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Chapter Fifteen
Waking up, I blinked rapidly as I tried to gather my bearings. It took me more time than I would have liked to figure out where I was and what had happened to me. The last thing that I had remembered was looking into Dom’s dark eyes and realizing that I was going to die.
From the pain in my stomach, I could tell that I was very much alive, and from the steady beeping of the heart monitor I realized that I was in the hospital.
“Shit,” I muttered. It was the only thing that I could think right now. I had been shot. And while it might seem odd to some, I hadn’t ever really considered the possibility of being caught in the crossfire of the Blanchi Petrov war, which felt ridiculous in hindsight.
“Watch your language,” my mother’s powerful voice invaded my thoughts. “It’s unladylike to curse.”
I turned my head slightly and was shocked to find my mother sitting in a chair next to my bed.
“Mama?”
I don’t know what I was expecting. The part of me that had been sure that I would die and had greatly feared that possibility wanted my mother’s comfort. Another part of me wondered what she was even doing here.
“Your husband called me. Told me that you had been shot.” Her words were matter-of-fact, as if she were talking about something that had happened at breakfast.
At the mention of Dom, I looked around for him. I felt a bit of fear in my heart at the thought of him and my mother in a room together, especially now that I knew that she wanted Dom dead.
“Oh my god,” I said. I tried to sit up, but the intense pain in my abdomen had me nearly screaming in pain.
My mother’s facial expression didn’t change as I practically howled.
“I saw Anastasia,” I gasped.
Thinking about how desperately my mother wanted Dom dead, reminded me of what I had realized right before the gunfire started. Before the cocktail hour, I had run into a woman who had known me, but I hadn’t been able to place her.
“You must have hit your head when you were shot,” my mother said. Her lips were pursed into a thin line, which looked odd considering the crimson of her lipstick. “Anastasia hasn’t been in New York since your brother died.”
I shook my head, though even that action made it feel as though a million knives were slicing through my stomach. “She was there,” I said. “I saw her at the wedding. We spoke.”
“Why would Anastasia be at a Blanchi wedding?”
It was a good question. Anastasia was the daughter of one of my father’s men. She wasn’t a Petrov, so they were just out of the inner-circle, but my brother had been madly in love with her. Of course, that meant that my mother despised her. I didn’t know Anastasia well. I’d been so young when Nikolai died, but I remembered her being sweet. At the funeral, she’d been hysterical over my brother’s death, and I remembered hoping that someone would love me as much as she loved my brother. It felt so silly to think such a thing now.
“I’m telling you that Anastasia was there. She tried to warn me that I was in danger…” I trailed off as I spoke. Anastasia’s father was Bratva. If she had been at the wedding, warning me, that meant that the Bratva had been the ones to open fire.
This time, the pain I felt in my gut had nothing to do with the fact that I had been shot.
“Did you try to have me killed?” I asked my mother. I nearly threw up at the thought. I knew that my parents hated Dom, and that it was stupid to think that our marriage would solve all of the problems between our families, but I never considered that my own family might have been killed just to get at Dom.
“Stop looking so glum,” my mother said. “You’ll get wrinkles.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” I snapped. “Did the Bratva put a hit out on Dom?” I had always believed that my father loved me and would protect me. I was more than aware that I was a means to an end for my mother, but if there had been a hit, it would have had to come from my father, and that thought hurt worse than anything else that had been done to me.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” my mother snapped. “Your father would never harm you.” It didn’t escape me that she sounded slightly disappointed by that fact.
I ignored her tone. I had long ago come to terms with the relationship my mother and I had. Right now, I had more pressing issues anyway. “Then explain Anastasia. She didn’t just happen to be at the Plaza at the same time as I was. She knew that I would be there. She’d sought me out.”
“I don’t know why Anastasia would be there,” she snapped. “I haven’t seen her since…”
The pain of my brother’s death played on my mother’s face and genuine tears sprang to her eyes. Nikolai was the only person I knew of who could make my mother emote.
I reached out to place my hand on hers in comfort, but she pulled it away at the last minute and delicately whipped her tears away. “We need to talk,” she said.
I tried not to feel dejected. “We are talking,” I reminded her. “And you are refusing to answer my questions.”
“Dominic Blanchi needs to go,” she said. She stood up from her seat and grabbed her purse. “I’ve heard that his men aren’t very happy with his choice to marry you.”
