A thousand alarm bells go off in my mind. Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong. From the pitying way Adami regards me, I suddenly get the feeling a bullet wound is the least of my concerns.
I grip her arm hard. “You don’t understand. Mina is everything. Without her, hell isn’t a strong enough word to describe what my existence will become.”
The fever in my soul must be showing on my face, because her shoulders drop in a gesture of tired surrender. “I can see she means a lot to you. I think you mean a lot to her, too. Hanna spoke very highly of you.”
Hanna. Fuck. In my panic, I didn’t think. I’ll have to break the news to her, but right now, I have greater worries on my mind.
“Tell me,” I beg. “Please. I’ll fix whatever’s wrong.”
Adami’s gaze softens. “I’m afraid this is the one thing you can’t fix, Mr. Ivanov.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.” I’ll give my life, my very soul.
She stares at me for a few long moments, then sighs. “All right. Knowing how you feel about Mina, and after this”—she glances at Mina’s unconscious body again—“I guess you have a right to know.” Tilting her head, she gives me a sorrowful smile. “I’m sorry you have to find out like this. Mina has cancer. Leukemia.”
36
Mina
I peel open my eyelids and fight the fog that obscures my mind. It’s difficult. I feel groggy and heavy, like I’m bogged down by gravity. Slowly, my blurry vision comes into focus. The room is strange yet familiar. The white walls and contemporary paintings remind me of Hanna’s room. The clinic.
I’m at the clinic?
Memories rush back, flooding my thoughts. Yan! My pulse quickens. Turning my face to the side, I scan the room in a bout of panic, but then I relax. Yan is sitting in a chair next to the bed, elbows on his knees and head between his hands. As if pulled by an invisible thread of awareness, he lifts his head. The state of him makes my heart ache. More than a couple of days’ worth of stubble darkens his chiseled jaw. Under the dark rings that mar his eyes, his cheeks are sunken and hollow. He’s wearing a gray T-shirt and sweatpants with the clinic logo, and Crocs on his feet.
Those white Crocs, so uncharacteristic for Yan, put a smile on my face, but the effort cracks my lips.
He jumps up and grabs my hand. “You’re awake.”
I try to swallow away the dryness in my mouth. “Unless I’m dreaming.”
Closing his eyes briefly, he kisses my knuckles and keeps my hand pressed to his lips for a long moment. “Are you in pain?” He touches my forehead. “Cold?”
“Thirsty.”
“Water. Yes.” He looks around in consternation even though a carafe and a glass with a straw stand on the nightstand. “Ice? Maybe you prefer juice?”
I nod at the carafe. “That will do.”
He fills the glass and holds the straw to my lips. “Small sips. Don’t drink too fast.”
Mindful of my cracked lips, I keep my smile slight. “I know the drill.”
“Do you have pain?” he asks again.
“I don’t even feel my legs.”
“Dr. Adami gave you morphine.”
“Adami?” I am at the clinic, as the room and Yan’s borrowed clothes indicate.
He puts the glass on the nightstand and dabs my lips with a paper napkin. “We couldn’t risk taking you anywhere else.”
Of course not. It makes sense. “Clever. Thank you.”
“Thank you?” In contrast to his drawn features, the green of his eyes is darker and brighter, reflecting a frantic light. “You took a bullet for me and I…” He grips his hair and stares at me like a man on the verge of madness. “What the fuck was I supposed to do if that bullet had been fatal?”
I try for humor. “Be grateful to be alive?”
“Never again, do you hear me? You will never again put your life on the line. Not for me. Not for fucking anyone. Promise me.”
I reach for his hand. “I can’t make that promise. I acted automatically. If the situation is repeated, I’ll do it again.”
He grabs my fingers in his large palm, squeezing too hard. “Never again. Or…”
“Or what?”
He regards me with helpless desperation, but he doesn’t make manipulative threats. He doesn’t hold Hanna’s life over my head or say he’ll go after my only friend.
Wow. I stare at him in wonder. This is huge. It’s the first time he’s truly treated me like an equal and not his prisoner, the first time he’s not forcing me to bend to his will. He may not like my declaration, but he’s not telling me what to do or how to behave. In his own way, he’s just given me freedom.
The ultimate freedom.
Choice.
The moment is enormous. Tears well up in my eyes. They’re tears of joy for not having lost the man I love and tears of relief for being alive, but they’re also tears of gratitude for this place in our warped relationship, a place I never thought we’d reach. After the way we started out, it’s more than I ever could’ve hoped for, yet I wouldn’t want it any other way. We are what we are. We came together like our natures dictated: in violence and forced submission, in hatred and retribution. What we have now, though, is all the stronger for the obstacles we’ve overcome.
Yan once said the attraction was always there. He was right. And the kernel of love was always a part of it. We fought for this moment, for what we have between us. It didn’t come easily, and I’m not going to deny or waste it.
I’m going to grab it with both hands for as long as I have left.
“Don’t cry,” he whispers, wiping away my tears with a thumb. “I love you, Minochka, more than you can ever know.”
Taking his wrist, I kiss his palm. “I do know.”
His eyes glitter like jade stones. “I should’ve told you.” His voice sounds tormented.
