Chapter 105

*** Marek’s POV ***

I ran my hands through Ria’s hair. She was sleeping soundly next to me in my hospital bed. Kam had warned her multiple times that she was not to walk anywhere. Ria still snuck into my room after the night shift and crawled into bed with me. I’d never kick her out though. I don’t know why they didn’t just put us in the same room.

In the past, I never really worried about things. If something bad happened, I just fixed it. End of story. The lack of light in Ria’s eyes made me add her emotional wellbeing, not just physical, to the list. She was still trying to force herself to not feel. Part of it I knew was because she was waiting to hear what Juri had to say. I wish I could tell her she didn’t need to go that far but I knew better. Even I didn’t know what was going happen next.

The door opened and I heard an exaggerated groan. “YA klyanus'. Yesli ona budet prodolzhat' v tom zhe dukhe, ona naneset nepopravimyy vred svoim nogam.” [I swear. If she continues like this, she will cause irreparable damage to her legs.]

Smiling at my sister, I shrugged. “You’re the one putting her in a different room.”

She sighed and shook her head. “You’re only here because the levels of drugs in your system is required by law to be monitored. She actually needs to be here.”

“Kogda my smozhem poyti domoy?” [When can we go home?]

“Her? Never.” Kam pointed to Ria. “You? Now.”

I pulled Ria to me and growled. “You’re not keeping her. She’s mine.”

Kam rolled her eyes but I watched as her usual mask slipped. “Marek, Juri has ordered you and Rosaria to come as soon as you are discharged.”

“Kam, we need to take a breath. Juri…”

“Vor Juri is ordering it, Marek. It’s not a request. The moment I discharge you, there will be a driver waiting for you to take you to him.”

I frowned. Soft fingers brushed against my lips and I looked down, smiling at Ria. She was trying to blink away the sleep and I brushed my fingers against her skin, reveling in the feeling. I’d missed her. My pure fear and worry as Enzo hauled her over his shoulder. The only reason I got caught was because I tried to get to Ria. No matter what, I wouldn’t let her go alone.

Enzo was smart to separate us, to his credit. Weeks went by and even though my sister wouldn’t tell me the full extent of damage that Enzo did, her face said more than enough. Ria would brush it off saying ’tis only a flesh wound’ but now that we had been in the hospital for a week, I managed to understand. She went through two different surgeries, the last one forcing her take it slower than I’d seen her since the first time I met her.

“What do I say about frowning? It doesn’t suit you.”

Kissing her forehead, I sighed. “I know.”

“We knew it was coming. We just need to face it. No matter what.”

Ria was taking it better than I was. Feeling my weakness as I felt like there was nothing I could do but turn against my own family. Having someone like Ria at our fingertips was too tempting and it would take a miracle for Juri to allow her to retire.

I worried he wouldn’t listen to her. He would force her to do the same things her father did. There was my Plan Z. One that my father set up for each of us siblings when Juri took over as Vor. None of us had needed to use it but I had a feeling if there was day, it was going to be now.

Looking down at Ria, I wanted to give her everything. Make her feel safe and give her the opportunity to live as normally as people like us could possibly do.

She’d saved me. Keenan gave me the rundown of what happened while I was caged. Ria expressed her thoughts that she worried that Juri had been asking for a war all along. It just needed to be justified through our own code of ethics. From the details from Keenan, they only seemed to support that theory. I was trying to understand what Juri was thinking but I realized, since Ria, I’d pulled back from being his protector. I stopped being his balance and I worried that over the past few months, he’d lost his center.

“You could just discharge us now.” Ria looked over at Kam.

“In your dreams, missy. You need to heal. I’ll allow Marek to stay for you. But I need you to take this seriously.”

I felt Ria sigh, her breath fanning across my chest. Taking her chin gently, I lifted her head to look at me.

“You need to get better, búsinka. Then we are going to take a long vacation somewhere,”

She smiled. “Where?”

I shrugged. “Anywhere you want. Maybe somewhere with a beach? Or on a river?”

Curling up against me, her head pressed into my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close. She was almost gone. I’d almost lost her. To her brother, no less. He’d been quiet over the last week but Ria said he wouldn’t come out of the woodwork this early. Not when most of the Bernardi territory was literally on fire.

“Ug. I can’t take either of you.” Kam twirled around and left, seemingly appeased to have found Ria safe.

Reaching over my curled up wife, I grabbed my tablet. There were notifications galore but I ignored most of them. Scrolling through the news, I read a couple article titles saying the same thing. ‘Santiago Family in Ruins’ was the most straight forward of them all. I’d called the office the moment I woke up, ordering our company to pull everything out of the Santiago Corporation.

By that afternoon, nearly sixty percent of the companies holding up the backbone of their business were gone. Santiago Corporation crumbled under its own weight within a couple days. Since I’d made a public move, the press was hounding me for comments but the office was able to hold them off with the fact that I was in the hospital.

Anastasia was arrested for drug possession, sex trafficking, drunk driving, attempted murder and more. Somehow, drugs ended up in her trunk as she swerved off the road in her brand new car, hitting two other cars in the process. She said someone spiked her drink but there wasn’t anything found. Lorenzo made sure of it.

Now, the pretty princess would know how it felt to be locked in a real cage. Rather than one she continuously complained about every time I’d met with her. Ria had laughed, happy with the outcome, despite knowing it was fabricated by her brother and I. At the end of the day, Anastasia just needed to learn a hard lesson. One that she would learn in jail for quite a number of years.

“What are you thinking about?” Ria poked the space between my eyebrows.

“Wrapping up loose ends. Enzo is still an issue but I don’t know much else that we can do about that now.”

She rolled over in the bed, looking up at the tablet in my hand. “Well, my father is dead. Bernardi mafia is on fire. Even if Enzo comes back, he’ll need time to rebuild. Anastasia is going to get some new girlfriends while her whole family is drowning. The mercenary group is dead. Aleksei was avenged. I was saved. You were saved. I think that’s pretty wrapped up.”

I nodded, slipping my hand under her hospital shirt. Her skin was so warm and soft, despite the scars. She gasped and I leaned down, stealing her breath away with my kiss. Shifting, I caged her against the bed, kissing her harder. Her hands wrapped around my neck and Ria pulled me closer, her leg rubbing the inside of my thigh.

“I love you, muzh. I love you.” Her voice was breathy as I continued to kiss her, not allowing her to take a breath.

Stars exploded as something hard hit my head. The bottle of water bounced off the bed and onto the floor. Sitting back, I rubbed the side of my head. Kam was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips.

“Absolutely not.”

Ria started to laugh under me and I smirked. “I wasn’t!”

“No! I don’t know how many times I need to catch you but no! Keep it in your pants, brat. She isn’t healed.”

A nurse came in behind her, a slight tint to her cheeks. She was carrying a tray of medication for Ria. Climbing off the bed, Ria winked at me before sitting up for the nurse to take the pills. Heading to the bathroom, Kam cut me off and grabbed me by the ear.

Pulling me out of the room, I had no choice but to follow. She pulled me a little ways down the hall before she finally let go. Rubbing my ear, I shook my head.

“If you wanted to talk…”

“U neye byli shvy vo vlagalishche.” [She has stitches in her vagina.]

I stared at my sister for a moment before my brow furrowed. “O chem ty govorish’?” [What are you talking about?]

“Enzo…he…” My sister shook her head. “She has stitches, so you need to wait until she heals and the stitches dissolve. It’s not about her legs, brat. She needs to heal.”

Anger welled up in me and with nothing to destroy, I sent my fist into the wall. Enzo wasn’t just a loose end anymore. He was next on the list. I didn’t think anything had happened that bad with how Ria was but I should have known better. Not being able to protect her this time had done so much more damage that I thought.

“YA sobirayus' ubit' yego. YA sobirayus' skhvatit' yego i zasunut' yemu v zadnitsu raskalennyy metallicheskiy sterzhen’.” [I'm going to kill him. I'm going to grab him and shove a hot metal rod up his ass.]

Kam sighed. “I’ll give you the rod. But…don’t let Rosaria know I told you. She didn’t want to worry you.”

I shook my head. “Why? If she was hurt that bad…”

“Give her time, brat. She loves you. Imagine having to tell your loved one that. Plus, you’re not exactly the best person to tell things like that without your trying to tear down half the city.” Kam motioned to the wall where my fist made a full dent in. “Be there for her. She’s going to need her husband. Especially facing Juri.”

“Have you…”

She shook her head. “I can’t…just…be careful, Marek. Make sure you have your ducks in a row. Otherwise, you will lose her.”