CHAPTER 32
CHRISTIAN ‘VICIOUS’ VOLKOV.
“Pull up the security cameras, every square mile of the hotel, the front, the back, the street they took. I want everything, Kai.”
“Volkov, I’m doing everything I can since I got informed of everything that went down.”
Her blood is still on my hands.
Past memories of Catelina in my hands, losing that much blood on me haunts and plagues me.
Can’t sit and do nothing.
Can’t stand and watch her die.
I brought her here and no one has said a word. No nurse. No surgeon.
No update on how long the surgery will take. Nothing.
“Well work harder, damn it! Get me results! Give me a name!”
“You are not in the right state of mind right now, Volkov. You have a bullet still lodged in your shoulder.”
“It went straight through.”
And the other one hit her.
On the back of her neck, on her shoulder, on her spine, on the back of her head?
No. She was still gripping my hand when we got here.
She was still breathing.
She is still breathing.
“Doesn’t mean you are doing fine.”
“I got shot at like some pig in hunting season. My nurse is fighting for her life in there, doing fine is the least of my concerns. Give me a fucking name or escort your pompous ass out of here.”
She’s not Catelina.
She’s not following my sister to the land of no return.
I should have stayed.
Fuck, I should have stayed on that bed.
Pacing around a minute longer and my men appear out of nowhere, the worry etched on their faces confirming what hasn’t hit me quite yet.
She got shot.
She put her body right in front of mine.
The little minx gambled her life for me.
I’ve been shot a couple times, I have tasted death and escaped it but she hasn’t.
And the irony of death?
It took the ones who didn’t deserve to die and left the people who didn’t deserve to live in the first place.
“Boss? How is she doing?”
“Doctor won’t say shit”, I cuss.
Jett and Jagger have that forlorn look on their faces.
They know like I do that in our line of work women don’t get to walk away alive.
“She’s a fighter. She’ll pull through”, Nico offers his unwanted advice but right now I bite into his words and suck up the pain from my shoulder.
She’ll pull through.
My nurse isn’t going down like this, not when she has a kid back in my house.
She wouldn’t die leaving her kid in my custody.
And that has me chuckling painfully.
That woman would escape hell if it meant rescuing Millie from my clutches.
I try not to think about Millie. The kid is seeing her mom whether I have to fight the devil himself or not.
“Kai?”
Maximo’s surprised tone next to me has me caring less that New York’s most eligible bachelor has been standing next to me as soon as my nurse got inside those big theater doors at the end of the hallway.
“Flew in as soon as I heard there was a shootout at our hotel. The first shootout.”
“Camera feeds?”
Maximo asks.
“Already getting sent as we speak.”
Silence falls like heavy hail on my head, the smell of ammonia and medicated stuff feels nauseating and unsettling.
The sight of hospitals, this type of environment feels like the walls are closing in.
Feels like my old doctor advising me to let go because Cat was no more.
Standing here not being able to control anything, the universe flipping a huge middle finger in my face has me losing my sanity, my grip to reality fades, Maximo rings a nurse to look at my shoulder.
A nurse that’s not Sunshine.
The sooner the nurse approaches me the feeling of wanting to crush her eats me and blinds me but my mind fades out everything and focuses on one thing and one thing only.
Blue eyes, mysterious like the vast ocean that goes on for miles.
Blonde hair up in a ponytail, down her shoulders, in a mess.
Pearl white teeth smiling at me.
“I let you look at my wound and you’ll end up getting hurt. Any time anyone inflicts pain on my body, I react. I won’t think, I’ll react.”
“Who stitches you up when you are too wounded to do it yourself?”
“Maximo.”
“Do you hurt him when he does it?”
“Yes. He can take a punch or two and you can’t.”
“We have to stop the bleeding and you need not to hurt me while I’m doing so. That’s why I’m going to recommend a distraction.”
“A distraction?”
“Your body reacts that way because you are stuck reliving a memory. A memory of someone probably hurting you so any time a different person hurts you, you think it’s the same person and you react. A distraction keeps your mind from reliving the past and focusing on the present.
Focusing on me and realizing I’m not gonna hurt you. At least not intentionally.”
Alexia’s words ring out loud in my head as the nurse who’s already started disinfecting the wound does her job.
Focus on her. Focus on her recovery. Focus on the blue eyes and that smile.
Distract myself with her memories praying to the same God that took Cat to spare the nurse instead.