“Get the fuck up here right now! Call a doctor – I don't care how fuckin' much you've got to pay the shit to keep his quack mouth shut. Move your ass!” The phone snapped shut and I hurled it into the tub.
Oh, fuck. This was bad. Her gem-like eyes were bugging and starting to get glassed. I didn't have a fucking clue what that shit really was, or how fast it worked. There was nothing I could do about the unknown poison right now except try to get it outta her system this second.
“Hang on, babe! This won't be pretty. Just remember I'm trying to save your ass!” I didn't know if she could hear me.
She looked panicked, half-blastd outta her mind. I held her over the toilet and reached into her mouth, jamming my fingers against her throat, anything to make her heave that shit up.
It took a few tries to get her to retch. She coughed and let it all out, and I kept going, holding her while she spasmed and expelled what little was in her stomach. Of course, the deadly shit was indistinguishable from everything else.
There was no way to know if I'd gotten it. I held her, shaking like a fucking fool while she kicked and thrashed, one hand on her little belly going through its spasms.
She went limp. I barely jerked her away from the bowl in time before she dove in. Laying her out carefully on the floor, I pushed my hand against her chest, checking her breath.
Somebody was knocking at the door out in the bedroom, but fuck if I was getting up to answer it.
Her breathing was still choppy, shallow, and difficult. The bluish tinge in her lips told me she wasn't getting enough oxygen.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I wiped her lips on my shirt and dove, pushing all the air from my lungs into hers, pounding on her chest to get her to suck it in.
Don't die on me, Sabrina. Don't you fucking die on me!
Breathe, baby, breathe.
Come. The. Fuck. On.
My brain was right off its rails by the time old Grigor came bursting in, belting loud Russian orders at the servants. Incomprehensible grief and desperation and terror turned me into a fucking maniac, but I wouldn't let myself do anything but breathe, pouring as much air as I could into her lungs.
“Master Anton, you need to let us through. We have steroids to help. Doctor is on his way.”
I pulled myself away from her just long enough to jabber a few words about poisons and fuck ups to Grigor. I think the old man got the message. He never let a damned line of emotion show in his face.
Exactly like he'd been trained. A last line of defense for reason when all the Ivankovs were flipping their shit.
I wouldn't fucking leave her. Lev and Daniel grabbed underneath my arms and carried me away, kicking and screaming. Last glimpse of her I had was Grigor and two of the maids with First Aid shit piling in around her.
“Brother, please! Calm your ass down before you tear the whole house apart!” Lev leaned down and screamed in my face when we were outside.
The second they let me go, I lunged for them, grabbing both their necks and throwing them to the ground with superhuman strength.
“This is your fucking fault! Bastards! Both of you!”
Daniel's nose cracked beneath my fist and I felt blood come running out. Lev sank his teeth into my arm, but damned if I didn't stop moving it, snarling like a lion on crack while I pounded his head into the floor.
“Fuck! Just tell us what happened, Anton. Anton!” Daniel's words gurgled with the blood pouring down his throat and my continued punches. “Gonna fucking kill us...”
Fuck. I had them both by the balls. If they were any other men, they'd already be dead, their skulls fractured and their nose bones driven up their brains.
Damn it.
My brothers deserved the ass kicking, but they didn't deserve to die. They were only partially responsible for my woman laid out on the cold floor, fighting for her fucking life.
The real culprit was the sonofabitch we all wanted dead. And if I let my emotions boil over into murdering my own kin, I'd never get Gioulio. Not when it'd take a small miracle to show my face in Chicago without getting picked up and thrown back behind bars by the first fat cop looking to play hero.
I let them go. They crawled, putting some distance between us. Daniel grunted, wiped his face with his sleeve. I'd bloodied his nose and busted his lip bad.
“You gotta learn to talk to us without using your fists,” Lev snarled. “What's this shit about poison? Did that bitch seriously try to kill you in our own house?”
It took everything I had to stay put instead of marching over and planting my fist in his broad fucking face again. “It was an accident. She was trying to take it back and prevent my dumbass from taking it. Change of heart. And none of it would've happened if I'd thrown the goddamned bug in the trash instead of planting it in her purse like Daniel said!”