Page 87 of Ice & Steel

Just grace from the woman I loved.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

OLIVIA

I was just getting up when someone knocked on the door. Heart in my throat, I threw on a dressing gown and tore down the hallway. Cosimo got to it first, his hair rumpled, still pulling his sweatpants on over his boxers.

He yanked the door open, pistol at his hip.

“It’s me,” came Viktor’s lightly accented voice.

Cosimo stepped aside and Viktor spilled into the hall, panting. I locked eyes with him and in that moment I knew he’d found my husband.

“Lucien?” I whispered.

He nodded, struggling to catch his breath. “Yes, we have him.”

“And he’s alive?” My eyes overflowed and my fingers twisted in my dressing gown.

“He’s alive,” Viktor gasped.

All the strength I’d been living off of for the last few days cracked and I collapsed on the ground. Pain rippled through my hands as they hit the floor, my fingernails digging into the wood. Cosimo fell to his knees beside me and picked me up, holding me against his chest. His body shuddered as he expelled a deep breath and I knew he felt the same kind of relief.

“You need to come see him, Liv,” said Viktor.

I lifted my head, wiping my face. “Where is he?”

“I rented a house downriver to bring Sienna when the fighting died down,” Viktor said, still loitering in the door like he wanted to hurry up and leave. “He was in the water, in the shallows where the water gets caught in a cave on the shore.”

I pushed myself to my feet, pulling my dressing gown around my body. “How is he?”

“He’s alive,” said Viktor. “But he wasn’t the other day.”

My stomach flipped. “What does that mean?”

“Technically, he died, but they managed to get his heart restarted,” said Viktor. “He’s stabilized now, but you need to go get dressed and we need to go.”

I was on my feet faster than I realized what I was doing. Upstairs, my hands shook as I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. The strongest sense of déjà vu hit me in a wave. I’d moved around this same room the day Lucien had come to pick me up and take me away to his sheltering protection.

And now, today, I had to be that for him.

I pelted down the stairs, not bothering to grab anything but my phone. Viktor led the way grimly down the road to where a dark SUV was parked. He slid in the front seat and I took the passenger side. My hands shook and I gripped my phone hard to hide it.

“He’s okay,” Viktor said, pulling out into the street.

The tires screeched.

‘Why are you driving so fast then?” I whispered.

He glanced over at me, pale eyes flickering in the morning light. “Because that motherfucker had no business going and dying like that. No way in hell did I sign up for telling his wife and four sons that he was gone.”

“Lucien is tough,” I managed.

“He’s tougher than anyone I’ve ever met,” Viktor said, his foot pressing down on the gas. The trees on either side of the road flew by faster and faster. “He was gone and I asked the doctor and nurses to try one more time to resuscitate him. That time…he woke up and he said your name.”

Oh God, that devastated me.

He’d said my name and I hadn’t been there for him.