Page 88 of Where the Wind Whispers

Still, Violet asked, “What?”

Ruslan’s gaze snapped back to her, clarity clearing his gray eyes. “I haven’t told them yet.”

She had no idea what he was talking about, but she’d indulge him.

Whatever he wanted.

“You will,” she replied.

Ruslan’s exhale rattled, bubbles of red fluid staining his lips again. “Should have done it already. I told you once—it’s complicated.”

Violet understood then what he was talking about.

The man she’d seen in the hospital all those months ago. The woman Ruslan occasionally brought to events and parties as his date.

Violet’s attention was only diverted by the sounds of sirens screaming close by. “Almost here, Rus.”

Tires screeched loudly from the other end of the street, the opposite way from where the sirens were coming.

Kaz’s shout echoed down the road. “Rus! Violet!”

She couldn’t call back to her husband. Her focus was taken by Rus once more.

His eyes were still open, but the recognition and clarity was gone.

His chest had stopped moving.

She’d only looked away for a second.

Just one single second!

In the background of Violet’s shock as she fell back to her ass on the pavement, her hands stained red and her jeans soaked with blood, she could hear her baby wailing and her husband apologizing.

Violet cried.

So hard.

“I’ll have someone take you home,” Kaz told Violet. “You can change out of those clothes and relax for a bit. There’s nothing you can do here, yes?”

She heard him, of course, but her mind was not cooperating enough for her to give him a response.

“Let me through! I need to see my son! Please!”

Kaz stood fully, spinning fast on his heel at the sight of his mother forcing her way past two large men who had been standing in the family waiting room of the OR.

“Mama,” Kaz said, a thickness coloring his words.

He’d been so carefully managing his emotions, Violet noticed. From the moment he’d arrived on the scene to the point when Rus had been shoved into the back of an ambulance, Kaz barely gave away a thing. Schooling his features, he had shouted for someone to call his lawyer when the cops had shown up on the scene only seconds after the ambulance left.

Irina was let through, the twins following right behind their mother with red, watery eyes and with matching expressions of fear. At Violet’s right, Vera stood from the seat she’d been seated in, baby Anastasya in her arms.

Alfie, a man Violet rarely spent time around, put a hand on Vera’s shoulder, and pushed her back into her seat with a quiet, “Sit, dovie, you’ll do no good for her like you are. Let your brother handle it, yeah?”

“But—”

“Arguing is fucking pointless today, innit?” Alfie asked, seemingly emotionless despite the affection implied in his words toward Vera. “Not the best time, luv.”

Violet took her daughter from Vera. The two stepped off to the side, and the harsh whispering began as they settled in a set of seats in the far corner. She was too focused on her husband approaching his stunned, heartbroken mother.