Chapter 153

Chapter 153
Alina's POV

I thought I had died.

In the final moment before my consciousness slipped away, poison gas had flooded the entire factory floor. With every breath, those searing particles bored deeper into me. Lowell's blood had soaked through my fingers, and his lips had pressed against mine as he passed the last of his own oxygen down my throat.

So when I opened my eyes again, I couldn't believe I was still alive.

The nurse froze when she saw me stir, then hurried out at a trot. A moment later the door was pushed open from the outside again, and a familiar voice—thick with tears—came rushing in.

"Alina! You're awake?!"

Megan appeared in the doorway, Catherine close behind her, and Jason bringing up the rear. The three of them crowded there together, as though afraid that pouring in all at once might frighten me.

I stared at them for several seconds before I spoke, my voice a little hoarse. "I'm not dead?"

Megan bit her lip and nodded, looking as though her emotions had reached their breaking point.

"No. Thank God you made it."

I braced myself against the edge of the bed and sat up, wanting to speak louder, but it felt like sandpaper lodged in my throat—an unbearable, raw pain. Probably from the gas.

"You've been unconscious for a long time," Megan said, coming forward and pressing on my shoulders to ease me back down. "Almost two months. A couple of days ago there were signs you were coming around, but you only truly opened your eyes today."

I listened to her in a daze. Two months. I had actually been unconscious for two whole months.

A hollow feeling closed over me, as if something terribly important were waiting for me somewhere in that blankness—something I didn't dare reach for.

"Where's Lowell?" I asked them. "How is he?"

Megan's expression changed. She exchanged a glance with Jason and the others, and I sensed at once that something was wrong.

"How—how is he?" I asked, my voice trembling.

When they said nothing, I lurched to my feet and started for the door, only to be caught and held back.

"He's alive—but he's not the way you'd want to find him." Megan looked at me, her voice quivering, as though she'd been holding the feeling back for a long time. "He's badly hurt. Bullets went straight through both his legs, and some of the nerves were damaged. He was exposed to the gas for too long—he can't see anymore, and his hearing was seriously affected. The doctors say the chances of recovery are very, very slim."

"I want to see him!" I shoved away the arms holding me and rushed out of the ward.

"Alina! You've only just recovered—don't overexert yourself. Right now the most important thing is for you to rest—" I pushed past Megan and burst into the room where Lowell lay recovering.

He was lying on the hospital bed, his face turned slightly toward the window.

Sunlight fell across his face, gilding the contours of his features with a faint golden glow. His eyes were bound in gauze, and his breathing was slow and even, as if he were only asleep.

I walked slowly to the bedside, unable to believe this was real. Then my knees gave way, and I sank down onto the floor beside the bed.

I reached out and gently took his hand where it rested outside the blanket. His fingers curled faintly—an unconscious motion.

His injuries were worse than mine, so he would wake more slowly than I had.

"I'm here," I said, a sting rising in my nose. Thinking of how he would never see or hear again, I felt as though knives were twisting in my heart. "I'm sorry I came so late."

"That day in the bar, when you came to find me—I should have gone with you." I pressed my forehead against the back of his hand. "I shouldn't have hesitated so long. I shouldn't have let you go dig into all of it alone. I shouldn't have been standing against you when you needed me most."

"When I saw you walking toward me, the bullets hit you and still you kept coming. I thought then that if you really died, I would never forgive myself, not for the rest of my life."

I didn't know whether he could sense me, didn't know what his world looked like now. All I could do was keep talking.

"I'll stay with you always. It doesn't matter that you can't hear me." I stood, bent down, and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Afterward, I went to see Grandmother.

She was very old now, seated in the woven rattan armchair out in the garden, a blanket over her knees, her silver-white hair blown loose by the wind.

When she saw me, she gave a slight nod, gesturing for me to sit beside her.

"About his father," I said softly—she was old, unable to bear any shock. "It was Antonio. They did those things in his father's name."

Her gaze settled on the distant treetops, the sunlight tracing the aged lines of her face. "I guessed as much long ago. But I never went looking for proof. I'm old. There are some truths that are harder to bear once you know them than they would be if you never did."

She drew her eyes back to me. The weariness and disappointment ran across her face like a river, wearing her features blurred and remote.

Having watched her own descendants turn on one another, she had lived this long only by the strength of an iron will.

"I'm handing over to you the decision of what to do with Antonio and Marco," she said. "Do as you see fit. I can no longer manage it. As for Lowell, the way he is now—if you want to leave, I won't stop you. You are the godmother of the Charlie Cross family. You have your own road to walk."

Sitting beside her, I understood what she meant, and I answered her firmly without hesitation. "I won't leave. I have no family left. I want to stay by Lowell's side."

Grandmother looked at me, those aged eyes shifting slightly. Clearly she hadn't expected me to say such a thing, and she regarded me with disbelief. "Do you truly mean to be with him? He's blind and deaf now. The doctors say it will be very hard for him to recover."

"There is only Lowell for me in this life," I told her. "No matter what becomes of him, I want to be with him—never to leave, never to forsake him."

The air between Grandmother and me fell silent, only the faintly warm wind brushing past our cheeks.

"Very well. I'll hold a wedding for the two of you," she said, taking my hand in her trembling grip. "I'll let everyone know what a woman of true heart and loyalty you are."

I nodded. The wind swept through the garden, setting the branches of the old oak rustling, and sunlight spilled through the gaps in the leaves, scattering in flecks across Grandmother's blanket.