Chapter 9 - The Price of Freedom
The ICU waiting room on the top floor of New York Presbyterian Hospital was dead silent at three in the morning.
Ava sat on the leather sofa, her clothes stained with rain, dirt, and Ethan's blood. She refused to leave, refused to change, and refused to eat despite the gentle insistence of the hospital staff.
Her father sat beside her, a white bandage resting over his temple. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.
"He's a good man, Ava," her father whispered softly. "A truly good man."
"I almost got him killed, Dad," Ava sobbed silently into her hands. "If he dies because of me—"
"He isn't going to die," a sharp, authoritative voice cut through the room.
Ava looked up. Dr. Harrison, the head of surgery, was stepping out of the operating theater doors, pulling his surgical mask down around his neck.
Ava bolted to her feet. "How is he?!"
Dr. Harrison smiled warmly, offering a comforting nod. "The bullet missed the main artery by less than two centimeters. We successfully extracted the round and repaired the muscle tissue. He lost a considerable amount of blood, but his heart is strong. He's out of surgery and resting in recovery."
Ava let out a gasp of relief, her knees almost giving out as her father caught her. "Can I see him?"
"He's still coming out of anesthesia," Dr. Harrison said. "But he woke up for ten seconds in the recovery room. Do you know what the first thing he said was?"
Ava wiped her eyes, shaking her head. "What?"
"He told the nurses that if he woke up and Ava wasn't sitting by his bed, he was going to fire the whole department," the doctor chuckled softly. "Room 402. Go on in."
Ava didn't hesitate. She pushed open the door to Room 402.
The room was quiet, bathed in the soft blue light of the heart monitors. Ethan lay in the center of the bed, a thick bandage wrapping around his shoulder beneath his hospital gown, IV lines running into his left arm.
He looked tired, pale, but completely alive.
As the door clicked shut, his eyes fluttered open. Steel-blue met tearful brown.
Ava walked slowly to the side of the bed, her breath catching in her throat. She gently reached out and took his left hand, holding it tight against her cheek.
"You're a terrible boss, you know that?" she whispered, a tear slipping down her nose. "You completely ignored my schedule today."
Ethan’s lips curved into a faint, weak smile. His fingers gently squeezed hers.
"I... I think I deserve a raise," he rasped out, his voice rough from the breathing tube they had removed minutes earlier.
"You deserve to be yelled at," Ava laughed through her tears, pressing a soft kiss to the back of his hand. "Why did you do it, Ethan? You could have let the security team handle it."
Ethan pulled her hand closer to his chest, placing it right over his heart, beating steady and strong beneath his palm.
"When you called me from the car... when you said you loved me..." Ethan looked up at her, his dark eyes filled with a raw, terrifying honesty that made her soul shake. "I realized that a world without you in it... isn't a world I care to live in."
Ava froze. "Ethan..."
"I've loved you for a year, Ava," he admitted softly, no longer hiding behind the professional walls of Carter Tower. "Every morning you walked into my office... every late night we worked together... I wanted to give you the world. But you belonged to someone else, so I stayed silent. I respected your boundaries."
He reached up with his uninjured arm, his long fingers tenderly brushing her dark hair behind her ear.
"I watched you suffer in silence for months, and it almost killed me," he whispered. "I don't care about the company. I don't care about the money. I just care about you. If taking a bullet was what it took to keep you safe... I'd do it again tomorrow."
Ava couldn't hold back anymore. She leaned down gently, being careful not to touch his injured shoulder, and pressed her lips against his.
May you like
The kiss was slow, sweet, and filled with months of unspoken longing, relief, and profound love. When she pulled back, Ethan was looking at her as if she were the only thing that existed in the universe.
"Don't you dare do it again tomorrow," Ava whispered, resting her forehead against his. "Because from now on... we go everywhere together."
