Chapter 53 Marlena
The phone rang at five in the morning and I knew before I answered that something was wrong. No one called at that hour with good news.
I grabbed it from the nightstand with shaking hands, my heart already racing as I pressed it to my ear. "Hello?"
"Miss Rousseau?" A woman's voice, professional but gentle. "This is Nurse Weber from Klinik Hoffnung. I'm calling about your brother Luka."
The world tilted sideways and I sat up too fast, pain shooting through my healing wound. "What's wrong? Is he okay?"
"I'm afraid his condition has deteriorated rapidly over the past twenty-four hours. The treatment has stopped responding and his body is shutting down. The doctors are doing everything they can but you should come as soon as possible."
The words didn't make sense at first, my brain refusing to process what she was saying.
Luka was getting better. The last time I'd spoken to him, just three days ago, he'd been laughing and talking about coming to visit once he was strong enough. He couldn't be dying. Not now. Not after everything.
"I'll be there," I managed to say through the tightness in my throat. "I'm leaving right now."
I hung up and stared at the dark ceiling for a moment that stretched into eternity, then I moved. I threw on clothes without thinking about what I was grabbing, shoved my feet into shoes, grabbed my wallet and phone. Elena was asleep in her room and I couldn't wake her for this, couldn't bring her back to a hospital after everything she'd endured.
I called the nurse Katya had arranged to help with Elena's care, waking her with apologies that tumbled out too fast. She promised to be there within the hour and I left a note on the kitchen table for Elena that said only, "Had to go see Luka. Back soon. Love you."
The drive to the airport was a blur of dark roads and tears I kept wiping away so I could see. I booked the first flight to Zurich on my phone while driving one-handed down the mountain, consequences be damned. The plane left in three hours and I'd make it if I drove fast enough and didn't let myself think about what was waiting at the other end.
The flight felt endless despite being only ninety minutes in the air. I sat by the window and watched clouds pass below while my mind replayed every conversation I'd had with Luka over the past months. Every smile, every laugh, every moment I'd taken for granted because I thought we had time. I thought the treatment was working. I thought we were safe.
A taxi took me from the airport to the clinic and I ran through the pristine hallways in my wrinkled clothes with my unwashed hair, not caring what anyone thought. The receptionist tried to stop me but I kept going until I found his room.
Luka lay in the bed looking so pale and small that my breath caught in my chest. He'd always been thin but now he looked like he might disappear entirely, his skin stretched tight over bones that seemed too prominent. The machines around him beeped softly and an IV dripped clear fluid into his arm, but I could see from his sunken cheeks and the grey tinge to his lips that the end was close.
His eyes opened when I rushed to his bedside and his smile was weak but genuine. "Mar," he whispered. "You came."
"Of course I came." I took his hand and it felt like paper in mine, so fragile I was afraid I might break it. "I'm here. I'm not leaving."
"The treatment stopped working." His voice was barely audible over the machines. "They tried everything but my body just gave up."
Tears streamed down my face and I didn't try to stop them. "Don't say that. You're going to be okay. You have to be okay."
"Mar." He squeezed my hand with what little strength he had left. "It's okay. I'm tired. I've been fighting for so long and I'm just so tired."
"Please don't leave me," I whispered, pressing his hand to my cheek. "I love you more than anything. You're all I have left."
"You have Mom now. And you're strong enough to take care of her, to build a life together." He smiled again and his eyes drifted closed for a moment before opening again. "Promise me you'll be happy. Promise me you won't spend your whole life being angry."
"I promise," I lied, because what else could I say? How could I tell him that I blamed Nikolai for every second I'd missed with him, for dragging me into his revenge when I should have been here?
For two days I stayed by his side without leaving except to use the bathroom. I read him stories from the books he'd loved as a child, fairy tales about brave knights and happy endings that felt like cruel jokes now. I sang soft songs our mother used to sing when we were small, lullabies about stars and dreams and tomorrow always coming. My voice cracked on the words but I kept going because it seemed to soothe him, seemed to bring him moments of peace between the pain.
The nurses brought me food I couldn't eat and coffee I drank mechanically without tasting. Dr. Hoffman came by every few hours to check Luka's vitals and each time his expression grew more grim. The cancer had spread too aggressively and Luka's body was too weak to fight anymore. It was only a matter of time now.
On the third morning I woke from a doze in the chair beside his bed to find Luka looking at me with clear eyes, more alert than he'd been in days.
"I love you, Mar," he said. "Tell Mom I love her too."
"You can tell her yourself when you get better," I said desperately.
"We both know that's not happening." He squeezed my hand one more time. "It's okay. I'm ready."
His eyes drifted closed and his breathing changed, becoming slower and more shallow. I watched the monitors as his heart rate dropped steadily and I held his hand so tight my own hand ached. The nurses had told me what to expect but nothing could have prepared me for the reality of watching my brother slip away breath by breath.
"I love you," I whispered over and over like a prayer. "I love you so much. Thank you for being my brother. Thank you for fighting so hard. You can rest now."
His breathing stopped just after dawn while soft rain began falling outside the window. One moment he was there and the next he was gone, and the hand in mine grew slowly cold as I sat frozen in the chair unable to let go.
I stayed with him for hours while the machines went silent and the nurses moved quietly around us. I held his hand until it was completely cold, until there was no denying that he was really gone and not coming back. Then I finally released him and stood on legs that barely held me.
The funeral arrangements passed in a fog. I planned everything alone because Elena was too fragile to travel and I couldn't burden her with this yet. A small service, just me and a priest who'd never met Luka but said kind words anyway. A simple casket because Luka had never cared about material things. A plot in the cemetery overlooking the mountains because he'd always loved heights.
The rain came down hard on the day we buried him and I stood at the graveside in a black dress I'd bought that morning, watching as they lowered the casket into the ground. My umbrella hung forgotten at my side and water soaked through my clothes but I didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore.
When everyone else had left and I was alone with the fresh grave and the falling rain, I knelt in the mud and placed my hand on the wet earth.
"I'm so sorry I was not there at the end," I whispered to him, to the brother I'd loved more than anyone. "I'm sorry I let Nikolai pull me away when you needed me most. I'm sorry for all the times I chose wrong, all the moments I wasted. You deserved better than me."
The rain kept falling and somewhere in the distance thunder rumbled but I didn't move. I stayed there kneeling in the mud until my legs went numb and the light began to fade, talking to Luka about everything and nothing, telling him all the things I should have said while he was still alive to hear them.
I blamed Nikolai with every fiber of my being. If he hadn't blackmailed me into that contract, if he hadn't dragged me to Monaco, if he hadn't gotten me shot, I would have been here. I would have had these last months with Luka instead of fighting for my life in a villa while my brother died alone.
The anger burned hot and fierce in my chest but underneath it was grief so profound I didn't know how to survive it. Luka had been my reason for everything. Every choice I'd made, every sacrifice, every compromise
. And now he was gone and I had nothing left except rage and emptiness.