Page 22 of Blazing Embers

The memory of my daughter interlaces with Tara’s face in my mind, a jumbled horror show I can’t rewind. My hands keep flexing into fists and opening again, the dried blood stretching like a second skin along my lifeline.

An hour passes. But it feels like five.

The nurse who comes back for the forms is different. She’s brisk, perfunctory, not the type who would ever volunteer news unasked. “She is still in surgery,” is all she says, then disappears again.

Pavel sits with his head back, eyes closed, and hands limp between his knees. Every ten minutes or so, his phone buzzes with a message from one of the other men—any news? How’s the boss’s wife? He doesn’t answer any of them. Neither do I. There’s nothing to say yet.

The door swings open, and my head snaps around. For a second, I think it’s the doctor—my heart lurches—but it’s Konstantin. His face is pale, eyes wide as he steps into the corridor.

“How is she?” he asks.

I stand, and we hug. Things between us have been strained for months, but right now, it’s good to see him. Grounding.

“We’ve heard nothing,” Pavel says through clenched teeth. He glances at the clock again. “It’s been a fucking hour.”

I start pacing, replaying every moment of the day. Was there a sign I missed? A warning? My mind flashes to earlier—Tara’s scream when I entered her in the shower. The way her body seized under me. At the time, I thought it was sensitivity, nerves. But now…

My gut knots. Did I cause this?

Did I break something that hadn’t yet healed?

Then there’s the image I can’t shake: her collapsed on the dining room floor, blood soaking her pants, pooling beneath her like a goddamn crime scene. I force it down, but it keeps coming back. I’ve seen men gutted in war zones with less blood around them.

The doors swing open again, this time with force, and a surgeon strides toward us. Green scrubs, mask hanging around his neck, silver in his hair, though he looks barely forty. His eyes—flat, grey, clinical—land on me.

“Mr. Dragunov?”

“Yes.” My voice is hoarse. “How is she?”

“She’s stable. For now,” the doctor says. “We had to operate. She was severely septic and had already lost more blood than most can afford to lose.”

The air leaves my lungs, but I manage to keep standing.

“We have none of her medical records.”

“My wife has just recently moved to Russia; she’s been living in America with her family,” I explain. “We haven’t had time to get all her medical records together.”

The doctor nods in understanding. “It would be good for us to have those records,” he tells me before continuing. “Has your wife given birth in the last few months?”

I hesitate. “My wife miscarried about six months ago. Why?”

“Are you sure?” His brows knit together, and he shakes his head. “Well, whenever she miscarried, your wife retained a significant amount of placental tissue. It stayed attached to the uterine wall and began to break down and decay. That led to a serious uterine infection, which likely progressed to full sepsis in the last several days.”

I stare at him, barely breathing, as his words crash over me.

“Today, the tissue ruptured—possibly due to physical strain—and triggered massive internal bleeding. We were able to perform a surgical evacuation to remove the tissue and irrigate the infection,” the doctor continued. “Your wife has been given IV antibiotics and a blood transfusion. She was severely anemicwhen she arrived. Another twelve hours without treatment, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

I say nothing. I don’t trust my voice. Now I know—it must’ve ruptured during Tara and me having sex. Her scream echoes through my brain. Fuck, I had seen the pain in her eyes but had just continued to fuck her. My hands clench at my sides. “So, she’s been in pain all this time?”

“Your wife probably thought it was period pain or bad cramps,” the doctor explained. “Luckily, it ruptured when it did, and you got her here just in time. Another day and we’d be having a very different conversation,” he adds. “We successfully removed all the tissue and flushed out the infection. She’s on a course of IV antibiotics, and we’ve given her a transfusion. The next twenty-four hours are critical.” His eyes hold mine. “This is why I always recommend that miscarriages be monitored in a medical facility. Home management, while common, carries risks most people don’t understand. The uterus is a highly vascular organ that is susceptible to infection, especially after tissue breakdown. It’s why so many women died after childbirth in centuries past.”

Lucky. That’s what we’re calling it now. I’m about to shove the doctors harsh condescending and accusatory words down his fucking throat but his words cut me off.

“You can see her soon,” the doctor finishes. “She’s still groggy but out of danger for the moment.”

He turns and walks off, leaving me standing there, the walls spinning just slightly around me.

Tara, my wife, nearly died and I had no fucking clue she was even in pain or ill. No! All I could think about was my sick revenge.

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