When the car drew to a stop, Ronan didn’t waste a second. He picked me up and carried me into the hospital. I watched the doctors and nurses rush toward us and throw out questions in Russian. I couldn’t make sense of anything besides what Ronan had threatened as a cold weightlessness consumed me, tugging, pulling, trying to drag me down. “Don’t do that to Khaos,” I pleaded weakly, interrupting the medical staff. “Don’t die, and I won’t,” he responded while following the doctors down the hall. He wasn’t being fair. “Ronan...” A tear slipped down my cheek. He wiped it away, his tone coarse. “Those are the conditions. You choose.” How could I choose not to die? Today might be my day, and even D’yavol couldn’t stop fate in its tracks. I may have never gotten the family or love I’d always wanted, but at least I could say I gave it my best shot. Ronan lay me on a gurney, and a nurse rushed me into an OR room. When a surgeon tried to stop Ronan from entering, he pulled out his pistol and pointed it at the doctor’s head. “Yesli ona umret, ty tozhe umresh’,” he growled. If she dies, you die too. The surgeon swallowed, stepped out of his way, and curtly nodded to an area where Ronan could stand. A nurse put a mask on my face to induce sleep. I tried to pull it off, but it took little effort for her to hold it on while speaking to me in Russian. The gas started to pull my consciousness down, down . . . Though when I met Ronan’s eyes, I knew what I needed to say. Ya lyublyu tebya. I love you. In the end, only one word escaped with the fear I’d never wake up. “Proshchay .. .” The last thing I heard before the anesthesia took me under was, “Fuck your proshchay, Mila.”