After ten minutes, Dominic rushed out of the car with Aaliyah in his arms and went straight inside the hospital.
“Doctor! Doctor! Please check her. She got hurt. They shot and beat her. They hit her head and -” Dominic choked. His pent-up emotions were making it hard for him to breathe. His eyes welled with tears again, and he bit his lips.
“We will check that, sir. Please place her on the stretcher. Nurse! Prepare the emergency operation theater. Nurse, tend to this man. He is becoming anxious,” The doctors immediately took Aaliyah into the emergency room, and Dominic leaned on the wall, his blood-stained clothes, making everyone look at him as he covered his eyes.
He slid down the wall, sitting beside the operation theater.
He really lost, didn’t he? All the promises he made to Aaliyah about protecting her from all the miseries were nothing but lies, no? When the time came, she ended up sacrificing her health for him.
“Sir,” the nurse started when she looked at the man that looked like he was losing his mind.
“I am fine. Just treat her,” Dominic clenched his fists to control his emotions, and the nurse nodded and left. She didn’t want to intervene as the man looked dangerous enough to kill her.
“Dominic! Dominic! Where is Aaliyah? I heard from Bryce -” Dimitri rushed inside the hospital.
He immediately paused when he looked at the condition Dominic was in.
“Dominic,” Dimitri’s eyes softened, and he bent down on his knees to look at his friend.
“Hey, nothing will happen to her. She will be alright. She is a strong woman. We all know how adamant she is, don’t we?” Dimitri hugged Dominic.
“It’s all my fault, Dimitri. I let my monster take over, and she is like this because she tried to protect me. If I had just ended that guy with the gun, nothing like this would’ve happened,” Dominic closed his eyes, leaning his head on the wall.
Dimitri thinned his lips when he saw his friend so broken and hurt. This was even worse than the last time when they had seen Vulcan awakening for the first time when they lost their most precious friend.
“I couldn’t protect her, Dimitri. I failed, not only as her boyfriend, I failed as the person who promised her dad I would lay my life on a platter for her. What kind of man am I? She is there in that emergency room because of me,” Dominic fell forward on his hands, and Dimitri clenched his lips.
He can’t even imagine what Dominic might be going through right now. To say Dominic wasn’t even shedding a tear means he was penting up all these emotions, and it broke Dimitri’s heart.
“Dominic! I heard from Bryce you brought Aaliyah here. What’s wrong? Is she okay?”
Dominic and Dimitri looked up when they saw Mrs. Laura entering the corridor.
“She must’ve fought those gang members, no? It must’ve been hard bringing her here. She hates hospitals. It makes her sick. I can’t even imagine how you convinced her to come here for a couple of scratches. She usually treats such minute injuries on her own. Are there -”
“Mrs. Laura,” Dominic took a deep breath and looked at his dad, whose pupils dilated in understanding as the blood on his clothes registered in his mind.
“Harry,” Nathan grabbed Harry’s hand, and the guy forced Laura to turn around towards them. She was in a state of panic, and it was good she didn’t focus on the blood on Dominic’s clothes.
“Harry, Aaliyah will be alright, right? This girl always makes me worry. She has taken all your bad traits. You just wait and see. She will come out and say, I love you, mom. Don’t worry about me. She always does this after doing something bad,” Laura smiled as her eyes teared, and Harry’s fingers trembled when he saw his woman in a moment of denial.
It didn’t take a fool to know things were quite critical.
“She will be alright, honey,” Harry hugged his wife before glaring at Dominic, who turned around and walked out of the hospital.
“Dominic!” Harry rushed behind Dominic.
“You said you would protect her. What is the meaning of this? Is this how you were going to protect her?” Harry grabbed Dominic’s collar.
Honestly, Bryce already told Harry what happened vaguely, and Harry knew it wasn’t Dominic’s fault but his daughter’s fault.
First, his elder daughter was stupid enough to hide something so crucial, and then, his younger daughter was stupid enough to go there alone.
However, Harry wanted to blame someone and take out his anger. He wanted to blame someone for his daughter’s foolishness. But when he saw a defeated look on Dominic’s face, he let go of his collar.
Harry’s pupils dilated when he saw the look in Dominic’s eyes. He looked like a man who lost trust in himself.
The man in front of him wasn’t the leader of the python gang. He was a broken man who couldn’t protect his girlfriend and let her get hurt. Seeing Dominic so emotionless and his eyes void of energy, Harry didn’t know what to say.
“She will be alright, right?” Dominic asked, unbothered by Harry’s treatment, and Harry thinned his lips. His voice almost sounded like a scared kid.
“She will have to. She can’t go just like that without letting me scold her,” Harry hugged Dominic, and the latter nodded before turning and leaving.
Dominic didn’t know where he was going. He just needed to be alone until Aaliyah was in the operation theater.
“Dad, Aaliyah will be alright, right?” Katherine looked at the operation theater, tears flowing down her eyes.
If she hadn’t been dumb enough to believe Aaliyah and had told them everything earlier, things wouldn’t have been like this. Bryce told her what happened there after they reached the basement, and her heart ached for her sister.
Aaliyah always kept everyone’s safety and happiness above her. Though people call her cold, only the people she cares about know how soft-hearted she is.
“I don’t know,” Harry said honestly.
As they were sitting outside the operation theater, Harry immediately stood when he saw a nurse coming out.
“Nurse, my daughter will be alright, right?” Harry asked, and the nurse looked at the family with uncertainty.
“We are not sure right now, sir. She has lost a lot of blood, and her condition is really severe. Her body has been bruised, and her ribs have been broken. However, the main wound on her head is the problem. We can’t say anything until the doctors are done operating on her,” The nurse left to call another specialist with some equipment.
“Harry, do anything. Nothing should happen to my daughter. I am telling you. I won’t talk to anyone if anything happens to my daughter,” Laura held and shook Harry’s hand, and the latter hummed.
Harry’s own resolution was breaking. The more he heard about the severity of the situation, the more worried he became.
“Nothing will happen to her,” Harry said, unsure if he was telling this to Laura or himself.
“Laura, have some faith in God. If we elders behave like this, who will handle the kids?” Nathan placed his hand on Laura’s shoulder, and she shook her head.
“You don’t understand, Nathan. If anything happened to Aaliyah, I would die too. I won’t be able to handle it,” Laura whispered, and Harry looked at his wife with a tired sigh while Katherine broke into another sob.
As they were talking, Matthew, who had been on a business trip and returned recently, entered the hospital. When he heard from his men what happened to Aaliyah, he couldn’t care about anything else and rushed here the first thing.
“Mom, dad,” Matthew thinned his lips, and Laura rushed to her son before hugging him.
“Matthew, look what happened. I told you to not let her into this business, but none of you heard me. If she hadn’t been into kickboxing, she hadn’t saved that man that time, and it wouldn’t have led to any of this. It’s all because you guys didn’t hear me and supported her in her mischievousness,” Laura beat Matthews’s chest.
Seeing his family broken like this, Matthew’s eyes welled with tears as he held his mother’s hand and hugged her closer.
“Everything will be fine, mom. Our Aaliyah is strong. She won’t be taken down by some small scratches,” Matthew said, unsure if she knows about what exact wounds Aaliyah has suffered, and judging from his father’s expression, she didn’t know.
After what felt like an eternity, the light of the operation theater room finally turned off, and all of them stood, looking at the door in anticipation.
Dominic, who had gone to take a walk, returned, and Dimitri pressed his shoulders in comfort.
“It would be good,” Dimitri said, and Dominic hummed.
“Doctor, doctor,” Harry walked to the doctor.
Since Laura was also a surgeon, she knew the operating doctors and their eyes immediately softened when they realized they had been operating on their senior’s daughter.
“How is she, Simon? George?” Laura looked at them with hope, and they looked at each other.
“We are sorry, Mrs. Laura,” Simon said, and everyone’s heart skipped a beat.
“What do you mean?” Harry was the first to react as he held the doctor’s collar in anger.
“We tried our best, sir. We operated on all the wounds. She would’ve been alright if not for the wound on her head. It affected the critical region of her brain. We took out the damaged cells, but -” George paused, and Laura held his hand.
“Come straight to the point,”
“We will keep her under observation. According to past similar cases, she might go into a coma. We have no surety if she would ever wake up. She might wake up tomorrow, in one month, in a year, in ten years. Just pray from God that she doesn’t become brain-dead. Because if that happens – You are a doctor, mam,” Simon said before they nodded and left.
“Harry, what did they say? Coma and brain death. What did they mean by that? My daughter will never wake up?” Laura asked Harry, and the latter didn’t know how to react anymore.
He was broken himself. He didn’t have enough energy to comfort anyone anymore.
“No. No. No. It can’t happen,” Laura shook her head in denial before walking to Dominic.
“You! You promised me to take care of her, didn’t you? What will you do now? Can you bring my daughter back to life? Can you make her smile like she used to?” Laura grabbed Dominic’s collar before shaking him.
“Laura, calm down please -”
“Calm down? How can I calm down in a situation like this? It’s not your daughter there! My daughter is there fighting life and death! So shut your f*cking mouth, and don’t tell me to calm down!” Laura interrupted Nathan.
“This man here wanted to marry my daughter. He said he would lay his life for my daughter. I… I can’t -” Laura took deep breaths before she stumbled back as darkness started taking over her.
“Laura!” Harry shouted, holding Laura in his hands.
“Mom!” Matthew picked Laura in his arms before they rushed her to the emergency room.
Meanwhile, Dominic looked at the girl who was being shifted from the operation theater to the ICU.
“Aaliyah! Aaliyah! Are you hearing me? You can’t go into a coma like this. You will have to wake up for me. Aaliyah, don’t leave me like this. Please,” Dominic whimpered, holding her hand.
“You can’t touch the patient, sir. She has gone through the operation just now. Who allowed him here?” The nurse shouted before closing the doors and pushing Dominic out.
“Dominic, Aaliyah is a fighter. Nothing will happen to her. Don’t worry,” Dimitri tried to comfort his friend, but even he knew things were out of hand now.