He glanced frantically around and, spotting Havel striding toward them, quickly signed, help her.
Havel dropped to his knees on Shaun’s other side, his concerned gaze running down her prone body. He lifted her wrist and felt for a pulse. Havel was the only man on his team with more than basic First Aid knowledge. He’d been forced to patch up their men on several occasions.
“Got it. Steady but slowing down.” He touched her face, leaning in for a closer look. “Poison, I think.”
Their eyes met in a moment of mutual understanding. It made sense: the sudden attack, the foaming around her lips, her garbled speech as she fell. Jozef looked around and seeing Shaun’s champagne glass, now on its side, the contents spilling out, grabbed a napkin and soaked up what he could. He shoved the napkin into his suit jacket pocket. Even while his frantic brain was completely focused on his ailing fiancé, he knew that identifying the poison would be imperative to her survival.
Call an ambulance, Jozef told Havel.
To his credit, Havel didn’t hesitate, though he knew better than any of them the consequences of calling for help. Havel nodded and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He was about to dial 112 for emergency services, when a hand came down on top of his. Havel reacted instantly by lifting his fist to hit the person touching him but lowered it once he recognized Dasha’s stony features.
“No,” she said firmly, turning her gaze on Jozef who knelt at her feet. Dasha spoke quickly. “If we call an ambulance the police will come too. Shaun is too recognizable. They’ll know her as the doctor who went missing from Luhansk.”
Krystoff walked up behind his wife and quickly took stock of the situation. He took her by the shoulders and gently pulled her back. “Dasha, love, she could die without immediate intervention.”
She looked startled as she stared up at her husband. “I know, but we never call the authorities, no matter what.”
Krystoff looked down at Shaun who was beginning to convulse, Jozef’s frantic hands on her face. “This is different.” He turned his gaze to Havel. “Make the call, tell them to drive through the garden entrance. We’ll meet them at the gate.”
Guests were starting to look curiously through the patio doors. Seeing what was going on outside, Leeza grabbed the nearest servant and snapped at them to close the patio doors and draw the curtains. She told another to ask the orchestra to play a livelier tune. Her concerned gaze met Jozef’s as the doors were closed and the curtains drawn, leaving Jozef, Dasha, Krystoff and Havel outside with Shaun.
Jozef touched her face, but she’d passed out. Her cheeks felt like fire and her skin was ashen beneath the rich brown tone. He could feel her life slipping away beneath his fingertips and he was helpless to stop it. Their entire relationship flashed in front of him: the moment he took her, put a gun to her head, the feeling he had when she communicated in his language, the incredible mind-blowing sex, getting to know the kindness and compassion in her heart.
He could not allow her to die. She was a true innocent, too delicate for their world, but too entwined in their lives to set free. And then it hit him. Someone in his own organization had poisoned her. It was the only explanation. She was a threat to everything they stood for. If she somehow managed to escape and give her story to the authorities, she could bring down a multi-generational crime family like they were a house of cards.
Jozef stared at his aunt, anger building in his heart as she dropped next to him and touched his arm. He thought it was for comfort, but then she spoke. “There will be only one end to this evening, Jozef. She will be recognized at the hospital; the authorities will be called in and an arrest will have to be made.” When Jozef didn’t react, she dug her nails into his sleeve. “Don’t you see, they’ll have to take someone into custody.”
Jozef shook her hand away with a growl but didn’t lift his gaze from Shaun’s face. If he did, she might die while he wasn’t looking and he wanted to be with her to the end, if the end was coming. He didn’t care what happened when the ambulance came, didn’t care about the authorities. If there was any chance of saving Shaun then he was taking it, no matter the consequences.
Later, he would do some digging. Find out who had poisoned his beautiful fiancé. If someone on the inside had betrayed him, then he would take down the house of cards himself one card at a time until their entire legacy was dismantled.
The ambulance arrived less than five minutes later, waved onto the garden terrace by Krystoff himself, who’d discarded his jacket and opened the gates. Jozef refused to move back for the paramedics until Havel gripped his shoulder and pulled him away. He understood on one level that the two medics needed to stabilize Shaun so she could be moved, but he had this terrible feeling if he stopped touching her, took his eyes off her, she would disappear.
As he moved back, his hand landed on something. He picked it up and looked down. It was the delicate necklace he’d given Shaun, the delicate chain likely broken in the panic. Jozef shoved it in his pocket.
A few minutes later Shaun was loaded onto the ambulance, Jozef climbing in behind her. Havel followed Jozef and when the paramedic told him he’d have to leave, Havel set him straight. “I go where he goes and he’s not leaving her side.” When it looked like the man would continue to argue, Havel interrupted. “Besides, he needs an interpreter.”
Not wanting to waste another second of the critically ill woman’s life, the medic simply nodded and slammed the door shut between the two men.
Without looking up, Jozef signed, thank you.
Havel squeezed his shoulder and nodded.
The two men tried to stay out of the way as much as they could but Jozef refused to stop touching Shaun. He held her limp, clammy hand during the entire harrowing trip to the hospital. The paramedic ignored them, focusing entirely on Shaun while the other drove. Jozef’s heart pounded in fear as the man’s hands flew over Shaun.
When they arrived, Havel jumped out of the ambulance and reached for the stretcher. The paramedics looked concerned and tried to argue about protocol, but it was hard to argue with a man of Havel’s size and unmistakable air of deadliness. As Shaun was rushed through the bright front doors of the hospital, more personnel tried to stop the two gangsters from following Shaun’s stretcher down the hall. Jozef was about two seconds from shooting the next person who tried to limit his access to his fiancé, but Havel hung back, smoothing over the ruffled feathers they left in their wake.
Jozef could do nothing but watch helplessly as Shaun was transferred onto another bed and surrounded by doctors and nurses. The screaming in his head got so loud he barely noticed when a young nurse put her hand on his arm.
“Are you a member of her family?”
Jozef looked down sharply, about to shove her away, then looked at her face. The seriousness, the compassion, the kindness reflected there reminded him so much of Shaun he didn’t have the heart to reject the woman. He nodded, his gaze fixating on the bed once more.
“Can you tell us what happened?” she asked kindly.
Jozef shook his head and, without taking his eyes off Shaun, signed that he was nonverbal. The likelihood of this nurse understanding the language was slim, but she would recognize the form of communication and hopefully realize that they wouldn’t be having any in depth conversations without an interpreter.