Captivated by the deadly mafia boss

Jakub

The smells of the hospital makes my skin crawl. Lena says it’s because of the cleaners they used to sterilize the rooms, but it’s not chemical. It’s death.

And this place reeks of it.

“Jakub.” Lena steps into the private room they’ve put Nicole in and places her hand on my shoulder. In the bed, Nicole sleeps deeply. There’s a tube tucked into her nostrils to help give her oxygen. Bandages cover her left arm where the flames of the fire licked at her while she struggled to get my father out of the storage building.

An annex building. That’s where the fucking prick took my father, my wife to do God knows what he had planned. We’ll never truly know; my aim was spot on. He took a bullet right to his head, dead before he hit the ground.

“Have you eaten?” Lena’s gentleness hurts. I don’t deserve any comforts. Not while my wife sleeps so deeply, so far from me, because of the smoke inhalation, the bruised ribs she suffered, the burn on her arm. All these injuries are my fault.

“I’m fine,” I say and squirm in my seat beside Nicole’s bed. She’s facing away from me; the light from the single window lights up her cheek. Another bruise has formed, one I didn’t see before. My teeth clench.

“You need to rest.” My sister pulls a chair from the wall to sit beside me. Leaning forward, she slips her hand through the bedrail and lightly grabs Nicole’s still hand. “She looks better today. More color in her cheeks.”

I nod. She looks like she’s been in a car accident and through a fire. That’s how she looks, but my sister is trying to make me feel better.

I don’t deserve it.

“Has she woken up yet?” Lena asks.

I wipe my hand over my mouth. Exhaustion has sunk into my bones. “Yeah. She was awake this morning for a bit, but the pain meds make her so sleepy,” I explain, looking up at the IV hanging beside her bed.

“How long do they want to keep her in here?” She knows I’d rather have Nicole at home to recover. Hospitals aren’t something we use, but the fire had been reported before we were able to secure the area. Once they were on scene, it would have raised more eyebrows to not have her attended to. We left men behind to clean up the story and mess with the cops, keeping the truth of the matter private.

“I don’t know.” I blink a few times and stretch out my back. “First she needs to be able to stay awake long enough to eat, I guess.” I gesture at the tray of untouched Jell-O and oatmeal they brought her this morning.

“She’s going to be all right, Jakub.” Lena lets go of Nicole’s hand and sinks into her chair beside me, turning with her leg bent so she can stare at me. “This isn’t your fault.”

I raise my eyebrow in response. She can’t be serious.

“You didn’t do this to her.”

“No. I just caused her to run away from me, making her easy to nab off the street, and then the pricks were able to hurt her to get back at me.” Heavy guilt weighs down my words. And they should. “She deserves better than this,” I say in a hushed voice. “Look at her, Lena.” I turn back to my wife. Bruised and hurt. All because she was with me.

“Her crazy ex-boyfriend did this,” Lena points out. “Have you thought about that? That this is because of him and not you?”

“Henry was acting on Piotr’s orders.” That’s not entirely true, but I know Piotr has involvement.

“Micah says he thinks Henry went rogue. This isn’t Piotr’s sort of thing. And taking Dad? That makes no sense.”

“Oh, Micah says so?” I ask, unable to keep the bitterness from my tone.

“Yes. And he’s right, I think. We’ll have to wait until Dominik tells us what’s going on. He’s been on the phone arguing with people, ordering men around.” She waves a hand. “Being Dominik.”

I sigh hard. “How is Dad?” He’s on another floor. I haven’t left Nicole’s side since the ambulance brought us to the hospital.

“They’re doing tests, but you know him. He says he’s fine.” She moves her gaze back to Nicole. “He worries about her. She saved him, Jakub. If she hadn’t been able to get him out of there-” Her words get choked off and she looks away. We both know what would have happened. He would be dead.

I grab her hand and squeeze. “He’s going to be all right. He’s too stubborn not to be.”

She gives me a watery smile. “I know.”© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

Nicole fidgets beneath her blankets, her head rolls toward me. But she’s still asleep.

“So is she,” I say. A suffocating hurt takes hold of me. With a deep need to feel her, I get up from my chair, lean over the rail, and brush her hair from her face. Her skin is soft; the small white bandage on her forehead hides the gash she endured when the car hit the light post.

The image of the car flashes in my mind. The driver didn’t survive. Nicole was lucky on that front, but Henry had been near enough to see the accident and dragged her to the storage building.

“She wanted to get divorced,” I say when the silence of the room suffocates me too much.

“What?” Lena asks, surprise in her voice.

“She only agreed to marry me because I said it would be temporary. I didn’t mean it, but I didn’t want to drag her to the altar.” I glance at her briefly.

“I wasn’t dragged,” she says quietly. “Nudged maybe.”

I huff. It’s the closest thing to a laugh I can manage.

“I’m sure she doesn’t want one now. I saw how much she cares for you, Jakub,” she assures me.

I shake my head, running the back of my knuckles across Nicole’s cheekbone. So sweet. So beautiful.

“Before she left the apartment, she told me we were done. She said she didn’t want to live like this.” I lower my voice. Nicole needs her rest. She needs to heal.

“She was mad, Jakub.” Lena can come up with all the excuses she wants, but it can’t cover up the truth.

“She was packed. She climbed down the fire escape to get away from me, Lena. From what I could tell on her phone, she requested a car to take her to O’Hare. You don’t go to the airport unless you’re getting on a plane.”

“Okay, well, then when she wakes up you tell her how you feel.”

I shake my head.

“You tell her you love her.” Lena pushes my shoulder. “You tell her, and she’ll change her mind, Jakub. You’ll talk to each other. You’ll make this right.”

I look at my little sister. The little brat who used to throw water balloons off the balcony of my parents’ bedroom with me at our brother below. When did she get so grown up?

“I do love her,” I say, the words scraping against my throat. Because it’s no small matter. “Which is why she can’t be with me.”

“What?” Lena grabs my arm. “Jakub, don’t be stupid.”

Lena’s phone dings at the same time mine does. She checks hers while I ignore it. The only thing that matters right now is Nicole. Everything else can wait.

“It’s Dominik. I’ll go up to Dad’s room and see what’s going on. Don’t do anything. Wait for her to get better. Take her home. Tell her how you feel about her. This will work out, Jakub. But do not give up.”

I run the tip of my finger down Nicole’s nose. Her eyes flutter, but she only sighs softly and turns away again.

“I’ll be up there soon,” I say. When Lena tries to argue, I put my hand up. “Go. Dad and Dominik need you.”

She frowns but leaves me to stand over my wife, saying my goodbyes.