But Blake didn’t choose this.
Her words ring in my ears."Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and feel like I’m drowning. I have no agency, no autonomy. You forced me to marry you. You forced me into this world, and even after weeks of trying to make it here, I still don’t know how to."
How could I have done this to her, the person I love most?
I don’t know. But I do know that I can’t do it anymore.
If she makes it through this, I have to let her go.
CHAPTER 34
BLAKE
When I wake up, everything hurts.
“Blake?”
It sounds like Nero, but that can’t be him. He couldn’t have gotten rid of the pakhan’s men that fast.
My fingers twitch, searching for the gun that must have slipped from my grasp when I fell. Instead, they curl around soft fabric.
Where am I?
My eyes crack open, and the light is blinding. I groan. Something nearby is beeping.
I blink until the brightness dulls enough for me to see.
Nero’s face comes into focus.
“Fuck,” he breathes, his voice ragged. “Thank fucking God.”
He presses his lips to my forehead, my brows, my cheeks. His hands wrap around mine, warm and comforting. “You have no idea how worried I was about you.”
I look past him, confused. What is this place? The walls are stark white, bare except for a clock ticking above the door, but there are flowers lined up on the windowsill. Beside me, a machine beeps rhythmically, and there’s a tube taped to my arm.
A hospital.
I swallow. My throat is dry and raw. Flashes of a memory hit me. Flashes of the last time I woke up in a place like this. The motorbike accident was years ago, but I still remember the aftermath clearly. The pulsating pain at the back of my head. The cast on my leg itching like crazy. My mom crying by my bedside while my father told her to shut up and stop making a scene.
“Sunshine, how do you feel?” Nero’s thumb brushes gently over the top of my hand.
“How did I get here?” Mentally, I’m still in that bathroom, the floor spinning beneath my feet, Ekaterina pointing her gun at me.
Pain.
Then red, so much red.
I look down at myself, but I can’t see my abdomen under the hospital gown and the blanket over me.
I try to sit up.
Oof. Big mistake.
Nero springs to his feet, his hands on my shoulders. “Careful, baby.”
I breathe through the sharp pain, my eyes flicking to the monitors beside me. Numbers and graphs pulse on the screens, but they’re just cryptic symbols to me. I wish I knew what they meant.
“How long has it been?” I ask, my voice coming out a whisper.
