Damn it, but I can’t tell them he hits me. I can imagine his face if they tell him his girlfriend, he told them we are a couple, is gone. Taken away to protect her from him. He’ll be furious, he’ll be livid, but he’ll also be hurt. In fact, the anger, it will simply be another way to cover up the hurt from yet someone else betraying him.
I can’t do it.
Damn me and my soft, soft heart, but I won’t tell such an egregious lie about him. Which means I’m going home with him. It also means I’m doing so by choice because I could put a stop to all this. Yet, I’m choosing not to.
The nurse takes my hand. “I can see you’re torn. He’s a handsome man, charismatic too. I understand how you would be attracted, but honey, he’s not good. I can tell. You work in this job, and you develop a good judge of character. If he’s hurting you, we can help.”
“It’s complicated,” I say. “But I swear, he’s not hurting me.”
At least not physically, I think. Emotionally? Yeah, he’s hurt me, but not because he meant to or wanted to, but because he’s so emotionally screwed up himself.
I think back to what Andrius said.
It’s like I’m standing in front of two doors. Door A takes me back to the normal world, the one I came from, and all I have to do is say that Konstantin hit me and step through it. Door B leads into the dark, but also, in some ways the light. He might be emotionally closed off, but Konstantin seems to know instinctively at times what I need. He also makes me feel safe, perversely. The moment he wraps me in his big arms, the world seems to fade away, and only his warmth remains.
I take a deep breath and choose Door B. “He’s never laid a finger on me,” I tell the nurse.
She purses her lips but nods and leaves me.
I sit alone and wait for my captor, my savior, my lover, and my obsession to return.
Chapter Five
Konstantin
By the time I’ve got the gunshot damage at the house sorted, which took twenty men and a lot of money, it’s past two in the morning. I’m still at the damn hospital though because Liam and Reece have been working on my security. Reece with his arm bandaged up. The bullet did more than graze him. It tore a big path along his upper arm, but he’s going to be fine. Must hurt, though, and he’s refused the pain killers because he wants to stay sharp.
I’ve had good news and bad news. The bad news is that Liza won’t live, which wasn’t unexpected. The good news is Vasily will, and Liza’s baby is viable. The team is going to carry out a delivery at some point in the next few days. After that, I don't know what will happen to Liza. She’s basically a vegetable kept alive by machines.
Her mother arrived at the hospital. A woman I hadn’t met before. She wasn’t what I expected. Unlike Liza, she wasn’t draped in designer clothes but dressed in comfortable jeans with sneakers. She had a pleasant face and greeted me warmly, when I went over to introduce myself. She told me her name was Sandra, and that she’d heard Liza mention me. She explained she hadn’t seen her daughter in some time, as they’d been estranged on and off for a few years, and she’d not been privy to much of Liza’s life. The nurses led her away to Liza's room, and an hour later she returned to the waiting room teary eyed. We chatted, and she told me she would be raising the baby.
She looked at me and asked me straight out if the child was mine.
It was an uncomfortable moment, what with Cassie sitting right by me, but I told her that no, according to Liza, the child wasn’t mine.
At some point, when the baby is born, I’m going to need to do a paternity test because I can’t trust what Liza said. Right now, I can’t think about that. I have too much else on my mind.
I’m waiting for the call from Liam to say the house is ready, and we can return there. We could have holed up in a hotel, but frankly, I didn’t think it would be safe. The Armenians are hardly going to bust into a hospital emergency ward and take us out. So