24. Erik
ERIK
I push through the door to our private medical wing. The smell of antiseptic hits me first, then I see him—Dmitri propped up in the hospital bed, his left shoulder wrapped in pristine white bandages.
“What the hell happened?”
Dmitri's head turns toward me, and despite the pain medication, his eyes remain sharp. “Exchange went sideways. Igor broke the agreement and shot at us.”
I move closer to the bed, cataloging the damage. Bullet wound, clean entry and exit from the positioning of the bandages. His color looks good, and he is breathing steadily.
“Katarina?”
The question escapes before I can stop it. Dmitri's eyebrow arches slightly, that knowing look he gets when he's reading people.
“She's fine, Erik. Her father wasn't about to shoot his own daughter.”
Relief floods through me, followed immediately by a wave of frustration. Of course she's fine, back in her world, probably already forgetting about the compound and me.
“You look like shit,” Alexi comments from the corner, where he's apparently been lurking this entire time.
“Thanks for the medical assessment, doctor,” I snap.
Dmitri chuckles, then winces as the movement pulls at his wound. “Igor played us, but we got Natasha back. That's what mattered.”
“Where is she now?”
Dmitri's expression shifts, pain flickering across his features that has nothing to do with the bullet wound. His jaw tightens, and for a moment, he looks away from both Alexi and me.
“She's gone,” he says finally, voice flat. “Back to her place.”
“What do you mean gone?” Alexi leans forward in his chair, abandoning whatever he was doing on his laptop.
Dmitri's laugh comes out bitter. “She doesn't like what we do, what I do. Turns out having your girlfriend rescued from a hostage situation really opens her eyes to the kind of family she's gotten involved with.”
The silence stretches between us. I know that look on my brother's face—it's the same expression he wore when our mother died, like something essential had been carved out of him.
“She wouldn't listen when I tried to explain,” Dmitri continues, his voice getting quieter. “Said she couldn't be with someone who takes women against their will, who uses fear as a business tactic. Can't really argue with that logic, can you?”
“Is that wise?” I ask. “Surely Igor could try and take her again. Use her as leverage.”
Dmitri nods slowly. “I thought of that. She agreed to extra security—our people, watching from a distance. She won't let them get close, but at least I know she's protected.”
“Dmitri—”
“Don't.” He cuts Alexi off sharply. “Just don't. I knew this would happen eventually. Women like Natasha don't stay with men like us. They get smart and run.”
Women like Natasha. Women like Katarina. Smart, independent, with moral compasses that point away from violence and control.
“Maybe she just needs time,” Alexi suggests, but even he doesn't sound convinced.
Dmitri closes his eyes, leaning back against the pillows. “She looked at me like I was a monster, Erik. Like everything we'd shared meant nothing because of what I am, what we all are.”
The weight of his words settles over the room. I think about Katarina's face during that final night together, the way she'd touched me like she was memorizing every detail. Had she been looking at a monster, too?
The silence stretches between us. I want to ask a dozen questions I have no right to ask. How did she look when she left? Did she say anything about me?
Instead, I check Dmitri's IV line and adjust his pillow.
“Stop fussing,” he grumbles. “I'm fine.”
“Bullet wound says otherwise.”
“It's a flesh wound.”
“Flesh wounds can still get infected if you don't?—”
“Erik.” Dmitri's voice cuts through my rambling. “She made her choice. She went with her father willingly.”
My hands go still on the blanket I've been straightening. “I know.”
But knowing doesn't make it hurt less.
I step back from Dmitri's bed, shoving my hands into my pockets to keep from adjusting anything else. Old habits.
“Remember when you used to fuss over scraped knees like this?” Dmitri grins, some of his usual charm returning despite the pallor. “You'd practically perform surgery on a paper cut.”
“That's because Alexi kept getting tetanus shots and crying like a baby,” I shoot back.
“I was seven!” Alexi protests from his corner. “And you made me think I was going to die from a rusty nail.”
“You were going to die. Do you know how many people get lockjaw from?—”
“Oh God, here we go,” Dmitri groans. “Medical lecture incoming.”
The door opens, and Nikolai steps in, still in his suit from the exchange but with his tie loosened. He looks between the three of us, taking in Dmitri's bandages and our surprisingly light mood.
“How's the patient?”
“Demanding,” I answer before Dmitri can speak. “Wants to get discharged already.”
“I have work to do,” Dmitri argues. “Board meeting tomorrow, three acquisitions to finalize?—”
“You have a hole in your shoulder,” Nikolai points out mildly.
“Small hole.”
“Bullet hole,” I correct.
Alexi looks up from his laptop. “Want me to hack the board's calendar? Reschedule everything?”
“Don't you dare,” Dmitri warns, but there's no real heat in it.
Nikolai moves to the foot of the bed, crossing his arms. “Igor's people scattered after the shooting. We're tracking them, but he's gone underground.”
“Good riddance,” Alexi mutters.
“What about his business interests?” Dmitri asks, immediately switching to work mode despite being shot less than six hours ago.
“We'll discuss it when you're not bleeding through bandages,” Nikolai says firmly.
“I'm not bleeding—” Dmitri looks down at his shoulder, where a small red spot has indeed appeared on the white gauze. “Shit.”
I'm already moving, checking the dressing. “You pulled the stitches. Stay still.”
“It's fine?—”
“It's not fine. Alexi, get me fresh gauze from the supply cabinet.”
“On it,” he says, abandoning his laptop immediately.
Nikolai watches our routine with amusement. “Some things never change.”
“Hold still,” I mutter, carefully peeling away the blood-soaked gauze from Dmitri's shoulder.
He hisses through his teeth. “Could you be a little gentler? I'm wounded here.”
“Could you be a little less dramatic? It's a graze.”
“A graze that required twelve stitches,” Alexi chimes in, returning with the medical supplies.
I focus on cleaning the wound, but my hands shake slightly.
“Erik,” Dmitri says. “You're being rougher than usual.”
I pause, realizing I've been pressing too hard on the gauze. “Sorry.”
“Where's your head at?” Nikolai asks from his position by the window.
“I'm concentrating on reducing the bleeding,” I lie, reaching for fresh bandages.
“Please,” Dmitri scoffs. “You could suture a wound blindfolded. You've done it before.”
“That was an emergency?—”
“Everything's an emergency with you,” Alexi interrupts. “Remember when I got food poisoning from that sushi place? You practically quarantined me.”
“That sushi was sitting out for three hours in the summer heat,” I argue, taping down the new dressing. “You could have gotten salmonella, E. coli?—”
“See? Medical lecture,” Dmitri grins. “He can't help himself.”
Nikolai chuckles. “You made him take antibiotics for a hangover.”
“Preventative medicine is?—”
“Paranoid,” all three of them say in unison.
I shake my head, checking the tightness of the bandage one more time. The familiar rhythm of their teasing should be comforting, but my mind keeps drifting.
“Yes, doctor,” Dmitri says with exaggerated seriousness.
Alexi snorts. “He loves it when we call him that.”
“I do not?—”
“You literally smiled,” Nikolai observes.
“That wasn't a smile. That was—” I catch the slight upturn of my mouth in the reflection of the IV pole. “Shut up.”
Their laughter fills the medical wing, but I can't shake the hollow feeling in my chest.
The banter continues around me, but the words fade to background noise.
My hands move automatically, checking Dmitri's pulse, adjusting his IV drip, and cataloging every detail of his recovery.
Years of Spetsnaz field medical training made these motions second nature—one of the few useful skills I brought back from those dark years in Russian Special Forces.
My mind is lost in the kitchen where a woman with defiant green eyes challenged me over breakfast. It's in the library where she curled up with a book, completely absorbed.
“Erik?” Alexi's voice cuts through my thoughts. “You okay?”
I realize I've been standing motionless for a minute, holding a roll of medical tape like it contains the secrets of the universe.
“Fine,” I mutter, setting it down on the medical cart.
But I'm not fine. There's a hole where she used to be, an ache that settles deeper every hour she's gone. I keep catching myself expecting to turn a corner and find her there with that sharp smile that could cut glass.
The worst part is how empty everything feels now. My routine, my room, and even conversations with my brothers feel colorless. Like someone dimmed all the lights, and I'm just going through the motions.
I've never felt attached to a captive before. Honestly, I've never felt a strong attachment to anyone outside my family. But Katarina got under my skin, past every defense I've built. And now she's gone, back to her life where I'm just the enemy who held her prisoner.
“Earth to Erik,” Dmitri says, snapping his fingers. “Seriously, what's wrong with you?”
I force myself to focus on his face, pushing down the hollow ache in my chest. “Nothing. Just making sure you're not about to bleed out on my watch. Nothing's wrong with me,” I say again, more firmly this time.
Dmitri exchanges a look with Nikolai that I pretend not to notice. The kind of look that says they're communicating without words, the way brothers do when they've known each other their entire lives.
“You've checked my bandage four times in the last ten minutes,” Dmitri points out.
“Standard post-operative care requires?—”
“Bullshit,” Alexi interrupts. “You don't hover like this unless you're worried about something.”
I turn away from them, organizing medical supplies that are already perfectly organized. “I'm not hovering.”
"You reorganized the entire supply cabinet this morning," Nikolai says quietly. "Twice."
They notice everything.
“And you've been working out at three in the morning,” Alexi adds. “I can hear the weights from my room.”
“Since when do you monitor my workout schedule?”
“Since you started acting like a caged animal,” Dmitri says, wincing as he shifts position. “What's eating at you?”
I could lie. Tell them it's the stress from the exchange, concern about Igor's next move, and worry about security protocols. They might even believe it.
Instead, I find myself saying, “She didn't look back.”
The words escape before I can stop them, quiet and raw in the sterile air of the medical wing.
Silence settles over the room. I keep my back turned, focusing on the neat rows of medical supplies, but I can feel their attention like a weight on my shoulders.
“Erik,” Nikolai says, and there's something different in his tone. Gentler.
“Forget it,” I mutter, closing the supply cabinet with more force than necessary. “She's gone. End of story.”
But even as I say the words, I know it's not the end. The hollow ache in my chest tells me this story is far from over, and that terrifies me more than any enemy we've ever faced.