direction. “She wouldn’t want you to orphan him a second time.”
Junior shoots a glance at Mika. He’s a hard, violent man. He single-handedly gunned down the entire bratva cell. He won’t hesitate to kill me if he wants to.
But the moment he sees Mika I know he shares his sister’s softness for children. Something changes in his eyes. He considers the boy. “What’s your name?”
Mika swallows. “Mikhael.”
Junior tips his head in my direction. “You want this guy to live?”
Mikhael nods, a small, rapid movement that doesn’t stop.
“All right. Fair enough. I guess I owe you that.” Junior pulls the gun away from my head. It disappears into a holster behind his back.
“How is she?” I attempt to move and wince at the pain.
“She’ll live.” Junior’s gaze is hard. “We brought our own doctor and we’re taking her home to recover. You go near her again, I’ll cut your balls off.”
I nod my agreement. I deserve that.
“And stay out of my fucking country. I see you back in the States, you’re a dead man. Capiche?”
“Da.”
“Da,” Paolo sneers. “Fuckin’ Russian.” The Tacones file out of the room.
I close my eyes in relief. Not that they spared me, but at the news that Alessia made it. The transplant was successful and she now has my kidney.
I was able to make up for nearly causing her death.
I’d called Junior and filled him in when I found out her kidney failed. I told him to come right away to take her home after the operation.
Victor agreed to let them come, but only because I have their money. He doesn’t know I returned it weeks ago. I kept Mika’s account flush, though.
Before I went under the knife I showed him where it is and how to get to it if anything happened to me. I want him to have options apart from the bratva if he chooses.