Chapter 18 Claire
CLAIRE
We arrived at the Orlov residence with the same urgency that I felt when ambulances pulled up to the emergency department.
The brakes squealed. People rushed out from the front door, ready to help.
Anya was too shaken and scared to walk on her own, so Mikhail carried her.
Like a doctor on the clock, I ran in alongside them, ready to do what I was trained at.
“Take her to her room,” I said. Ordering this Mafia boss wasn’t something that would happen often. He wouldn’t listen to me when he was the one in charge. But on this, he didn’t argue. He trusted me, at least within my specialty.
Together, we hurried into the elevator. Martin rode with us, stoic-faced and calm as ever as Mikhail issued orders. To ensure Andre is handling everything in his stead as he watched over Anya. Then, facing me, he asked, “What else? What do you need? What does she need?”
I couldn’t answer that until I’d really assessed her, but I knew what he wanted to hear. Equipment, materials, resources. He was depending on me to direct her care.
“I can’t tell yet, but I don’t think she needs to go in for a scan or anything.” I shook my head. “If you have a stethoscope or anything…” I hated the desperation to make sure this teen was okay without any resources to do so.
“I’ll get whatever was left from Dr. Young’s things,” Martin said.
The doors opened at the floor where Anya’s room was located, and Mikhail carried her off the elevator. Martin left us, striding quickly in the opposite direction.
“Our former physician,” Mikhail explained as we went.
I shook my head. It didn’t matter. I recalled, faintly, that he’d said he used to employ his own medical staff. Now wasn’t the time to elaborate on it.
“Wait!” I stopped him at Anya’s room and shook my head. Down the hall, Martin doubled back.
“Is there a guest room she can have instead of this one? In case the memory of…”
Mikhail let out a deep breath, as if glad I'd thought of that. She might freak out being back in the bedroom she’d been in when she was kidnapped. He nodded and carried her down the hall, Martin suggesting another room to use instead.
Mikhail lowered to set Anya down on the bed, and I didn’t stray far.
A maid appeared, concerned but serious, and I issued more requests to her.
Gauze and towels would do me the most good so far.
Mikhail stepped back, watching as I gently urged Anya to lie back and let me check over her.
She acquiesced, no longer curled in a fetal position.
Perhaps being in her room gave her the illusion of protection, and she didn’t need to hunch over in such a severe defensive pose.
Mikhail didn’t speak, but I felt every second of his presence behind us. Martin appeared with a doctor’s bag full of basic instruments. Behind him, a guard wheeled in a vitals cart. After him were a couple of Orlov men pushing an ultrasound machine inside.
If I weren’t in the zone and focused on Anya’s care, I would’ve let the surprise in. Why would they have all this stuff? What happened to this former doctor? Questions would have to wait. Or they could be forgotten entirely. It wasn’t my business, was it?
For an hour, I cleaned the scared girl up.
Compressing her wounds was the first matter, and as I gently probed at the spots where she indicated that she had been hit, I checked for any signs of damage inside.
Using the ultrasound machine, I made sure that we weren’t looking at any internal bleeding or swelling.
Based on her stilted and choppy account of how she’d been hurt in the past twenty-four hours, I wasn’t concerned about a concussion either.
“Perhaps we could clean you up,” I said at last once she was stable. “Would you like to shower or sit near the bathtub to wash up at all?”
Mikhail frowned behind me. Glancing at the maids, he flicked his hand, dismissing them all.
I raised my brows at him, silently suggesting that he give her space too.
“Don’t go,” Anya begged, reaching out for my hand.
I shook my head and rotated my wrist to hold her hand back. “I won’t. I’ll be right here. Whatever you need.”
Mikhail furrowed his brow but nodded. As he backed up, I stood and followed him to shut the door after him.
“Has she been—”
I shook my head, not wanting Anya to hear him. I was worried about whether she'd been assaulted too. The severity of her trauma response could indicate anything. “I’ll ask. I’ll see what she will tell me.”
He gave me a look.
“I can assess her, but asking her to allow that if it’s not necessary won’t help. I need her to trust me to help her.”
He almost reached out to take my hand but lowered his at the last minute, as if rethinking it. “I trust you to help her.”
That meant a lot. It meant more than the honor and reward of his wanting to fuck me. Nodding quickly, I shelved this conversation for later. Helping Anya had less to do with him, with my wanting to help him, than it did with my instinct to make her feel safer and better.
I returned to her and helped her out of bed to go to the bathroom. At the door, I called out to the maid who would be waiting in the hallway, asking her to change the bloody sheets so Anya could rest on clean and dry ones after she cleaned up.
“I can’t move my arm enough to… to…”
“I’ll help,” I said, not waiting to assist her with her blouse.
“It hurts to lift it.”
I nodded. “It will. It’s swollen, but not dislocated.”
She swallowed hard, lowering her hands to her pajama bottoms. “I can’t bend well either. My knee.”
I urged her toward the chair at her vanity. “Nice and slow. Easy.”
“They didn’t… They didn’t…” She sniffled, crying softly. “I was so scared they kidnapped me to rape me. That’s what my family told me. That my father only associates with horrible rapists who sell women.”
I winced, unable to confirm or deny that. Focusing on her seemed smarter. “But the men who took you didn’t touch you?”
She shook her head, leaning back as I helped to lower her pants. “No. They said, they… they…”
“No rush, Anya. Deep breaths, okay? In and out. In and out.”
Once she stood again, she turned to give me her back to take off her bra and panties.
I’d seen it all. Men, women, seniors, and babies.
The naked human body didn’t affect me with my clinical mindset, and it seemed that in her shock and fear, the fatigue, too, she wasn’t too modest to take the rest of her garments off and step into the shower.
I turned, though, giving her all the privacy I could, as she handled the last of her clothing.
I couldn’t leave, though, not only because I wanted to be close to help her if she tripped or fell, but also because she kept begging me not to leave her.
As she stood under the warm water, she cleaned up. Mostly, she sagged against the wall. With her eyes closed, she let the massaging pressure hit her skin. Through the frosted glass doors, I could see her and make sure she was upright and safe.
“They said no one could touch me. Because if they didn’t kill me, they’d get a better price for me if I was pure.”
I set my teeth together so hard, it ached in my jaw.
Those fucking assholes!
“I am glad they didn’t touch you like that,” I told her, sticking with facts and avoiding too much emotion. She was leaning on me for guidance, and coddling her and babying her could backfire.
“I’m glad he cared to come get me.” She broke down, sobbing.
Afraid she’d fall, looking like a terrified child and not the petulant teen who neared adulthood, I shed my jeans to step into the stall with her.
Holding her up and letting my clothes get wet, I gave her the support she was too traumatized to ask for.
I held her up and let her sag against me as she bawled, admitting that she thought she’d be dead. That Mikhail hated her and didn’t want her here. That he’d be glad to see her gone. That she had no one and nothing left in the world.
Soothing her with cooing sounds and repeating a mantra that she mattered, that she had so much to live for, I worked on getting her to calm down, to breathe steadily.
Overwhelmed and traumatized like this, she was on the edge of collapsing.
Eventually, she nodded when I asked if she was ready to get out.
I stepped out first and dried myself before getting a towel for her.
She looked so weak and tired that I feared one or both of us slipping.
Without urgency, careful to move slowly, I helped her out of the shower and led her back to her bed.
I again gave her privacy to pull on a nightgown.
“They told me they wanted revenge. For my father taking my mother.” She continued to ramble as she dressed, and I nodded, staying close, so she could assume I was listening.
I got the impression she was talking just to avoid the quiet.
To fill the silence. I didn’t want to know the details.
Prying at her story wasn’t something I wanted to do.
But I listened. I gave her the peace of knowing someone cared to listen as she shared.
Once she was back in bed, I called out for the maid to enter with food and water as she’d given me a heads up that she would.
Anya lay back and closed her eyes, holding my hand as the tray was brought in.
“Can you sip some water?” I asked her.
She sat up to drink, and I catalogued more of a treatment plan.
To combat any effects of dehydration and hunger, I’d make sure she had food and water available.
But right now, as she reclined and sighed again, clutching my hand like it was a lifeline, I realized she just needed to sleep.
She’d been up all night, scared, and the sleep deprivation, on top of the injuries and terror, was taking a toll.
Once she was out, breathing steadily, I reached for the stethoscope and checked her heart and lungs again.
Soft knocks sounded on the door, and I turned my head to call out as quietly as I could, “Yes?”
Mikhail poked his head in. Worry lined his face, but as he entered the room and saw her sleeping peacefully, holding my hand, he sighed and let his shoulders fall.
“She’s resting now,” I said unnecessarily.
He nodded. “Can you step outside to talk? Or do you think it would be best for you to wait in here in case she wakes up and is looking for someone?”
It tugged at my heart, how he would look at me, a stranger, as a source of comfort for his daughter, so easily removing himself from the list of people she could count on.
So many layers of complications and drama waited to be addressed between them, but I understood that he was only asking for a diagnosis from her doctor. Me.
“Perhaps a maid can wait in here in case she stirs?”
He nodded, snapping his fingers to prompt one of them to rush in.
I left the room with him, wishing against all my better judgment that this father and daughter could heal together. Not with this distance spanning between them.