Page 63 of Debt to the Mafia King

Had I fainted?

Pain lanced through me. A cleavingsort of pain that threatened to cut me in half. I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t do anything but blink up at the clouds, and even that was getting harder and harder to do.

“It’s ok, Leah,” Viktor’s face filled my vision, blurry and bathed in shadows.

Was he bleeding? It looked like he was bleeding, but I couldn’t open my mouth to form the words to ask why. I tried to move my hand, and that didn’t work either. It was like I was glued to the pavement.

“You’re doing great, just great. Just hold on, ok, hold on.”

His face was overtaken with shadows.

“Keep your eyes open, Leah.” There was a note of command in his voice, and my lashes fluttered as I tried to do what he asked.

“I mean it, Leah. Don’t you dare close your eyes.”

I wanted to do what he ordered because that would make him happy, and after last night and today, he deserved that, but I couldn’t.

I just needed to rest my eyes for a few seconds, just a second.

“Leah.” I heard him yell my name as the darkness swallowed me whole.

Chapter Twenty-One

Leah

My eyelashes fluttered, but even though my eyes opened a crack, I didn’t really see anything.

The edge of my vision was pitch black. The rest of it was grey and fuzzy looking, like I was trying to peer through thick smoke. My nostrils flared, and panic sped up my heartbeat.

There was no smoke, so why couldn’t I see?

Panicked, I reached to scrub at my face, and strong hands gripped my wrists and forced my hands down to my sides.

“Easy, Leah.”

Sucking in a deep breath, I fell back onto the pillows. The thick accent of Viktor’s voice put me at ease, but it didn’t explain why I couldn’t see.

What was wrong with me?

“I—I can’t see.”

His hand, warm and rough, stroked across my hair. “It’s ok, Leah.”

I frowned, and pain lanced through my face. The skin felt tight. “What happened?”

Clearly something had happened because I felt off. My bonesached, and it felt like I had done ten rounds with a truck, and there was the fact that I couldn’t see. There was a sound to the left, like someone scraping a chair closer to the bed.

Viktor took my hand in his and gently held it.

“What do you remember?”

Wracking my brain, I tried to make sense of what I did remember.

“We were on a plane.”

His sigh was pained. “Is that the last thing you remember?”

Opening my mouth, I was going to say no, but that wasn’t entirely true. The private plane was the last thing I remembered clearly.