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CRINA
Startled by Lucian’s tone, I grab my phone. Marku looks over my shoulder as I open it. I have over a dozen missed calls.
Dread snakes through me. I switch to my text messages. My stomach drops. “It’s my father.”
Marku shouts, “Get Soren to meet us up front.”
He sweeps through the restaurant and out the front entrance, where Soren is already waiting. Marku deposits me in the back seat, runs around to the other side of the car, and settles in beside me. I’m already calling my mother.
Lucian and Anton wave for us to go on ahead, and Soren tears out into the street.
My mom answers and I rush to ask, “What’s happened?”
I put her on speakerphone and my mother’s anguished voice reverberates in the confined space of the car. “It’s your father. He collapsed in the shower. I called the ambulance. They took him to Mount Sinai.”
Hearing the name of the hospital, Soren takes a hard left on the next street and speeds toward the Long Island Expressway.
I take my mother off speakerphone. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she wails.
I’ve never heard my mother express panic. Judgment, often. Anger yes, but never this kind of emotion. “He was in the shower but he was in there for so long.” She lets out a gust of air. “Too long. I called him from downstairs and didn’t get a response. I went upstairs. Checked the bedroom. He wasn’t there. I tapped on the bathroom door. Called out several times but there was no response. I finally opened the door and he was collapsed in the bathtub, wrapped in the shower curtain.”
Marku grabs my trembling hand and holds it tight. I squeeze his hand back, holding on like my life depends on it. He pulls me close and I gratefully lean into him for support.
“Go on…”
“He was breathing, but unconscious. He’s had seizures, but he’s never blacked out before. I was terrified and called the ambulance.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Breathing?”
“But unconscious,” she repeats. “I called you…”
“I had my ringer off,” I gulp out.
I couldn’t exactly tell her that I was on a mission to kill her former lover.
“It doesn’t matter. The paramedics came. They let me ride in the ambulance, although they put me in the front. They must have given him something because he came to in the back. Natalia met me at the hospital. We’re here waiting while they look him over.”
Numbness is creeping in the more she talks. “How long ago did you arrive?”
“At least an hour.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Okay.”
She’s about to hang up when I lick my dry lips and whisper, “Mama?”
“Da?”She naturally switched to Romanian without thinking.
“Did he say anything? Did you speak to him?”
I want to know because those could have been his last words. I don’t want to, but I can’t help but expect the worst. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut waiting for her answer.
“He couldn’t speak. I immediately went to him as they were taking him into the hospital. He tried to speak and reach out to me, but they told him to stay calm. It was so fast, Crin—” She breaks off, too emotional to speak.
Natalia’s voice in the background tells her to stay calm in Romanian. I wait, giving her a moment. She clears her throat. “He looked pale. He has a huge bruise on the side of his face. I’m sure he has a concussion, but that’s the least of it.”
