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“Fuck,” he mutters. “Is that blood?”
52
DMITRI
“It’s not happening soon enough!”
Vittorio reminds me of a petulant child. A petulant child with overgrown nose hair and saggy skin around his jowls. The only things he’s missing are the foot stomp and a wobbly bottom lip, and the longer we stay here bickering, the more likely they are to appear.
“We moved up the wedding by six months, Vittorio,” I growl quietly. “That isn’t soon enough for you?”
Scowling, he taps his hand against my desk. “You’ve been engaged for over a year. You should have been married by now.”
“Your daughter has a vision for our wedding and she wants it to be perfect.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what she wants,” he snarls. “I want the bitch married!”
I get to my feet slowly, pulling my lips back over my teeth. “What did you just call my fiancée?”
Those saggy cheeks of his pale. “I meant no disrespect?—”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t be here wasting my time. Respect goes both ways, Vittorio.”
“Listen—”
“No. I’m done listening,” I hiss. “It’s time for you to pay attention. You want the spectacle of our marriage? Well, that requires a big show. This isn’t just a wedding; this is a display of power. The Zanetti mafia and the Egorov Bratva, united under one banner. We have to give the people something to talk about, don’t we? That requires time. Planning. Coordination. We need to make a statement.”
He swallows, his gaze trailing over me with defeat. My logic is getting through to him but he’s still not happy. Why not, though? His eagerness borders on panic and it’s rubbing me the wrong way.
We’re interrupted when my phone starts to ring. “You can show yourself out,” I tell him as I walk out of my office. I only answer the call once I’m traveling down in the elevator. “Aleks?”
“Okay, don’t panic but… we’re heading to the hospital.”
“The fuck? Who’s ‘we’?”
“Wren took a little spill outside Serendipity. She’s conscious now but?—”
I hang up furiously and resist the urge to slam my fist through the elevator walls. The moment the doors sweep open, I rush to the front of the building where my Mercedes is parked. I run through two red lights and nearly take out a herd of pedestrians before I pull up outside St. Joseph’s Presbyterian.
As I walk through the luminescent corridors and the spotless bronze sconces dotting the walls, I curse Aleksandr out internally for bringing her to this place. I hate hospitals in general. But this one opens up the black sinkhole inside me that I usually only crack open when there’s dark shit that needs repressing.
“Dmitri!” Aleksandr calls as I turn the corner and catch sight of him. “She’s in here. She’s totally fi?—”
I grab the front of his shirt and reel him towards me. “She better be,” I breathe in his face. Then I shove him aside and burst into the room.
Wren takes one look at me and her eyes light up. “You came.”
The fact that she’s surprised pisses me off. Of course I came. “Are you okay?”
She nods. “Took a bad spill. Knocked my head. There was a little blood, but the doctor said I don’t even need stitches.”
Her cheery mood does nothing to convince me that everything is alright. “The baby?”
“The doctor’s on his way to check,” she says, sounding decidedly less cheery. “Listen, Dmitri, don’t be mad at Aleks. He took really good care of me?—”
“If that was true, we wouldn’t be in a hospital right now.”
Her jaw snaps shut for a moment. She takes in my dark expression and sighs. “It was my fault, okay? I was supposed to wait for him under the awning, but I thought I’d make a run for the car and I slipped. It was stupid and?—”
