Page 77 of Beautiful Trauma

“Where is everyone?” I asked Petyr, Dima’s bodyguard.

“They were at a dinner party in Pittsburgh. They’re on the jet now.”

When one of the nurses ripped away Dima’s shirt, I gasped at the sight of the gaping wound in his side. “Mila?” someone asked.

“I’m fine,” I replied, even as the world around me began to dim. The next thing I knew, the floor was rushing at me as I passed out.

When I came to, I was stretched out on a gurney in another room of the medical ward. With a groan, I pulled myself into a sitting position. My arms and legs felt unusually heavy.

“She’s coming around,” someone said outside the door.

At the hysterical cry in the doorway, I looked up to see Lev comforting a hysterical Kira in the hallway.

“Kira?” I called.

She rushed forward into the room while Lev followed on her heels. “Oh God, Mila, it’s so awful.”

Icy fear splashed from my head down to my toes. “Dima’s dead,” I choked out.

Lev shook his head. “No. He’s in a coma.”

“What?”

“He was hit in the side, and when the doctors went in, they found the bullet in his spine. When they took it out…something happened, and he had a stroke on the table.”

My eyes bulged in horror. “A stroke? He’s only twenty-seven.”

Swiping her eyes, Kira nodded. “I know, I know.”

“What are his chances?”

“They say if he wakes up, he’ll have damage.”

I swallowed hard. “What kind of damage?”

As Kira sobbed, Lev replied, “The doctors aren’t sure, but he could be paralyzed from the waist down from the spinal damage.”

Bile rocketed into my throat. “Oh God.”

“And he could have brain damage from the stroke.”

As the realization rained down on me, I pitched over the side of the bed and emptied the contents of my stomach into a trash can. When I finished, I swiped the back of my hand across my mouth.

Kira came over to my bedside. “Why don’t we get you upstairs, so you can shower and change?”

As I gazed down at myself, the sight of my blood-soaked clothes had me retching again. This time, when I finished, I began to weep.

“Help her, Lev,” Kira instructed.

Lev came over to the bedside and eased me off the bed. After draping an arm around my waist, he began leading me out of the room. We took the elevator up to the main floor of the house.

When we stepped off, Maksim stood before me. Tears welled in his dark eyes as he drew me into his arms. Because of hisspeech defect, he’d never been a man for many words. But tonight I didn't need anything but his comfort.

After squeezing me tight, he pulled back to stare into my eyes. “H-He’ll p-pull through.”

“It doesn’t look good, Maks.”

“He’s s-strong.”