Finding Gary (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 4) (2 page)

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With a shake of her head, fingers pressed to her tightly drawn lips, Jessica Borgia jabbed her thumb into the TV remote, over and over, until the bed of her thumb went numb.

Every station.

Every.  Single.  Station.

CBS. 
“Real estate magnate, Val Romanovsky, whose face appears in a mug shot taken the night of the murder—”

NBC. 
“… we’ve yet to receive a comment from Novsky’s CEO, Valentin Romanovsky, on the company’s rapidly plummeting shares in the wake of this scandal—”

Fox. 
“… just received an update that bail has been set at five hundred thousand doll—”

CNN.
“… unable to reach Val’s fiancé, Zoey Black, for comment—”

Riveted to the television, Jessica barely noticed the beeping.  She’d been sitting in that room for so long; she could hardly hear it anymore.  Not until it moved into one long, steady chime.

She jolted in her chair, knowing the sound.  She’d heard it many times before, but never attached to someone whose life she felt responsible for.  Never with Angie Colt on the receiving end.  

Her eyes flew to the electrocardiograph machine next to the hospital bed, and the solid red line moving across the screen.  The flatline shook her from head to toe, nearly sending the chair she was sitting on toppling to the floor as she flew to her feet.  The remote fell from Jessica’s hand and clattered to the floor as she gripped the chair’s handles, taking in Angie Colt’s ghost white face.

“Help!” Jessica screamed, taking Angie’s thin arms in her hands, careful to avoid the various IVs.

She drank in Angie’s heavily hooded eyes, her purple lips, and the gray tone on her normally soft brown skin.  Instantly, Jessica was rocketed back to her apartment, just an hour earlier, where she’d found Angie laying unconscious on her kitchen floor.  After rushing her to the nearest hospital in Hoboken, the doctor’s had managed to resuscitate Angie in the nick of time, but to Jessica’s horror, she’d yet to open her eyes.  Jessica never thought she’d miss the sight of that petite powerhouse’s inquisitive green eyes, always skeptical behind the cat-eyed glasses she never left home without.  The edges of Angie’s curly brown hair were soaked with sweat, and Jessica pushed it away from her face before turning towards the door of the hospital room and calling for help again.

The next twenty-four hours were vital, the nurses had told her, and the flatlining electrocardiograph machine next to the bed was not spelling good things.  Jessica cupped Angie’s cheeks, and when the pale skin froze her fingers to the bone, Jessica’s eyes filled with tears as they flew to the door of the room.  “Fuck. Somebody,” she screamed.  “She’s flatlining!  Help!”

Two nurses came barreling into the room, moving so quickly that they had to hold onto the doorframe to maintain their balance.

Jessica stumbled backward as the nurses raced to Angie’s bedside, and she was quickly shuffled to the foot of the bed as more staff came to assist. 

A young Indian doctor sauntered in as if he were on an afternoon stroll in Central Park and not mere inches away from a flatlining patient.

“What happened?” the doctor asked, his voice as calm as his gait as he slowed to a stop next to the bed.

Each nurse recited a different emergency, using language Jessica couldn’t understand, but as her eyes flew to the doctor, who was filling his ears with a stethoscope, she no longer felt the need to knock his egotistical teeth out.  He didn’t seem worried about the complicated terminology being blasted at him from every angle, and for the first time since she’d met him, Jessica found his God complex soothing.

“What’s her BP?” The doctor took Angie’s vitals as a nurse recited her blood pressure. 

“Please help her,” Jessica begged.

“Why is she here?” The doctor didn’t look up as he took Angie’s vitals, but he still knew Jessica’s voice didn’t belong.  Several hands flew all around Angie’s body, but his moved with confident ease.

“Hold on, Angie,” Jessica patted Angie’s ankle.

“Why is she here?” The doctor demanded, again.  This time, he took a moment to look up at Jessica, and when he caught sight of the gold FBI badge on her hip, he rolled his eyes and ignored her, accepting a pair of paddles that a nurse offered to him.  “Charge to 350.”

Jessica’s wide eyes flew to the machine she hadn’t even noticed had been wheeled into the room.  As a heart transplant survivor of over twenty years, she knew the defibrillation machine on sight.  Feeling like a five-year-old on the operating table all over again, terror squeezed her bones. “Don’t let her die…”

The doctor ignored Jessica, giving all of his attention to the defibrillation paddles he was pressing on either side of Angie’s chest.  “Clear.”

A gentle arm came around Jessica’s waist just as Angie’s spine left the bed.   The shock of the paddles nearly bent her petite body in half before she went crashing back down to the bed.  Lips still purple.  Eyes still sealed shut.  Curls still pasted to her pale forehead.  No response.

“450,” the doctor said.

“Miss, you have to leave.”  A gentle voice floated into Jessica’s ears, but she barely heard it.

“Please don’t let her die,” she begged.

The hand on Jessica’s waist grew more insistent, and another one joined just as Angie received her second shock.  Before she knew it, vision blinded by tears, Jessica found herself in the hallway with the door slamming closed in her face.  Still ignoring the gentle words of the nurse who’d led her out of the room, Jessica went to the window that allotted her a view of Angie’s bed just as she was shocked again.

Guilt took Jessica’s stomach in a stiff fist.  She couldn’t shake the cold truth.  Angie Colt was in terrible shape, near death, and if she breathed her last breath that day, it would be on Jessica.

She swallowed back the tears, but not the pain, as she placed a hand on the window. 

Two more shocks followed, and just as Jessica was sure she’d been holding her breath for over a minute, the flatline on the electrocardiograph machine grew textured, and then moved into a sharply jagged line.  The doctor straightened and handed the paddles to a nurse, just as infuriatingly calm as ever.  As the tone of the room eased, and Angie took her first breath in over a minute, Jessica took her first breath too.

“She’s just fine,” the nurse, who Jessica hadn’t even realized was still next to her, said.

Jessica’s eyes flew to the young nurse, and she tried to smile as she rubbed her back, but couldn’t.  Her eyes were riveted to something over the nurse’s shoulder, and then went wide when she realized she was looking at Roman Romanovsky.

Roman spotted Jessica too, from the end of the long hallway.  His blonde hair was undone and moved into his blue eyes as he began toward her.   Inviting smiles were hand delivered from every young nurse he passed, but Roman didn’t sign for a single one.   His icy eyes were riveted to Jessica, milky skin flushed and business suit disheveled as if he’d been tugging at it profusely.

He came to a stop in front of her.

“You got my voicemails,” Jessica breathed.  “Did Val—”

“Angie.”  Was all Roman could say.

Jessica pointed to the window of Angie’s room.  “Carbon monoxide poisoning.  Doctor says if she’d gotten here even a minute later…”  Jessica didn’t finish.

Not that Roman heard her.  His eyes were sealed to the window of the room, and Jessica saw it the moment he caught sight of Angie.  His face grew vulnerable one second and then tightened with fury the next.

Jessica stepped away; sure he was going to send one of his tightened fists through the glass.

Instead, he pushed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead against it, pressing his fists into the ledge.

“She flatlined for a minute,” Jessica said.  “Scariest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.  But the doctor brought her back.”

If Jessica’s words were reassuring Roman, he didn’t show it, and as he kept his forehead to the glass, eyes shut, hands fisted, she began to wonder if he was contemplating sending a fist her way.

“How did this happen?” He stood tall and sliced his blue eyes through her.

Jessica felt the heat behind his gaze enter her body and burn it from head to toe.  She took another step back, hoping it would make him seem less broad.  Less tall.  Less dangerous.  “Roman.  Listen to me.  Someone is out to hurt you and your family, and I think you know who that someone is.”

“What I know is that, an hour ago, Leo told me that you’re a federal agent.  And ten minutes after that, I get a dozen voicemails saying that my girlfriend is in the hospital.  That Zoey is in the hospital.   After sitting in my car with no idea which direction to go, toward my sister or my girlfriend, I turned on the radio and got to hear from a loud-mouthed DJ that my baby brother just walked into the New York Post and confessed to cold-blooded murder.  All of this, five minutes after Leo told me you’re a fed.   That’s what I know, Jessica.”  He spat her name with disdain, matching every step she took back with one step forward.  “If anything happens to Angie or Zoey, I swear on their lives; I’ll kill you myself.”

“You’d be wise not to threaten a federal agent,” Jessica said, matching Roman’s challenging gaze, ignoring the curious eyes she could feel hitting them from every corner of the room.  “Especially not one who knows you just purchased two guns, illegally, less than fourth-eight hours ago.”

Roman cocked his lip.

“I really hope you’re not planning on doing anything stupid, Roman.”

“Because you’ve got it all under control?” He motioned to Angie’s hospital room, his breathing picking up.  “If you won’t take care of this once and for all, I will.”

“Realize who your real enemies are, and who they aren’t.  Who’s really on your side, and who isn’t.  I’m on your side.”

Roman turned away. 

Jessica watched him go to the door of Angie’s room and open it.  The nurses were still stabilizing Angie.  He was wise enough to remain in the doorway, even though his tightened bones and planted feet showed it was taking everything he had not to charge inside. 

Jessica crossed her arms and took in Roman’s broad back, her own heart in desperate need of a defibrillator.  She looked past him, at the TV screen still blaring in the corner of Angie’s room.  She caught the news segment playing just in time to see a jumbled video recording.

A video of Gary Romanovsky at the New York Post, confessing to the murder of Pansy and Marcus Black.

She saw the back of Roman’s head shift and knew he was watching that TV too because his shoulders squared.  A moment later, his blazing gaze came over his shoulder, and he locked eyes with her. 

The guilt nearly ate her inside out.

Jessica’s investigative style had always reduced her to a laughing stock with the other agents.  Plant the seed, water it patiently… and then watch it flourish.  Watch it break ground on her suspect’s deepest fears, their darkest nightmares, and their ugliest truths, driving them to the brink of insanity until, little by little, the truth took on a gentle bloom, and they finally told on themselves.

They always did.

Jessica had done her job.  She’d finally broken her suspect down.

If only she’d known that suspect was going to be Gary Romanovsky.

It seemed, however, that Roman had known.  He would never say it out loud, of course, but she could see it plain as day in his eyes, speaking to her in a way words never could.  He only tore his angry gaze away from her when the doctor appeared before him, trying to leave the room.

“Are you the family?” the doctor asked, pointing to Roman as he stepped into the hallway.

Roman’s furious eyes transformed, going wide with a poignant mixture of hope and fear.  “I’m her fiancé.”  He frowned, shaking his head furiously as his own guilt saturated his eyes.  “Her boyfriend,” he corrected himself, bringing his trembling fingers to his forehead.  “I’m her boyfriend.  I’ve called her mother, and she’s on the way.  Should be here any minute.”

Jessica approached the two of them, even though they were facing only each other. 

The doctor nodded.  “We’ve found their heartbeats, but Angie still hasn’t opened her eyes.  She’s suffered moderate carbon monoxide poisoning which has led to significant toxicity in her heart and nervous system.”

Roman shook his head.  “What does that mean?”

“It means they’re in critical condition,” the doctor said, bringing his chart down to his side.  “But I’m optimistic.  If Angie opens her eyes within the next twenty-four hours, they’re not likely to experience any permanent damage.”

“Hold on.” Roman cringed, holding up a hand.  “They?”

Jessica stepped forward, her movement catching the stunned eyes of both Roman and the doctor as if they’d both forgotten she was there.

Eyes as stoic, borderline lazy as ever, the doctor looked back to Roman.   “You didn’t know?”

Roman’s eyes met the doctor’s and widened.

The doctor sighed.  “Your girlfriend is pregnant.”

***

Too stunned to process another word, Jessica moved away from Roman and the doctor just as Roman broke, falling to the heels of his feet with his hands buried in his hair.