Chapter 16 Claire
CLAIRE
Mikhail left without a word.
After he saw the disarray in Anya’s room, he stormed out and was surrounded by his men.
In charge. On the go. Ready to slaughter every enemy in his path.
I hadn’t known this brutal boss for long, but I didn’t need any further lessons about how looks could kill.
Murderous intent was etched in his expression.
A dark, lethal aura of danger radiated from him as he hurried away.
Unlike the horror that hit me when I found that man being tortured in the kitchen, I was struck with a deep, harboring sense of dread. Sick to my stomach with worry, terrified to the extreme of a panic attack, I didn’t know what to do. How to react. If I could help.
Because that was what I did. I was trained to help, to assess, to stabilize. It wasn’t only altruism that ran through my veins. It was just who I was. I cared, dammit, even like this.
“Can I help?” I asked Martin once I turned away from the door, watching Mikhail go.
I wouldn’t stand in his way. I couldn’t bear to hold him back from finding his daughter. Their relationship was a testy one. So far, Anya wouldn’t fill in any details about why she loathed her father so intensely, but I knew that there could be hope for them yet.
He did care about her. I knew he had to, deep down.
But I was helpless to know how to help.
Because I care.
Mikhail was a complicated, larger-than-life force in my existence. I couldn’t tell if I was right to fear and scorn him for being such an instigator of violence and pain or if I should respect and want him for being the source of comfort and generosity—if on his terms.
I didn’t want him to stress and worry. I hated to see him so torn with anger and fear at Anya being taken. Like this, he wasn’t a fierce Mafia man but more like any other parent distressed about his child.
“Martin?”
He turned toward me belatedly, dealing with orders for a couple of men.
He was a person of authority around here.
Not like Mikhail was, but Martin ran the orderliness of the Orlov building and Mikhail’s residence.
He was the Fatima of the floor here, like the charge nurse at the hospital managed the emergency department’s function.
“Yes?” he asked, polite and formal but showing the wear and tear of distraction.
“Can I do anything to help?”
He shook his head, not even seeming to care that I offered to be of assistance. “I will have someone alert you when lunch is ready.”
Even he was dismissing me, walking away and talking to other guards.
I frowned, standing there in the foyer and feeling as distorted and lost as I did the first time I’d come to this place.
“I don’t care about the schedule of fucking meals,” I muttered under my breath.
Being idle went against my nature. Being dismissed in a time of crisis felt like a personal insult.
All day and night, I saw no one from the Orlov organization.
Mikhail stayed away, hunting for his daughter.
Andre, Sergei, and Roman were gone too, busy and helping their boss.
Guards were scarce in the building as all the forces seemed to be redelegated and shifted in this emergency of locating Anya.
And I was left here, without any answers or updates.
Sitting in the ballroom, I tapped the piano keys of the new piano that Anya had started to “teach” me on to pass the time.
Then in the library near the east side of the building, I tried to look for something to read while frequently peeking out the windows to see if Mikhail was pulling into the drive yet.
Hours passed. Daylight gave way to a sunset and then the encroaching darkness.
And still, I had not a single word. It was with my rising impatience and worry that I had to accept it was all changing too quickly.
I could be worried about someone being harmed because I was a doctor. That made sense.
But what didn’t make as much sense was the depth and severity of how concerned I was.
Usually, at the hospital, even at a mission, should I ever actually get to one, a clinical distance remained between me and my patients.
I cared. Of course, I cared. I had to, and it was instinct to want others to be comfortable, happy, and healthy.
It never clawed this far into my heart, though.
Not like this nauseating and stomach-twisting anxiety that controlled me as I waited for news about Anya.
Because I care.
Because she matters.
I rubbed my forehead as I cringed, knowing how fruitless and stupid it would be to deny it.
Anya was different. This worry about her wasn’t the same as the general and generic concern I had about my patients.
She was… something more. Just like her father was.
The more I acknowledged my fear for Anya, the more I had to admit that I wasn’t acting like a guest. I wasn’t concerned in the capacity of someone who happened to know Mikhail.
I worried because she was more than a stranger in this hard world I didn’t fit in. Not quite like a friend, but something more.
Like a… family member.
Late in the evening, as I sat in the lounge and wondered how I’d managed to go so far from what felt like my previous life, Mikhail returned.
Without any men flanking him, without anyone telling him updates, he strode into the room.
I stood quickly, on my feet and rushing toward him.
Running to him wasn’t wise. He was an angry man, livid and still showing every crease and line of his rage on his scowling face. Hurrying to someone this mad wasn’t smart. Yet, nothing could keep me from needing to help. Needing to know if I could do anything.
“Is she—”
He held up his hand, shaking his head as he spotted me.
Stopping in the middle of the room, he shoved his free hand in his pocket and seemed to sag on the spot.
His shoulders drooped. He lowered his head as he massaged his temple.
But when he glanced up again, the exhaustion that shone in his dark eyes pained me.
It was never a good thing for a doctor to have a bleeding heart.
But dammit, did it seep and ooze for him. Witnessing him so anguished pushed me past the internal debate of whether he was a good person or a bad guy.
He was hurting. He was raging.
“We haven’t found her.”
I swallowed hard, not even considering wasting my breath on stupid platitudes. Condolences weren’t right. Simpering pep talks would worsen his mood.
I was unequipped to know what to say, so instead, I stood there and let him know he could lean on me. If he dared. If he could.
“Are there any promising leads?” I asked after he stared at me, seeming to search my face.
I didn’t want details. The less I knew, the better. If that Giovanni man wanted to threaten me with death until I told him where Sergei was at the hospital, I could be targeted further for any additional information I had.
But I cared, and I had to end this horrible silence between us. It sounded like defeat. It reeked of desperation.
“Too many,” he said, stepping closer to me. “Too many fucking directions to look and too many contradicting suggestions of where he could’ve taken her and who he could’ve handed her off to.”
Since he was pulled toward me, walking slowly as if he were involuntarily pushed to take my hand and hold it, I caved and met him in the middle.
The details about why I was here didn’t matter right now.
I was here, and I didn’t want to see him hurting.
He wasn’t a lover who dominated and intimidated me.
He wasn’t a Mafia man intent on calling war.
He was a father who worried about his daughter.
I closed the distance, stepping into his space. I couldn’t tell who reacted first, me or him. My arms looped around his neck and he banded his over my back. Hugging him like this felt natural. Touching in this basic embrace soothed the worry in my soul.
“She didn’t want to be here. She protested being sent to live with me.”
I stroked my fingers over the back of his neck, fighting all the questions that filled my mind, eager to know more.
He sighed against me. “I didn’t want her here either, unused to the expectation to have a young woman in my life and have to keep her safe.”
The guilt sounded loud and clear in his admission. And still, I refused to make the mistake of offering him empty platitudes that wouldn’t help anything.
“And now?” He huffed bitterly, holding me close.
“Now you look for her.” I closed my eyes at the agony in his voice. If I’d kept my eyes open, though, I would’ve been prepared for the guards rushing into the room. The sound of their footsteps on the marble floor startled me, though, and I jumped.
Opening my eyes, I flinched. Mikhail felt it, tightening his arms around me and turning as if to block me.
We were in his building, behind protected walls.
He wouldn’t have had a reason to need to block me and protect me.
But that was how tense and jumpy he was, how skittish I was with the hellish day of waiting for news.
“We found her,” one told us, not fully stopping in a jog. As soon as those words were in the air, he backed up, resuming his rush but out of the room.
Mikhail gripped my hand. He released me only to steer me to go with him.
Running next to him, pulled along and into the danger, I tried to keep up.
I didn’t question him, not wanting to break his concentration as the two Orlov men relayed the news that had come in. I didn’t want to tug my fingers out of his grip, uninterested in being left behind.
Maybe he didn’t realize that he was dragging me into this mess. He might’ve been holding on to me just because I was there.
But after he ushered me outside and into a car waiting on the drive, he took my hand again. In his strong grip, I felt his fear. I sensed his need to anchor and ground himself.
We sped off in a flurry of sharp turns. It was too much, too soon, so much action, not unlike the commotion I was familiar with in the emergency room.
All I could register was that I was wanted, lured into this and going along for the ride.
To where, I had no clue.
To what, I feared the worst.
As I glanced at Mikhail seated next to me, tense and listening to all the driver and other soldier said, like they were all engaged in a top-secret military operation, I swallowed hard and knew I’d taken another step too far.
I was involved. Again.
Seeing Mikhail like this, primed up to kill, was terrifying. Perched on the edge of his seat, he was cold. Calculating. Merciless. Stony-faced and with his jaw set, he looked like a warrior, a demon, ready to unleash hell to save his daughter.
Yet, he didn’t let go of my hand… making me wonder if he couldn’t because he was so desperate for a link to something good amid the darkness.