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I watched the city through the window in her room, feeling nothing at the sight of city lights or beautiful scenery. Those people out there lived their lives freely while my daughter was chocked up in this fucking hospital, breathing through life support.

I checked the time on my watch and was not surprised to see the hands of the clock hitting nine p.m.

Roman brought the food and change of clothes, while Fedor attended to bailing our guest from the cell and taking him to a more comfortable place to spend the night. As for me, there was no way in hell I was leaving my daughter’s side until I got news that she was out of the red.

Cutting through the steady beeps from the monitors, the door clicked open behind me.

“Mr. Yezhov?” the doctor said gently.

I didn’t find the zeal to turn around or pretend to be hospitable. “Just tell me.”

I sensed her hesitation, but I didn’t push her. These weren’t the kind of conversations you rushed.

“Katya’s vitals have stabilized. Her heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure are all within safe ranges now. There’s no sign of further brain swelling or bleeding, and her organ functions are holding steady. That means she’s out of immediate danger.”

My eyes closed, and I released a slow, silent exhale.

“But...she’s still in a coma. We can’t predict when or if she’ll wake up.”

A crack appeared in the concrete wall I’d once called my soul. My jaw tightened. That word— if —felt like a fucking searing blade cutting right into my heart.

“How long are we talking?”

“Could be days. Weeks. Sometimes longer. Her brain activity is responding, which is hopeful. But we won’t know until…until she chooses to come back to us.”

“Chooses,” I echoed bitterly. “You think it’s that simple?”

She wasn’t in the condition to fucking choose anything. We were supposed to make her come back to us. I wanted her to come back.

“No,” the doctor admitted. “But I’ve seen it happen.”

From the reflection on the window, I saw the doctor give a brief nod and leave, leaving me alone again with the beeping machines. The only heartbeat I could hear was from my daughter now.

I turned slowly to the bed. Katya looked like a ghost of herself, pale and impossibly still beneath the hospital sheets. Tubes curled around her like ivy; life floated by her, and she was trapped in this motionless shell.

I stepped forward, slowly, until I was close enough to touch her, but my hands stayed at my sides.

“We don’t talk much. Fuck. I don’t talk much. I believe in actions speaking louder than words, but I guess I’m talking now. Before your mother, I never planned to be a father. Didn’t fucking know how. Didn’t fucking want to.”

My voice cracked. I cleared it, forced it back into steel.

“But you…my little bunny. Moy Zakya . You popped up and made it impossible not to care. You were so fucking loud. And so stubborn. God, you hated me some days. You still do. And I deserve it. All of it.”

A beat passed.

This was almost ridiculous. I was supposed to be the man who could get anything done at any time. And now all I could do was stand guard beside a girl I couldn’t fix.

A girl who held my heart without ever asking for it. Without even knowing how capable I was of giving it.

I, the man with a hundred enemies and no regrets, reached out and took my daughter’s hand in mine.

“Fucking wake up, Katya. We Yezhovs are soldiers from our mother’s wombs.

We fucking fight, dammit. You have to fucking fight through, you hear me?

Because…I…I’m not sure I’m ready to do life without your bratty personality in it. ”

***

I took a stroll down the hallway with a cup of coffee Roman had distributed to those of us waiting in the hospital, and a purple knapsack.

Further steps away, I spotted Elena on a bench in the waiting area, with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

Her eyes seemed to be focused on another world, far away from Earth. They were red, puffy, and distant.

When I drew closer, she got startled and flinched, scooted inches away when I sat beside her, and avoided eye contact, though I stared directly at her face.

For a few minutes, we sat together in heavy silence, watching nurses in scrubs hurry past, and other families wait for their loved ones.

Elena fiddled with the Styrofoam cup in her grip and wiggled her toes through her sandals.

“Are you cold?”

Her toes stopped wiggling, but her fingers kept on working the cup. She eyed my thin grey cardigan and jeans and scoffed. “You are the one without a blanket or a coat,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I lived in Moscow.” I turned away from her, lifting the cup to my lips. “Dwelling in and with the cold is my second nature.”

“Well, that’s…interesting. I’m assuming Moscow is where you went when she said you left—” She cleared her throat, catching herself quickly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk about that.”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

They talked about everything, too. If there was one other person who knew how much my daughter resented me, it was Elena.

She nibbled on her lips. “How is she now? Has the doctor said anything?”

“Yes. She’s stable and out of immediate danger. As for the coma, they aren’t sure when she will choose to come back to us .”

I still wanted to shove those words back into the doctor’s mouth.

After emptying the cup, I crushed it and tossed it into the wastebasket beside the bench, then started picking through the knapsack.

Earlier, a nurse had handed over a few of Katya’s things that could be salvaged from the accident: her knapsack and a music sheet notebook she’d been holding. The phone was almost damaged beyond recognition, but the car was gone—nothing but a scrunched up fucking mess.

Elena’s gaze followed my hands as I flipped through the music sheet notebook, and I heard her take in a sharp breath.

“I gave that to her….” She exhaled shakily.

“Yesterday. I saw it on eBay and thought, ‘Hey, Katya will love this.’ Turns out she did love it, and I felt over the moon when she called to tell me about the Starlings record label offer, because then, she’d have an actual music sheet to start composing. ”

I closed the book and stuffed it back into the knapsack, sitting up straighter. “I’m presuming you two have the best relationship. She gets a huge deal like that, and you’re the first person she calls.”

Her chuckle was sad. “We aren’t best friends for nothing.”

“Mm.”

We sat in more silence, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t view Elena in the light of being just “my daughter’s best friend.

” Dressed in her baggy pants, sweater, and beanie, I still found her attractive.

With her tear-stained cheeks, puffy eyes, and chapped lips, I still wanted to kiss her.

Heck, a part of me wanted to bury myself in her arms right here and sleep off the rest of this nightmare.

The feeling was crazy and alien, but it lingered, even in her obliviousness.

“Hospitals give me nightmares,” she blurted.

I faced her, but her eyes were still stuck on another planet. If this was meant to be a heart-to-heart thing, I didn’t know how to react. The only question that formed properly was a straight, “Why?”

Her fingers trembled against the cup, but her tone stayed flat.

“My mother’s sick,” she sighed. “Long story short? It’s liver failure. Been slowly going downhill for two years now. In fact, some doctors who have taken a good look at her are surprised she’s lasted more than a year….”

She continued, “We need a transplant soon, and so far, nothing. My grandmother’s been trying to fill in for me because…well, because I don’t think I’m strong enough to see her without breaking down. I’m really trying to stay afloat, but the burden only grows heavier. The bills are drowning us…

“And worse, my mother’s no longer as strong as she was when this nightmare started. I guess, seeing Katya so helpless stirred up that dread again. She’s one of the strongest people I’ve known, and this happens to her?

“And then there’s my job. I got an offer, a promotion that people can only wish for in years to come.

It would help put a good percentage of those outstanding bills to rest. But then, I would have to work harder, and that would mean being scarcely available for my brother and grandmother.

It’s like this saying about the reward for hard work being more hard work.

The cycle of labor just keeps spinning and—what am I doing? ”

I blinked, and she misinterpreted my silence as not being interested in her personal issues.

“I—I shouldn’t be telling you this.” Her voice cracked. “God, I’m sorry. You just…your daughter’s in a coma, and here I am, dumping my life on you like it matters.”

I searched quietly for the right words to say. Comforting others wasn’t my specialty, but Elena seemed like she needed it.

“Don’t apologize for being human.”

Elena’s eyes welled up, and she burst into tears, crumpling into my side to cry her eyes out. I hesitated, only for a second, before patting her on the shoulder in a staccato motion.

The kind of tension she dealt with didn’t come from just work. I was familiar with it. It came from life, when it ground you down until the only thing holding you together was the need to keep breathing.

I’d watched every small movement, how her thumb traced the rim of the cup absentmindedly, how her shoulders tensed when I shifted in my seat.

She was here for Katya, yes. But there was more.

Elena had been carrying a thousand devastations while moving around like her life was perfectly balanced—her mother, her job, her family, and now, us.

I had let myself believe I was the only one struggling to deal with hurt. That my pain made me unreachable. But she had been bleeding quietly beside me all along.

The attraction I thought I had for her only heightened. I was intrigued by her strength and vulnerability. She didn’t have to be a part of the mafia or endure rigorous training like I had to gain my respect.

Before my eyes, I’d watched her layers peel off, and she looked even more beautiful on the inside.

She pulled away from my hold but didn’t shift in fear like she did earlier.

We were so close that I spotted the dark flecks in her eyes and could smell the coffee on her. Her body warmth seeped in through my clothes, and the brush of our arms ignited more heat in my groin.

I couldn’t care less if anyone watched us, whether they were my men stationed in the hallway or anyone else; I adjusted the beanie over her head and brushed a thumb over her full lips. They called to me, wanted me as much as I wanted them.

And if she didn’t inch her head back just in time, I might have fucking kissed her right there.

“Damien….” Her whisper grabbed my attention. “We can’t do this.”

“Not right now, but maybe later. You could come home with—”

“No. I mean, we can’t keep doing this. It’s wrong. We should never have slept together. In the beginning, it was okay. We didn’t know we had mutual ties, but we found out yesterday and still went through with it.” Her hands trembled. “I feel dirty….”

“Elena….”

“No, there’s nothing you can say that’ll change my mind about how I feel. I feel dirty for betraying her like that. Last night was a mistake. Honestly, it felt good. Tremendously great. But that doesn’t make it right. I want to forget it. We both should. I can’t do this to Katya.”

There it was. That damn guilt, hanging heavy in the air like smoke, and my words were tumbling out of my mouth before I had a chance to process them.

“You have a right to fuck anyone, Elena.”

“That ideology might work for you. But for me? At the expense of my friendship with your daughter? No, Damien, I’ll choose Katya over and over again.” She looked up at me then, really looked. “She has been like a sister to me. I need you to let this go.”

I didn’t say anything.

My fingers curled into fists.

Let it go? Like I hadn’t replayed last night a hundred times, like it hadn’t been the only thing keeping me sane while my daughter lay broken in a hospital bed?

“I don’t let go, Elena.” I kept my voice even. “I try to provide solutions to problems. And this is a minor problem.”

“You’re joking.” She shook her head. “Minor?”

“What if Katya doesn’t have a problem with it?”

Her immediate silence showed she hadn’t been expecting that. She stared at me, lips parting slightly, but no words came. Silence stretched between us, pregnant with everything I couldn’t say. Her eyes shimmered with the threat of tears.

Then, her phone buzzed.

She blinked, looked down, then back at me.

“It’s Nana, my grandmother,” she said, tossing her empty cup into the wastebasket and folding up the blanket I asked Roman to give her.

“Elena…” I tried again.

“I need to be at home.” She didn’t look at me. Not when she grabbed her phone or moved away. “Thank you for the extra clothes and coffee. Have a good night, Damien.”

I watched her go, and every step farther carved something hollow in my chest.