Beautiful Beast - Page 103
Guido’s jaw hardens. “Still in surgery.”
A strangled whimper leaves my lips. “How bad?”
“It’s bad,” he rasps, gaze glued to the floor. “I knew, you know? The moment you told me your father sent Belov, I fucking knew.”
“Knew what?”
He looks up, his eyes red. “Rafael has been a mercenary for nearly two decades. How many times do you think my brother has been shot in all those years?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not once. But here he is, with a team of five surgeons trying to patch him up after a point-blank bullet to the chest.” He points a finger at me. “Rafael just sat there and let Belov shoot him. Because of you!”
Guido’s raging words hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest. I stagger back, bumping into the hallway wall. “No.”
“Yes!” He leaps out of the chair and closes the distance between us. His face is a mask of fury and pain as he leans forward, drawing level with my eyes. “He is so in love with you that he’d rather die than kill someone you care about. I hope now you have your fucking proof of how much he loves you.”
My vision is completely obliterated with tears, and I don’t notice the papers Guido must have taken out of his pocket until he slams them against my chest. “You’ll need this if you want to see him. If he makes it, that is.”
I wipe my eyes, then look down at the document in my hand. The first sheet is an official-looking certificate with a stamp at the top. It’s dated as of three days ago. The text is in Italian, but I notice Rafael’s name. And just below it, mine. My eyes jump back to the header of the document. I may not speak or read Italian, but I recognize the word matrimonio, and I know what it means.
Marriage.
“What . . .” The word tumbles from my mouth. “How?”
“My brother might be a love-blinded idiot, but he’s still a scheming ass who always finds a way to get what he wants.” Guido turns to head down the hallway but then halts. “He left you everything. If he doesn’t pull through, you’ll get almost seventy million in cash and ten times that amount in investments. It’s all yours, Mrs. De Santi.”
“I don’t want his money!” I scream.
“Well, as I said,” he retorts as he walks away, “Rafael always gets what he wants. In the end.”
* * *
I stare at the two doctors before me. “What do you mean ‘he’s not waking up’?”
The older one, a short man in his late fifties, sighs and turns to Guido who stands next to me. I have no idea what the surgeon says in Italian, so I focus on his face, trying to gauge something from his expression. There’s nothing, besides a stoic look. His much younger coworker, however, is holding a folder to his chest and not saying a word, but gaping at me like a dumbstruck fool.
“Will you please tell me what’s going on?” I ask, praying to God the young guy’s English is better than the older doc’s, because I’m going out of my mind. Panic courses through my veins. I’m just about to lose it.
“Um, well, your husband is . . . Is he really your husband?”
“Yes!”
“Oh . . . I thought I misunderstood. It’s just . . .” His eyes scan me from the top of my head, over my short body-hugging dress, all the way to the tips of my heels. “Um . . . he’s experiencing delayed emergence, a failure to regain consciousness following general anesthesia. It’s been more than thirty minutes but he’s still unresponsive. For now, he’s breathing on his own. However, if he doesn’t wake up in the next half an hour, we may need to consider administering more potent drugs and, potentially—”
“He’ll wake up,” I interrupt him. “I’ll make sure my husband wakes up. Let me see him.”
“Ma’am, I don’t think you can help.”
I grab his sleeve, twisting the fabric in my hand while tears burst from my eyes. “He. Will. Wake. Up.”
The young doctor looks at his colleague, and they exchange a few sentences in Italian before glancing back at me.
“Five minutes,” he says and sets a brisk pace toward the recovery room.
My whole body trembles as I rush after the doctor down the hallway and across the waiting area where my parents and uncle are seated.
“Vasya.” Mom leaps out of her chair as I pass them by. “What’s—”
