Page 34 of Ruthless Vow
The doctor nods. “Yes. One hundred percent. That’s why I had to give her a mild pain reliever. Anything stronger might harm the baby.”
“Is it enough?” I ask. “Is she going to be hurting when she wakes up?”
“We’ll help her manage the pain the best we can,” he confirms. “Don’t worry, Mr. Kovalev, she’s in the best possible hands.”
“I want you to give her the strongest pain reliever she can safely have,” I tell him. “Make her as comfortable as she can be. And I want to be the first person to know when she wakes up.”
“You can wait with her, if you’d like,” he says, gesturing into the room.
“I need to clear my head,” I tell him, pushing past and heading toward the exit.
None of this makes sense, and yet, it all falls into place perfectly. She kept this from me. She knew she was pregnant and she never said anything. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?
16
ANYA
Waking up hurts. I can handle the pain. It’s a language I’ve been speaking my entire life. This is worse than just pain. It’s like my body is refusing to cooperate with my brain, and nothing irritates me more than feeling weak.
I try to sit up, but the movement triggers a sharp, terrible stab under my ribs that steals my breath and turns everything into a tight blur for a second. The bed creaks. My shoulder tenses. My vision darkens, warning me that unconsciousness is imminent if I don’t do something different.
I force myself to stop moving. I take short, shallow breaths because deep ones make me feel like I’m being stabbed in the lungs. I force myself to take in the room instead, hoping that taking my mind off the pain will make it stop.
I stare up at white ceiling tiles. The lighting is fluorescent and harsh. It’s not like any hospital room I’ve been in before. For one, there are no windows. An IV line runs from my arm to a bag hanging beside the bed.
That should be reassuring. It’s not. The IV means blood was taken. Labs were probably done. Shit. The pain under my ribs pulses again when I swallow.
The memory comes back in pieces. I remember the sharp gunfire and the blasting of car horns. I can hear Viktor shouting in my mind. I can see bodies falling to the ground in my memory. Then a man is stepping out of an alleyway and pointing his gun right at Viktor.
Why did I shove him out of the way? I could have ended this whole nightmare. I could have ended my captivity and made a run for it. Instead, I chose to take a bullet for Viktor. I chose to save his life.
My throat tightens at the memory. Tears spring to my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. I knew that Viktor living gave me a better chance at surviving Mikhail. That’s all it was. It doesn’t have to mean anything else.
The room is quiet, and there isn’t the flurry of activity I would expect at a hospital. No voices in the hallway or footsteps running toward a critical patient. No, Viktor wouldn’t bring me to a hospital. There would be too many questions involved. Too much risk.
A woman steps in a moment later. She’s older, with her hair pulled back tight, and she wears a calm expression that suggests she’s seen worse than whatever I look like right now. She moves to the IV line and the bag before she even glances at my face. She isn’t over-friendly.
“You’re awake,” she says when she sees my eyes open.
Her tone is neutral. She’s not necessarily happy that I’m awake, but as my nurse, I have to imagine she’s at least a little glad I’m not dead.
“Unfortunately,” I rasp, and my voice comes out dry and rough.
She checks my pulse with two fingers, then shines a light briefly in my eyes.
“Are you experiencing a headache?” she asks.
“No,” I answer.
“Nausea?”
“Yes,” I say.
She looks at my face for a beat, then glances down at the blanket. “What’s your pain level on a scale from one to ten?”
“It’s enough,” I say.
She doesn’t react.
