AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER13
ISABEL
As soon as my body hits Ruslan’s mattress, I pass out. I don’t know how long I sleep, but when I feel a dip in the bed, when I sense that someone else is in the room, my eyes open as far as they can, which isn’t far. I can hardly make out the person next to me, but I can tell enough to know that it’s not Ruslan.
“It’s okay, Isabel. I’m Dr. Samuil. I’m just going to examine you. Can you tell me what happened to you?” he asks.
His voice is soothing, it’s so calm and I let out a breath as he starts to touch and check my body. I hiss when I feel his hand touch my ribs. He asks if I was hit in my ribs and my eyes start to tear up. Through my sobbing, I tell him everything, including the sex. He clears his throat and makes sure to tell me that it was not sex, but rape.
I’m not sure that I can really deal with that word right now. Inside, I know that’s what he did to me, but I can’t accept it, I can’t think about it, I can’t process it. So, I don’t. Instead, I shove it in a little box far back into the recesses of my memory banks, never to be remembered again.
It wasn’t the first time he forced himself on me, but it was the absolute last. No matter what happens to me, even if Ruslan doesn’t want me, I will never go back to Azar again. I would rather take my own life than to be with him ever again.
“You’re going to be okay. I think your ribs are just cracked. I am going to bandage them.” Dr. Samuil announces as he lifts my shirt and begins to bandage my rib cage.
He wraps them tight, but it feels better. Then he slides my pants off and checks me down there. I hate it, but I also want to know that everything is okay. That every part of me is going to be okay.
“I’m going to leave some pain and sleeping pills with Ruslan along with instructions. I need you to get as much rest as you possibly can, okay?”
“Okay,” I breathe. He hands me a few pills to take and helps me swallow them with a bottle of water.
“I’ll be back in a few days to check on you,” he says and then he stands, and he’s gone.
Lying back down on the pillow, it only takes me seconds before I’m asleep. Nothing wakes me up. I think an entire bomb could go off and I wouldn’t even crack an eye.
RUSLAN
Osip watches me.He hasn’t said anything, but his gaze hasn’t left me, no matter how many times I pace. The doctor is in with Isabel, and I have no clue what really happened to her. She was beaten thoroughly, the extent of that I don’t know and it’s fucking killing me right now not to know either.
“She’s okay, Rus,” Osip states.
Stopping in my tracks, I turn to look back at Osip. “Is she?” I ask. “She’s breathing, but is she okay?”
He leans back in the chair, his brows arching toward me. “You care for her, truly.”
His words are a statement. They are said as a fact, there is no question in them at all whatsoever. I can’t deny them either. They’re the truth. I wasn’t sure how much I truly cared about her, wasn’t completely positive I wanted to keep her forever. But I was wrong. I do want her. It’s very clear to me now, I need to keep her—to protect her.
“I do,” I grind out.
His lips curve up into a smile, as if he’s really fucking done something, as if he’s made a fucking match. I want to throw something at him, but I don’t have the energy, or anything to throw. He thinks this is funny, but I know that on the other hand he is happy for me as well, so I let it go.
Dr. Samuil appears before either of us says anything else. Turning my head, I look over to him. But I don’t stay still. Instead, I walk toward him as quickly as I can. Stopping in front of him, I cross my arms over my chest and look down my nose at him, waiting for him to say something.
“In a normal doctor-patient situation, I would not be able to tell you anything. But that’s not what this is.”
“Tell me,” I grind out. Honestly, I want to tell himno shit, but I decide not to be rude. I really just need to know what happened to her and if she’s going to be okay.
“Azar beat the shit out of her, then came back into the room after sleeping with his second wife in an effort to impregnate her, and raped Isabel.”
Stumbling backward, his words are like a blow to me. I turn my head to Osip, my eyes wide as I stare at him. He shakes his head slowly, but I can’t stop myself. He knows what I’m going to do, he has to know exactly what I’m going to do.
Lifting my hand, I point to Osip. “I’m going to kill him,” I state. “He’s fucking done.”
Osip nods once, his eyes find mine and his head tilts to the side. “Do whatever you need to do, Ruslan.”
Jerking my chin, I don’t tell him that I’ll do whatever the fuck I want to do with or without his permission anyway, but he’s my technicalPakhan. He could probably stop me if he really wanted to. In this instance, he won’t. He wouldn’t.
“Do you want to wait until you’re married, until it’s completely legal before you do anything?” he calls out.
