“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

I press my hands to my mouth. That scream in my throat is ready to explode, the pressure so great it’s pounding in my temples. My lungs must’ve shrunk because I can’t seem to get enough air.

I turn around, looking at the multitude of hallways and closed doors. Rafael is alive. I won’t accept any other possibility. He’s somewhere out there, and I’m going to find him, even if I have to fight my way past every damn member of the hospital’s security personnel.

My eyes fall on the figure of a man in jeans and a bright-yellow T-shirt, sitting hunched over in a chair halfway down the hall to the left. It’s Guido. I run toward him at breakneck speed. The bastard didn’t take any of my calls for the past hour, and I’ve called him at least fifty times.

“How is he?” I whisper. “The staff won’t tell me anything.”

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—”

Wiping my eyes, I keep walking without slowing. Several sets of footfalls trail behind me, along with a distinctive click of Dad’s cane against the tiled floor. I can’t talk to them now. Not before I look upon Rafael and see with my own eyes that he’s okay. Guido can fill them in on what’s happening.

Another long hallway, and then the doctor stops in front of a sturdy-looking door.

“Ma’am, you need to understand that—”

I grab at the knob and step inside the room.

The constant beep of a heart monitor pierces the absolute silence. I put my hand over my mouth, but a pained whimper still manages to escape my lips. The metal door handle digs into my back as I stand rooted to the floor and just stare at Rafael’s unmoving form.

I take a tentative step. Then another. When I finally reach the bed, I’m a crying mess again. Cupping Rafael’s cheek with my hand, I bend so my mouth is just next to his ear.

“I’m going to burn everything,” I choke out. “That pretty house you left me. The hotel. Your cars. There will be nothing left of them.”

I press my lips to his temple.

“Those two yachts you love so much? I’ll scuttle both and watch them sink to the bottom of the sea.” I kiss his eyebrow. “Your private security company? You can forget about it, Rafael. I’m going to destroy it so completely that, in a month, no one will even remember it existed.”

His skin is so cold and clammy. I move my hand to his neck, setting it over the pulse point. The monitor beside the bed is beeping, but I need more tangible proof that he’s alive. Only when I feel the steady beat under my fingers, do I let myself relax a tiny bit.

“The money? I’m going to give it all away. I’ll find some stupid charity, A Better Life for Goats or something equally idiotic, and I’ll transfer all your millions to them. They can use all that wealth to create a fucking Goatland. A paradise where they can groom the goats, bathe them in donkey milk, and give the animals neck massages all day long.”

Why isn’t he waking up? I continue peppering his face with kisses, feeling the ridges and valleys of the multitude of scars under my lips. Most of the time, I forget they’re even there. I don’t see the stretch of badly stitched flesh that healed askew and twists his cheek. Or the one pulling his upper lip, making it misshapen. Or those on his chin that fades into the short stubble across his jaw. I just see him.

Rafael.

Knowing that, because of these scars, he believed he needed to buy my love with jewelry and other presents makes me incredibly angry. And completely devastates me. He got these scars by saving me. And he never intended to reveal that truth.

His face is an expressionless mask, but his lips are slightly parted. I pull his lower one between my teeth and nip.