Page 93 of Forced to Marry the Russian Pakhan

I check the monitors again. “He’ll need time to recover. Blood loss was significant.”

Only then do I notice that the other men have gathered outside the exam room—a dozen or more of Trifon’s most trusted soldiers, waiting for news of their Pakhan. They look lost, these dangerous men, without their leader.

I understand how they feel.

“You can see him briefly,” I tell them. “One at a time. Then he needs rest.”

They file in and out, each spending only moments at his side. Some whisper to him in Russian. Others simply touch his uninjured arm, a silent pledge of loyalty.

When they’re gone, I walk back to his side like I’m tethered. Trifon’s breathing is shallow but even now. His chest rises and falls under the blanket, the monitor a steady beep in the corner. He looks… broken.

But alive.

I pull a stool close to the bed and sit. Just sit.

And then the storm catches up to me.

I bury my face in my hands and let the sobs come, quiet and raw. He could’ve died in front of me, and I wouldn’t have even known what his last words were. I wouldn’t have had time to tell him—

Tell him what?

That I can’t live without him?

God.

I can’t.

I need him. Our baby needs him.

I reach for his hand, wrapping my fingers around his. Tears spill down my cheeks, hot and relentless.

“You idiot,” I whisper, squeezing his fingers. “You absolute idiot.”

It hits me with a force that knocks the breath from my lungs. I love this man. This dangerous, difficult, complex man who held my hand when I was afraid, who defended me like I was something precious, who introduced me to the only softness he lets the world see.

And I almost lost him before I ever got to say any of it.

I don’t know when it happened, when he went from being my captor to being... everything, when his smile started to make my heart skip. When his touch became something I craved rather than tolerated. When his absence began to feel like missing a limb.

But I know now, watching his chest rise and fall, that somewhere along the way, I forgot what life was like before him.

I wipe my face with the sleeve of my scrub top, then stand to clean his wounds, recheck his IV, and adjust the bandages. It’s automatic, comforting. Something I can do with my hands while my heart tries not to fall apart again.

I stay with him through the night. Marina offers to take over, but I refuse. I need to be here when he wakes up.

When he finally stirs—his fingers twitching, a hoarse groan slipping from his throat—I’m still there. I lean forward, brushing hair off his forehead, my voice barely a whisper.

“Hey,” I say. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

His eyes open, bloodshot and bleary. “Yulia…”

“Don’t speak,” I say, holding a straw to his lips. “Drink. Rest.”

He watches me while he sips, his eyes never leaving mine. I wonder what he sees. A doctor? The mother of his child? A liability? A responsibility?

Or something more?

He drifts off again a few minutes later. And I stay. I don’t move. I sit beside him, hold his hand lightly in mine, and stare at the man I stitched back together with shaking fingers and a breaking heart.