Page 49 of Unleashed

“The brain has its way of protecting itself from trauma, is all I’m trying to say,” the doctor says, glancing briefly at Rafail before continuing.

“Will I… remember? When will I know?”

“Know what?”

I try to swallow the lump in my throat, but it doesn’t work. My voice wobbles. “Everything.”

The doctor hesitates. “Remembering is possible, but with retrograde amnesia, memories often return in fragments. But to reiterate, there’s no guarantee.”

My jaw unhinges. My heart pounds so hard I feel nauseous. Hope sinks as I shift in my seat. “Do you mean to tell me I might never remember who I am?”

He sighs. “It’s hard to predict. You may get some memories back, but if we push too hard, it could cause things to be much worse.”

“What could make it worse?” I ask as the room begins to spin, and it feels too hot in here.

The doctor pushes his glasses further up his nose with a furrowed brow as though trying to determine his next move in a game of chess. “Stress, trauma, trying too hard to remember things. All can complicate your recovery. If you want to make sure that you remember, don’t push yourself. You don’t want to shut down the process. Let things happen naturally.”

I can tell you this—I’m not somebody who lets go easily. My hands clench into fists. “You’re telling me I could break my brain?”

The doctor looks at Rafail again before he responds. "To be perfectly honest, I can't make any guarantees. There's no way to truly break a brain,” he says, quoting me. “But we want to make sure that you have proper healing.”

He’s raised more questions than he’s given answers. "But I need to know. I need to remember. It's like I've been dropped in a foreign land, and I don't speak the language."

Something like fire ignites in Rafail's eyes, but he doesn't answer or say anything.

The doctor leans back, his expression vaguely sympathetic. "I understand that, but you must be cautious. You don't want to force a memory to come back and trigger more confusion or even introduce false memories."

My stomach plummets. Before this conversation, I had no idea that was a possibility.

The truth is… the man beside me is the biggest question of all.

He tells me I’m his wife, but I don'tfeelthat way.

Why was I running? I need to know.

His answers have been fruitless so far. I turn to Rafail. The brief silence that follows is heavy, nauseating, as Rafail's eyes darken, and when he speaks, his tone is typically cold and chilling. "You were running,” he says softly. "I told you that."

“I know, butwhy?” Surely, there was a better way to handle things.

He doesn't answer right away, his jaw clenched. Finally, he says in a low but clear tone, "You didn't want the life we had, Anissa. You were trying to escape it.”

I can almost hear the words he doesn’t say aloud:but there is no escape.

The doctor interjects, “I understand this is a lot, but I recommend you just focus on resting your brain right now. Give yourself time to heal.”

Give myself time toheal? Take this easy? I balk at him. "What if Ineverremember?"

Rafail shakes his head. “I promised you we’d ask questions, but we need to leave now.”

Suddenly, my husband’s phone buzzes. His brow furrows as he pulls it from his pocket and shakes his head. "We need to go. Thank you for your time, doctor. I wired the funds to your account."

The doctor’s brows shoot up. Wired funds sound like some underground negotiation, not a medical consultation. I wonder how much he paid him.

When we’re outside, I stare at Rafail, eyes wide. “What happened?”

He smiles at me, bends, and kisses my cheek. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Not yet, anyway.” We walk toward the car. “Semyon saw a threat retreat, one I feared.” He turns toward me with a soft smile on his lips. “You said you wanted to go see the city? Let’s go, Mrs. Kopolov. Youownthis city.”

Chapter 14

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