CHAPTER 307

CHAPTER 307
ALINA

He kissed me again, softer this time, lingering just long enough to ease some of the panic still fluttering beneath my ribs.

“I need you not to stress. Doctor’s orders, remember? For both of you.” 

His gaze dipped briefly toward my stomach before returning to mine. “I’ll be five minutes.”

“Fine. I’ll rest. I’ll be the picture of calm, obedient serenity. Very Zen. Very unlike myself, honestly, but I’ll try.”

I patted his hand solemnly. “Purely because I don't want you having some kind of stress-induced cardiac event in the bathroom while worrying about me worrying about you. Wouldn't that be embarrassing?”

His mouth twitched. “Very.”

“Exactly. We can't have the doctor coming back to find both of us hooked up to monitors. Terrible optics for the family.”

“Very thoughtful of you.”

“I know.” I settled back against the pillows with theatrical reluctance. “I’m practically a saint.”

His eyebrow lifted. “Don't look so surprised.”

“I wasn't going to say anything.”

“Good choice.”

A faint smile tugged at his mouth, 
I reached for his hand again before he could stand.
“Go. Freshen up..I'll be waiting.”

He leaned down and kissed me once more, lingering against my forehead this time.

Then he straightened. I watched him turn toward the bathroom, but the moment he took that first careful step, my eyes immediately dropped to his leg again.

I hated that he could still worry me with nothing more than the way he walked.

I searched his face as he glanced back at me, looking for any sign he was downplaying how badly he was hurt. 

All I found was exhaustion, quiet determination, and underneath both, that same maddening stubbornness that had probably kept him alive long before I'd ever known him — the kind that let him bleed half to death and still look me dead in the eye and say 'I'm fine.'

The door clicking shut behind him.
I stared at the closed door, listening to water running.

A bullet. Of course it was a bullet. Knowing Alexander, he'd probably barely noticed until someone pointed out he was bleeding — and now he was in there pretending otherwise, because apparently admitting he'd been hurt mattered less to him than keeping me from worrying.

I hated it. Hated that he'd been in pain the entire time he sat beside my bed acting fine, hated that some part of him still thought protecting me meant hiding his own. We were going to have a conversation about that. 

My hand drifted back to my stomach. 

“Hey,” I whispered. “Your father is a stubborn, impossible man,” a small, watery smile tugging at my mouth. 

"He just limped out of here after getting shot, because apparently admitting he's injured would damage his carefully cultivated reputation as a man who cannot be harmed by conventional weaponry."  

"God forbid anyone discover that Alexander Dimitri is, in fact, human, and not some indestructible mafia myth carved out of granite and spite. Very fragile ego for a man who apparently shrugs off bullets like mosquito bites."

I smoothed my palm slowly over the fabric of my gown.

“He’s going to drive me insane for the rest of our lives. Honestly, I think I married him specifically so I could spend the next fifty years arguing with a man who thinks getting shot is something you casually leave out of the morning conversation.”

“Other couples wake up and say, Good morning, sweetheart. Apparently, my husband wakes up and thinks, Good morning, wife. By the way, I have a bullet wound, but let’s not make a fuss about it.”

I shook my head.

“Romance is truly alive and well in the Dimitri household.”

A soft laugh escaped me. “But he’s also the best man I’ve ever known. The kind who walks into a burning building without thinking twice if someone he loves is inside. Who tore through God knows how many men last night to get to me, and none of them stood a chance—because your father doesn’t do anything halfway. He doesn’t even know how.”

I swallowed, the memory of him sitting beside this bed all night still sharp.

“He stayed right here the entire time. Bullet wound and all. Because the idea of leaving me alone for five minutes terrified him more than the hole in his own leg. Classic him. Dramatic. Overprotective. Completely incapable of resting like a normal person.”

“He’s going to be the best father. Even if he panics the first time you cry. Even if he looks personally betrayed the first time you vomit on one of his expensive shirts—and you will, by the way. I already have a feeling I’m going to enjoy that immensely. I might even encourage it. Just a little. For character development.”

I smiled down at my stomach.
“He already loves you, and you’re not even the size of a grape yet. Ridiculous, isn’t it? The man can make grown men wet themselves with a single look, and yet the thought of you already has him completely undone.”

“He’s going to pretend he’s strict. He’s going to stand there looking all serious and tell me we need rules. Schedules. Boundaries. Structure.”

I shook my head fondly.
“And then you’re going to look at him with those big eyes—assuming you inherit at least one soft feature from me, for both our sakes—and he’s going to fold like a cheap lawn chair. He’ll give you whatever you want. Absolutely whatever you want. Mark my words. Your father is going to be wrapped around your tiny finger before you can even hold your own head up.”

“And I’m going to stand there the whole time, pretending to scold him for spoiling you, while secretly loving every second of it. Because as much as I enjoy driving him crazy… I love him more than I know how to say. And I already love you just as much. Even though I just found out you're real, even though everything still feels fragile. You're ours. And we're going to protect you. Both of us. No matter what it costs."

My thumb traced a slow, careful circle over my stomach. 

“So rest up in there, little one. We’ve got a long, chaotic, completely ridiculous life ahead of us. And your father and I? We’re going to protect every fucking second of it.”

I froze.

“…Oops. Shit. I mean—forget the f-word. Completely. Wipe it from the record. Do not mention a single thing to Daddy, understand? If he finds out I was swearing at you before you even have ears, I will never hear the end of it.”

I patted my stomach gently, as if sealing the deal. “This stays between us.”

The bathroom door opened a few minutes later, and I looked up.

Alexander stepped out with damp hair, a clean shirt replacing the bloodstained one, sleeves rolled to his forearms. 

He looked better—cleaner, at least, less like a man who’d torn through hell all night to find me. The limp was still there.

My eyes dropped to his leg again. He caught me staring.

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

"I was thinking."

"That's usually when trouble starts." I gave him a tiny, offended gasp, hand pressed dramatically to my chest. 

"Wow. I nearly died last night, and this is the tenderness I'm getting? Where's my sympathy card? My flowers? My 'get well soon, my love' balloon arrangement?"

"My apologies. I was a little tied up. You know. Unconscious wife, active hemorrhage, eleven bodies to account for, a leg with a hole in it. Balloon shopping fell fairly low on the priority list."

"A valid excuse, but I'm still docking points."

"Noted. I'll add it to the list, right under 'threatened to inspect my leg' and 'called me an idiot within an hour of waking up.'"

"That list is going to be very long by the time we're old."

"I've made peace with that." His mouth twitched. "I'm trying to keep you alive long enough to keep annoying me for the next sixty years, actually. Very selfish of me, I know."

He came toward the bed, and sat carefully on the edge of the mattress, simply looking at me for a moment.

Then his fingers gently pushed a tangled strand of hair away from my cheek. His gaze lingered on my face, tracing every bruise, every scrape, every sign of what I'd been through.

His thumb brushed softly along my cheekbone before he leaned in and pressed a feather-light kiss there.

Then another. And another, just beneath my eye, where the skin was still tender.

I smiled despite myself.

“What are you doing?”

“Admiring my wife.”

“You're being weird.”

“I nearly lost you.” His voice softened. “I'm entitled to a little weird.”

Before I could answer, he kissed the tip of my nose.

I let out a tiny laugh. “That was definitely weird.”

“Just trying to lavish a little love on you,” he murmured. 

“The last twenty-four hours have been hell. And now you're here, beside me, breathing, arguing with me…” His thumb brushed gently over my cheek. 

“This moment is beautiful I don't want to take for granted.”

My chest squeezed. I reached up and touched his jaw, letting my fingers linger against the roughness of his skin.

“You know what I think is beautiful?”

His eyebrow lifted. “I’m listening.”

“You.”

The teasing in his expression faded at once, replaced by something quieter, warmer.

“You, Alexander. Not the suits. Not the cars. Not the terrifying reputation everyone seems so impressed by.” I smiled faintly. 

“Just you. The man who sat beside my bed all night. The man who pretended his leg wasn’t hurting because he was more worried about me. The man who came for me when I thought I was never getting out of that basement.”

I let my eyes travel over his face—the exhaustion, the stubble, the quiet intensity that never fully left him.

“And now you’re sitting here looking exhausted and half-dead, and somehow I still think you’re the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.”

A quiet laugh escaped him. “Half-dead?”

“Don’t let it go to your head. I’m still recovering.”

He leaned closer until his forehead rested against mine. “You’re going to make me unbearably smug.”

“I know.”

“And you’re still going to love me?”

“Unfortunately.”

His mouth curved. “Good.”

His fingers tightened around mine. I took a slow breath.

“Alexander. Do you know what I used to think love was, before you? Soft. Quiet. Small and careful—the kind of thing that didn’t ask too much of you.” I traced my thumb slowly across his knuckles. 

“And then you came into my life like a storm nobody warned me about, and turned all of that completely upside down.”

He went still, listening.
“You didn’t love me softly. You loved me like it was a war you intended to win—surrender wasn’t even a word you understood.” I pressed my palm flat against his chest, feeling his heart beat steady beneath it. 

“You tore through a warehouse full of armed men to get to me. You sat here bleeding through a bandage rather than leave my side. You’ve spent every hour since I woke up trying to convince me you’re fine, so I wouldn’t have one more thing to worry about.”

My eyes filled, but I kept going.

“That’s not quiet, careful love. That’s the kind that would burn the world down and call it Tuesday if it meant keeping me safe. I used to think that kind only existed in stories.”

His hand came up to cup my face, thumb brushing beneath my eye where a tear had slipped free.

“Turns out,” I whispered, “it just needed the right person to hold it. And it found you.”

“I didn’t know love could feel like this either,” he finally said, voice rough. 

“I spent my whole life believing love was a weakness men in my world couldn’t afford. Then you walked into it, unbothered by all of it, and made me understand it’s not the weakness at all.” His thumb traced along my cheekbone. 

“It’s the reason I survived everything this world threw at me. The reason I’ll survive whatever comes next.”

“Even sleepless nights and dirty diapers?”

A broken, wet laugh escaped him. “Especially that.”

He kissed me then—slow and unhurried. When he pulled back, his forehead stayed pressed to mine.

“I fucking love you. More than I’ve ever loved anything.”

“I love you too. Villain to hero. Stranger to husband. However this story started, I wouldn’t trade a single page of it.”

“Neither would I.”