27. Lev
27
LEV
E va fell behind me, slapping her arm out for the light. It wasn’t necessary.
I could hear him. I smelled him.
The man who’d been in this dorm room to ambush us was within my reach, fighting like hell. I didn’t need the light on to kick his ass. I didn’t care if I could see his face when the fear of my anger registered on it.
“Get the girl,” someone ordered, spoken in Russian.
The voice wasn’t present, though. Despite the roar of my pulse in my ears as I entered full attack mode, punching and trying to get a hold on this man, I heard the distinction of that order. It came from someone not in this room. Not here.
“No,” Eva replied, also in Russian. “You’re not taking me anywhere.”
Lights clicked on near a bunk bed frame. She’d found a switch of some kind, but it hadn’t turned on the lights at the ceiling. It would’ve blinded me, nearly distracting me from keeping myself between this man and Eva, but I was too trained, too conditioned, to be a faulty killing machine like that.
Of equal size, he faced me off alone. In this hurried blur of fighting and blocking him from reaching her, I couldn’t slow down time long enough to determine who he was. If he was a Petrov or Ilyin, or anyone from another criminal entity. He wasn’t a student, that was for sure.
Older than me, thick with muscles, and displaying a rivaling finesse and expertise for how to handle a fight, he had to be a soldier or member of a Mafia family from somewhere. Later, that clue of his speaking Russian would matter, but right now, my only focus was to take him down. To render him disabled—dead, if it came to that.
Eva flattened herself against the wall, staying out of the way in this too-small and narrow room. She didn’t try to scream again, which would’ve attracted attention. She didn’t attempt to escape and flee from this violence. No matter how much she had to be filled with adrenaline and the need to fight or flight, she did neither. She froze in place as I fought for her.
The man grunted and growled, not only looking like a beast of a man but sounding like a pissed-off animal on the attack, too. He took every one of my punches, and I did my best to breathe through the impact of his jabs and kicks too.
The door was closed as I strained to get him down, but someone would hear. Someone would notice the loud sounds of us knocking into furniture and thrashing around. The bunk bed frame cracked. A shelf of books crashed to the floor, thudding noisily. Even though he didn’t speak and I kept my mouth shut too, both of us locked in this war to overcome the other, we weren’t quiet.
I didn’t need fucking security to come. I didn’t want an outsider to interfere. If this fucker was in this specific dorm room, he was here for a reason— my reason. Eva. It didn’t matter that she didn’t live here. She should have, and that clue would’ve been one someone else could find out. Barring that, Kelly lived here and it was already established that she was likely a connection to Eva for anyone seeking her out.
He brought out a knife, anteing up the challenge. His determination to get me out of the way proved how much danger Eva actually was in. That order on the phone that had fallen out of his grip, that instruction to get the girl , was no idle warning.
If this man got to her, I would lose her forever.
No. No fucking way. I refused to let that happen. Not only because it was my job, my duty to keep her safe, but because I wanted her to be safe, always. With or without me.
Wishing I could call for backup, I resisted him and avoided the point of his knife. He wasn’t as skilled as I was with a blade, and ultimately, that was the turn of this fight.
One hard hit to his knee, forcing it the wrong way, had him falling. As he dropped, though, he spun and pinned me to the ground, that knife aimed at my neck.
Over his shoulder, I saw the fear etched on Eva’s face. That was all I needed to fight even harder. To succeed. To stay with her. I groaned, straining to use all my energy and strength to push him back. I did, overpowering him at last, with his knife shoved straight through his neck.
I wheezed and blinked, trying to catch my breath as I followed through with the stab and forced him to the ground.
“Who sent you?” I demanded. “Who sent you!”
He flipped me off, closing his eyes as blood soaked the front of his shirt.
His phone beeped again. So whipped and disoriented from the difficult fight, I lacked the reaction time to grab it before the screen faded.
“It shut off,” Eva said, her voice quiet and unsteady.
In the corner of my eye, I watched her lower to get the phone. “It’s disabled.”
I nodded, letting the man slump down as I realized I’d disabled him, too. He was dead, without a pulse, and his massive chest wasn’t moving.
“They probably had it programmed to be wiped.” I winced as I reared back on my haunches as I breathed through the pain. “Whoever he was on the phone with must have figured he would be killed or caught.”
Her hand pressed on the top of my shoulder. The tremble of her fingers bothered me, and I tried harder to resume the position of authority and control. She was leaning on me for safety. She had to look up to me to know everything would be all right again. She had no right to be afraid.
“Easy,” she warned carefully, her voice steadier and firmer now. “You’re bleeding.”
I nodded, grimacing as I got to my feet. She didn’t cower from me. Instead of backing away, she led me to what remained of the bed so I could sit. Pain radiated through my limbs. Aches spread out and settled in on my torso, but I tuned out the stings of agony from where his knife had gotten to me.
Now that the danger had passed, I tried to calm down and assess the situation. Eva grabbed blankets and sheets to compress the gashes and cuts she found from following the tears and rips in my clothes. Letting her help me, I surveyed the damage. Nothing had been spared in the room. I’d fought the man so violently that no piece of furniture stood right anymore. Books, clothes, and other odds and ends were strewn all over the place. Even though his heart was no longer pumping and sending blood gushing out as quickly, the dead man made a red pool on the blanket he had dropped on.
“Who—”
Eva didn’t finish asking when knocks sounded on the door.
“Hey, is everything all right in there?” a woman asked. “This is your dorm supervisor.”
She stood, raising her hand so I would remain seated while she approached the door. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“What? I can’t hear you? Someone downstairs said they heard noises up here. If you’ve got someone in there and you’re trying to?—”
Eva opened the door a crack, hiding me from view. “I’m fine. Just dropped a few books.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. And I’ve got too many exams to put up with your nosiness.” She shut the door quickly, locking it before the woman could speak again.
“We can’t stay here,” I told her as I got my phone out.
She nodded, walking around the body without looking at it. “And get him out too.”
I sighed, calling Marcus to assist. Cleaning up this kind of shit was never fun, but I’d “graduated” past those tasks. The Boss would have a crew come to remove evidence of this man and all the blood spilled, but it wasn’t as easy as walking out and letting the crews in.
This was a dormitory, and countless innocent bystanders would get nosy and snoop, walking around.
I stood, wincing with the pain. Keeping my phone pressed to my ear to arrange for the cleanup, I let Eva close to steady me. Dizzy and still so whipped from the fight, I needed to lean on her. And she got it. She didn’t have to be asked or told.
Continuing to push the compresses where I was cut, she stayed right there, collected and eager to help. I told Marcus to come and also get a crew to clean up.
“Do you need assistance?” he asked. “Medical?”
Eva heard the question, too. She looked up and shook her head. “I can handle this,” she told me.
“No,” I told him, amazed by this young woman who didn’t flinch at the gore and violence.
A dead man lay at her feet, but she wasn’t letting it destroy her. She’d grown up as a Baranov. She was the Mafia princess of a family full of killers and torturers.
Of course, she’d have a strong stomach for this kind of stuff. But seeing her not lose her cool had me admiring her even more.
After I hung up, Eva walked with me to the door.
“I’ll cling to you like this,” she said, cozying up close and letting my coat flap around her with my arm raised. “And that should hide most of the blood.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. Before she opened the door, though, I stopped her. “Wait.” I grabbed my gun that had been kicked out of my hand during the fight.
“Shit. His too,” she added, ducking back to get his gun that had fallen near him. She looked up, furrowing her brow. “Should we take the knife, too?”
“No. Marcus will handle it.” I doubted another man could be lurking nearby to get that weapon and use it against us. Again, I marveled at her common sense, to take any weapons off the enemy so no one else would be armed.
I wanted to get out of here now, before Marcus and any other men showed up. I had to stop this bleeding, and in this weaker state, I felt like I wouldn’t be in the best shape to defend Eva should anyone else come by. I needed to get her—us—to the apartment, where I knew we’d be safer.
“Let me check the hall,” Eva whispered as she opened the door.
I stood there waiting, leaning against the wall, as she peeked her head out. I held my gun, ready to act, but I allowed her to be the lookout and see if anyone was nearby to witness us leaving.
No one was. Whoever that dorm staff member was wasn’t there. As quickly as we could, we exited the building and moved outside.
Marcus pulled up close just as we stepped away from the building. “Here, take my car. We’ll arrange to have yours brought back.”
Eva nodded, taking his keys. Marcus frowned at me.
“We’ll discuss this later,” I explained. “And make sure you have the crew look at his phone.”
“Disabled?” he asked, aware of how soldiers often had devices programmed to be wiped in case the carrier was taken and could hold trackable information.
I nodded.
Eva drove us back to the apartment since I couldn’t drive and keep my hands on my wounds at the same time.
“Hey,” I said, realizing when she parked in the garage. “You didn’t get the papers for Kelly.”
She huffed a laugh, shooting me an incredulous look as she helped me get out of the car. Then it turned into laughter, but not quite hysterical enough to make me worry about her lagging reaction to the violence.
“As if that can matter right now.” She let me lean on her as we walked. “You’re hurt. I think that’s priority.”
Better that I’m hurt. And not you.
I let her words replay in my mind and soothe my soul.
That’s priority. She’d stated that I was priority. Hers.
The depth of her remark knocked me off my axis. This woman, my assignment, cared about me not just to tell me that I mattered. She showed me the intensity of her thoughts and comments by stitching me up. By wiping off the blood. In helping me clean up from the gore of the fight. It wasn’t the worst I’d ever faced, but that man was a big, mean fucker who’d taken the wind out of me more than I cared to admit.
Under her tender care, though, proving how unafraid and accepting she was of the violence that ruled in our world, she demonstrated how good of a team we made. How we could work together despite our first tendency to butt heads.
This afternoon, I realized once she sat with me on the couch and pressed ice to the swelling bruise forming on my cheek, was when I fell in love.
With her.