74. Chapter 74

74

Wren

I don't sleep.

No. Not when he is fighting for his life in the operating room.

I just sit.

And wait. Eight hours . It has been eight goddamn hours since they rushed him in there. Since I watched them drag D's lifeless body, blood pouring out of him like a faucet, through those double doors.

The clinic is too quiet. That eerie calm you get when something bad is happening, but nobody's saying it out loud. I can hear the soft shuffle of nurses' shoes on the tile, the beep of a heart monitor that isn't D's. My chest is tight, every second ticking by feels like a gut-punch.

Eight hours. I count each one in my head like they're running out.

The hallway outside is a blur of motion—nurses rushing past with carts, muttering under their breath, but none of them are talking to me. No one even looks in my direction.

What the hell are they waiting for?

Tick. Tick. Tick.

That fucking clock. Each tick grates on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard.

I take a deep breath. It doesn't help. I lean back, my head hitting the wall with a dull thud. My eyes close for a second, then snap open.

No, Wren. You can't go to sleep now.

I look at my hands. Shit. They're covered in dried blood—some Elena's, but mostly… mostly D's.

"Yob tvoyu mat! Watch it, suka! " a man's voice, raw and pissed, echoes from a nearby room.

" Zatknis', mudak !" a woman fires back. "Lay down before I sedate your ass!"

The other guy who took bullets for his boss is still kicking up a fuss. Oleg. The one who put Zimniy in the ground. But even that victory doesn't matter. None of it fucking matters if D doesn't make it.

The clinic reeks of antiseptic and fear. It's a mini-hospital tucked away in the Ivankov mansion compound, all gleaming white tiles and fluorescent lights that make everything look sickly. D's blood is probably still drying on the floor where they dragged him in.

Two bullets. Two fucking bullets meant for our boy, and that stubborn prick took them both.

Alex is safe. Thank whatever god is listening; he's safe. Curled up with Lenny in a room inside the main mansion, far from this mini-hospital tucked away in the Ivankov Bratva's compound. He's fast asleep, snuggled against Lenny like nothing had happened.

My fingers drum against my thigh.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Matching that fucking clock.

What the fuck is taking so long?

I squeeze my eyes shut. I want to scream, to throw something, anything, but my chest is too tight for even that release.

When I open my eyes, the doctor stands over me. He looks like something out of a nightmare—tall, gaunt, and dressed in a dark suit under his lab coat, which only serves to make his skeletal frame more pronounced. His skin is pale, almost gray, pulled tight over sharp cheekbones that give him the appearance of a living specter.

My lips part, but my voice is a dead thing, lying silent in the back of my throat.

He glides toward me, and he stops.

My heart thumps in my throat as I speak the words that could shatter my world. "D… he's alive, isn't he?"

The silence that follows is agony.

His thin lips press together in a straight line, and his eyes—dark, sunken, and piercing—look like they have seen too much death.

Clasping his long, bony fingers in front of him, his coat barely sways as he stands unnaturally still. Even the air around him seems colder. If the Grim Reaper had a twin brother who went to medical school, this would be him.

I stand up immediately, trying to rush into the room. But the doctor stands before me, blocking my path.

" Nyet ," he says. "You cannot enter yet. He is still in critical condition."

"Look, doc ," I growl, my voice cracking. "I don't give a fuck about your rules. I need to see him. I need to see his face…"

"Dr. Pyotr," he introduces himself as if I give a shit about his name right now.

His thin lips twitch, barely a motion, before he answers, "Multiple surgeries. We've removed both bullets, but there is significant damage; the internal bleeding is bad."

I hold my breath, waiting for the words that could crush me.

"Mr. Orlov has less than a 24-hour window to survive; his fate is in his own hands," he declares.

I clamp my teeth down on my bottom lip. I hate the way his voice carries that eerie, matter-of-fact tone, like death is something he discusses over coffee.

Damn it . I stare after him, feeling the anger boiling under my skin.

No. Fucking. Way.

And then, from the pit of my mind, another cold thought twists in the dark: What if I lose D forever? What if I never get the chance to tell him about his son, about how Alex is as tough and determined as he is?

I'm about to lose my shit, to grab that bony-assed doctor and shake some hope out of him, when—

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

An alarm rips through the building, piercing and urgent. Fuck. Code red.

My heart stops dead in my chest.

Dr. Pyotr's head snaps toward the operating room. In a blink, he's sprinting back, his bony frame moving with surprising speed. The double doors bang open, then swing shut behind him, cutting off a glimpse of frantic activity inside.

I can't breathe. Can't think. The world goes fuzzy around the edges, like I'm seeing everything through murky water.

Dr. Anastasia comes tearing out of Oleg's room, face white as a sheet, her coat splattered with blood. My pulse kicks into overdrive as her panicked eyes lock onto the operating room where D is.

Oh God. No. Please, no.

My chest constricts, every cell in my body screaming in terror. The beeping, the pounding footsteps, the controlled chaos—it's all for D.

"His heart stopped," I whisper, the words tasting like ash. "No, no, no. Not now. Not like this."

My knees give in, and I slam down hard onto the cold tile floor. The impact jolts through my body, but I barely feel it. My hands shake as I try to brace myself, fingernails scraping uselessly against the smooth surface.

"Wren!"

I freeze. That voice. My blood turns to ice in my veins. I turn, slow and unsteady, my muscles quivering with the effort to keep me from collapsing completely.

Sophia.

Luka.

They're standing in the clinic doorway.

Sophia … Tears I didn't even know I was holding back start streaming down my face. Seeing them here, now—it's too much. Everything comes crashing down, threatening to drown me in a tidal wave of fear and grief.

The alarm's still blaring, but all I can hear is the pounding of my own heart—and the terrifying silence where D's should be.

Sophia rushes toward me, arms outstretched. But I can't move. Can't speak. Can't do anything but stand there, trembling, as the world falls apart around me.

Luka's already sprinting toward the operating room, shouting for the doctors. His voice sounds far away, like he's yelling from the bottom of a well.

"Don't you dare die on us, you stubborn bastard!" he roars, disappearing through the doors.

I want to follow. Want to burst in there and drag D back from the brink myself. But my feet are rooted to the spot, my body betraying me when I need it most.

Sophia reaches me, wrapping her arms around me tightly. "He's strong, Wren," she whispers fiercely. "He'll pull through. He has to."

I cling to her, my fingers digging into her arms like she's the only thing keeping me from falling into the abyss. My voice comes out in a broken whisper, "He doesn't even know about Alex. He can't—he can't die without knowing his son."

The alarm keeps blaring. Doctors and nurses rush by in a blur. And all I can do is stand here, helpless, praying to a god I don't believe in to spare the man I love.

Because if D dies, a part of me dies with him. And I don't know if I'm strong enough to survive that.