Page 32 of His Prince (Unexpectedly Twisted #2)

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ANGEL

I can’t breathe, the ache in my chest so immense that I can’t even sit up straight. Everything is tilted, hazy. My dad is finally here, but I can’t even speak.

I’ve never felt this sense of immense loss.

I’ve never felt so much.

It’s debilitating.

Emotions shouldn’t be this strong. I never want to feel this way again.

“I can’t…I need air…,” I whisper, my dad pulling me into his arms.

“I know, son. I know how you feel. I do. It will pass, but right now, focus on him. Focus on one breath at a time.”

“I can’t,” I gasp and hold on to him tighter. “ I can’t .”

“You can. You’re stronger than you know. You’re so strong, Angelo.”

I don’t believe it. I should have been stronger. I should have planned all of it better, but the minute I saw Mikhail tied up, his face bruised and bloody, Daniil and that woman looking far too sinister, I couldn’t even think. I just put bullets in them.

It’s something I’ll have to cope with later. Taking the life of another.

Right now, I have no regrets. They hurt him.

He was so fucking hurt. The pain in his voice, in his eyes.

I gasp, straining to inhale, but my lungs contract, and I find myself suffocating.

“I have a sedative,” George says from somewhere in the room. I can’t see past my tears. “If he needs it.”

“He needs Mikhail,” my dad says for me because I can’t bring myself to speak. I’m shutting down.

Murmurs move through the room, but I can’t hear them. I’m curled up on my father’s lap, trying to find some sort of comfort from his presence. But it’s hard. I can’t glean enough.

I can’t.

It’s not possible. At this moment, I’m nothing more than flesh and bones, a whimpering mess of nothing. I’m nothing without him.

“I want to see him.”

“I don’t know if you should,” George says, but I insist, pushing up so I’m sitting upright, and I point at him. “I want to fucking see him.”

I want to curl into his side and listen to him breathe. I know his lungs are barely pulling in air. But it’s just enough to give me hope.

He’s alive, but barely.

He may not make it.

“Please.” It’s just a whisper, but it’s enough. George inclines his chin and helps me up. My dad drapes his arm around me, pulling me into his chest. I know he’s trying to comfort me, but nothing can. Nothing.

I’m distraught and broken. Daniil and that woman wanted to hurt me and they have.

They succeeded even in death.

“He’s right up here,” my dad says softly as I cling to him, stumbling over my own two feet .

After we escaped the warehouse, smoke and flames following us into the shipyard, we brought Mikhail to the hospital for emergency surgery. The surgeon was suggested by Vera. She knows someone who has always been discreet and the police weren’t called. After that, it’s all been a blur. I’ve just waited. And waited.

The doctor came out, his face grim.

They did all they could, and there was nothing else to be done, except wait.

So we did. We waited two days, and he still didn’t wake up.

We finally transported him home, along with Casey and Gael, who are still recovering.

And now I’m waiting again.

All I do is wait.

Wait to finally marry.

Wait for Mikhail to fall in love with me.

And now, wait for him to come back to the living.

All I do is wait.

We move up the steps to my bedroom, and I see Bane standing near the doorway, his face contrite, a bouquet of bones in his hand, each painted a pretty color.

“For you,” he says. I take it, feeling as if I’m attending a funeral.

“Thank you,” I manage to say as the gift falls to my side. I can’t even appreciate it because as soon as I walk into the guest room where he’s laid out, I feel faint. I’m held up by my father’s strength, Bane on the other side of me, pulling me forward.

I can’t…I can’t find the air in this stifling room.

“It’s too dark in here. Too hot,” I snap. “He needs to be able to breathe. Open a window. Please.”

George hesitates, looking at my father, and he must get a nod because the windows are thrown open and a gust of wind moves through the humid, ghastly room.

“He’s not dead yet. Don’t treat him as if he’s in a morgue,” I murmur as I move to his side. He’s hooked up to all kinds of machines, the beeping of the monitors grating on my nerves .

“Technically, a morgue would be cold,” George says but bites off his words when my dad whispers something to him.

He disappears with Bane trailing after him, the two of their voices echoing from the other side of the door as they walk away. But I don’t even really notice it. All I can see is my husband, pale and unmoving, the infernal beeping the only thing telling me he’s alive.

Beep. Beep.

I curl into him and press my wet cheek to his bare chest, feeling the way it moves up and down, artificial and yet so alive. The warmth of his skin heats my face as I carefully lean against him.

“Please come back to me,” I whisper, my lips at his ear. I don’t want to live without him, refuse to go on without his presence in my life.

But he doesn’t move.

He doesn’t reply.

The ghost of my broken spirit mingling with his.

I watch his chest lift and fall, the aggravating beep of the machine a twisted sense of relief.

I haven’t eaten, haven’t showered. I’ve done nothing but lie here, pressed against his side, waiting for him to wake up.

If you die, I will go too.

I’ll follow you into the afterlife.

I reach out and touch his cheek, my movements sluggish and tired, my eyes swollen and sore. I don’t want to go on without him.

No one can make me.

“Angelo.”

Mikhail. His voice.

But then I blink awake and realize it’s my father lingering beside me.

“You need to eat. ”

I tuck my face into Mikhail’s side and breathe, disappearing into the scent of him, the feel of him against me.

I don’t want to. I don’t want to do anything except watch that flicker of life.

I’ll wait for an eternity or until death consumes me too.

Until then, I set up my vigil.

And wait once more.