The Don Tore Up Our Divorce (Gemma and Cassian) novel Chapter 448

Chapter 448
Gemma's POV

I understand; the odd questions, the bizarre shouting, and staring at a page without reading… it’s all a desperate, clumsy dam against the tide of fear. 

He’s a soldier. He’s used to action, to clear and present danger. This passive waiting, this surrender to a surgeon’s knife, is its own special kind of terror.

I sit on the edge of his bed. He looks away, but the confession comes, halting and painful.

“I’m not afraid of dying,” he says, his gaze fixed on the blank wall. “I could sacrifice myself for my country. I could die on a battlefield. That… makes sense.” He swallows hard. “But I don’t want…”

He doesn’t finish, and I hear the unspoken words. 

He doesn’t want to die here, on a sterile table, for a reason that feels small and utterly, devastatingly ordinary. 

It would be an undignified, unheroic end for a man whose entire identity is built on a different kind of valor.

I set the book aside on the nightstand. Its presence has suddenly been feeling too oppressive. I pull the visitor’s chair closer to his bedside and sit down. The space between us is small, charged with his unspoken dread.

“Mikhail,” I say, keeping my voice low and steady, “it’s normal to be scared before surgery. You don’t have to hold it in. If you’re afraid, you can talk to me.” I meet his averted gaze until he finally looks at me. “I’m here with you. That’s why I came. Not to watch you torture yourself with a book you’re not even reading.”

He scowls, a defensive, masculine pride tightening his features. “I’m a man. How can I admit I’m scared in front of a woman like you?” Having delivered this piece of archaic bravado, he turns his head away again, presenting me with his profile.

Without a word, I reach out and pinch the soft, sensitive skin on the inside of his upper arm. Hard.

“Ouch!” He jerks back, rubbing the spot, his pride replaced by genuine annoyance. “Why did you do that?”

“See?” I say, my tone matter-of-fact. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman. We all feel pain. We all feel fear. It’s not about gender. And I wouldn’t laugh at you.” It’s an echo of his own logic from the hospital back home, thrown back at him. A reminder of the vulnerability he once allowed me to see.

He rubs his arm, his defiance crumbling. He looks down at the starch-white sheets. “Mr. Smith never wanted me to have this surgery,” he confesses, his voice dropping. “Because he’s afraid I’ll die on the operating table. I’ve always known that.” He pauses, the truth he’s been hiding tumbling out. “Telling you he just wanted to control me… that was a lie.”

He explains, his words stripped bare. Mr. Smith was his father’s best friend, his brother-in-arms. He watched Mikhail’s father die, helpless to stop it. The terror of history repeating itself, of losing another man he’s sworn to protect, has been Mr. Smith’s driving, suffocating force.

“You won’t die on the operating table!” The declaration bursts from me, fiercer than I intended. My eyes lock with his, filled with a determination I don’t fully understand but cling to desperately.

“Mikhail,” I add, softening my tone, grasping for any comfort. “God will bless all passionate souls.” I’m not a believer. But here, in this place, it feels like the right thing to say. A benediction for a warrior facing a battle he can’t fight with his hands.

He blinks, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “Talking with you does make me feel a lot better.” Then, a faint, almost mischievous smile touches his lips. It’s a startling change. “Gemma, I actually know you’ve been lying to me.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify