Chapter 20 Claire
CLAIRE
Run.
Just go and don’t look back.
I strained to swallow, my throat so thick with too many emotions. They consumed me, choking me, as I plotted how to get the hell out of here. How to reclaim sanity and act like an educated woman with common sense again.
Anger. Frustration. Fear. Guilt. Shame.
I wasn’t ready to handle all of this and I doubted I’d ever be able to lower my standards and force myself to be okay with staying here.
Being in Mikhail’s world would never suit me when I remembered how normal people were supposed to behave and get through their lives.
It wasn’t by playing God and killing whoever they wanted. It wasn’t with corruption and violence.
Get out.
Run and just go, dammit.
Walking up to the gate at the back, I lifted my hand to the guard. He’d of course know not to let me out, but I had to try.
Thinking of how I was leaving Anya, I resisted the urge to give up this idea and “fall in line” with what Mikhail ordered.
But then I remembered how shocked and upset Andre was when I told him that his sister cried to me about how no one cared whether she was alive or dead.
Maybe the siblings would be there for each other and the teen would get over my abandoning her.
Just like I told her I wouldn’t.
“Excuse me,” I said with as much firm authority as I could manage. “I need to get through.”
He shook his head, not bending at all.
“I need to rush out to get more supplies for Anya,” I lied, putting a hint of urgency in my plea.
“The boss would order it.”
“No.” I shook my head, my heart racing with the danger of lying and trying to escape. “Not for this stuff. My car isn’t far, and I know I can get the right supplies and equipment from the hospital. Please. She’s suffering!”
He furrowed his brow. “Let me call this in and check.”
I pushed past him, backpedaling. “There’s no time. I need to save her!”
Before he picked one of two choices, to radio to another guard and confirm my story or chase after me, I darted away.
He called after me, but I didn’t slow down once.
Sprinting down the sidewalks, I dodged and wove my path further from the Orlov building.
Skyscrapers loomed too tall, towering over me and making me claustrophobic.
Street peddlers watched me too closely as I ran with panic nipping at my heels.
And lights blurred in the distance, all the signs and noise of the city that had been buffered as I stayed with Mikhail in the lap of luxury in his high rise.
I did it.
I ran. I was out. I left it all behind me, but I couldn’t think fast enough for where to go.
My apartment wasn’t an option anymore. I believed the footage Mikhail had been hiding from me. Those thugs had broken in and destroyed the place, ripping cushions, smashing glassware, and upending all drawers. Nothing of importance remained there anyway. Nothing I would miss.
All that mattered was survival now. Without my phone since I left it at Mikhail’s, I hurried through the city the best I could without a map. Reaching the hospital was my only choice. It had to be a safe haven for me to actually get help and get out from under Mikhail’s influence.
I arrived, unsure who I could trust anymore. Someone had to be on my side here. My coworkers. Hell, even the security guard. Someone!
Fatima was at the nurses’ station, and as soon as she saw me running inside, she dropped the tablet she’d been charting on. “Claire? My God. Dr. Donovon!”
I probably looked terrified, dressed casually but with horror in my eyes and dread contorting my expression.
She rushed over to me, setting her hands on my shoulders. “What are you doing back so soon? I thought you were out on your mission over in Africa or something like that.”
I shook my head, licking my lips and feeling parched from the run. “No. I… No.”
“What happened?” Her eyes bugged out, picking up on the fact that I was panicking. “What’s going on?”
“I just need…” I walked, glad for her assistance and propping me up. My legs were shaky as I staggered further into the familiar hallway. “I just need to sit and think for a moment. Water.”
She nodded, urging me toward a room. Before I could claim a seat in a vacant patient room, I turned to find the staff break room for the department instead.
“Claire. Wait. I don’t think you want to go in there right now.”
I frowned, watching her and not following. Sure, my unexpected arrival had thrown her off. Everyone thought I was across the world working on a mission. But her tense expression chilled me. Something else was wrong around here?
“Jack was talking to a couple of guys earlier and he was, uh, he’s… in the break room.” She winced. “He’s seen better days…”
Jack. I stiffened at the mention of his name. It felt like an eon ago since Mikhail put me on the spot and asked about him. He had to be curious for a reason. And I didn’t want to wade into the middle of anything more dangerous. Jack could let himself be a target. I wouldn’t.
Yet, something pushed me to at least rush through there, to grab a water and maybe find a hoodie or something in the locker space of the break room.
I waved off Fatima, going to the room. She didn’t try to dissuade me again, but I regretted not listening to her.
Opening the door, I entered and sought out Jack. I gasped at the sight of him on a chair, curled over and sporting all kinds of bruises on his face. He closed his eyes and cringed, almost like he wanted the table to be a pillow for his battered head.
Oh, bloody hell!
I spun, getting out of there before he could crack his eyes open and see me.
He’d been beaten!
He’d been talking to more thugs and he’d been left in a ragged mess like this.
Running again, I bolted out of the emergency room. My thoughts spun. My heart galloped in my chest. Air couldn’t fill my lungs fast enough.
Nowhere was safe. I had nowhere to hide.
On the street, I slowed to a walk and moved in a dizzying circle, desperate for a good Samaritan to point the way for me. For a sign to guide me to where I could best survive and get out of this nightmare.
Nowhere was safe.
I had nothing to help me.
But as I kept walking and spotted a cop car parked at the curb, I nodded to myself and knew I had to stop thinking this wouldn’t work. The police were here to help civilians, to be everyday heroes.
“Help. Please help.” I ran up to the officer standing outside the car.
“Whoa, Lady. What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
He looked like a normal man. An officer in uniform.
His partner strolled to us as I tried to explain that I needed help.
Not wanting to drag the Orlov name into this, I tried to instead explain that my colleague had been beaten by Mafia men.
That we needed a detective. An investigation.
Something. This lawlessness couldn’t be right.
One jotted notes on a small pad. The other watched me closely, his brows pinched.
“You said Harroun?”
I nodded. “Dr. Jack Harroun. These mobsters beat him and he’s hiding in the hospital’s break room.
” I winced. I wasn’t looking for help for him.
I just needed to talk to the highest-ranking person of authority that I could about my apartment being destroyed and how men were searching for me.
Implicating anything Mikhail said or did wasn’t feasible.
I still wanted to protect him, but I exhaled in relief when the cops urged me to calm down.
“We can take you to the station. We’ll help you,” one said.
“Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I climbed into the backseat, ignoring how much I felt like a traitor to go to the standard members of law enforcement.
It seemed like I was defying Mikhail, but on the short ride to the station, I reminded myself that he wasn’t my boss. He wasn’t my overlord.
When we arrived, the cops opened the door for me and ushered me out. Just before we reached the doors to the side, the second officer slapped a cuff on me.
“Hey!” I tugged to get free to no avail. “What are you doing? What the fuck is—”
“Shut up, Doc,” he snarled, urging me forward through a hallway. Cells soon lined the space, and anxiety lit up like a fire inside me.
They were cuffing me?
Arresting me?
Weren’t they going to help? Dragging my feet and protesting, I tried to deny that I’d entered a Twilight Zone.
“It’s about time you give it a rest, being that fucking Orlov’s little girlfriend, huh?” the first cop taunted.
Oh, fuck!
They knew who I was. I bet as soon as I gave them my name, they knew. Because all at once, and much too late, Mikhail’s bitter words came back to me.
“The Popovs have half of them on their fucking bankroll, Claire.”
They weren’t standard members of law enforcement. They were with the enemies. With Mikhail’s enemies, those thugs who’d wanted me dead when I didn’t tell them where Sergei was in surgery so they could kill him.
“Let me go!”
“Not so fast,” the second one said. “We’ve got a couple of friends here who aren’t doing so well.”
He shoved me into a stall where two Russian thugs were lying on the floor, bleeding and moaning in pain.
“Fix them up, Doc.” The second one thrust a medical first-aid kit through the slats of the cell.
“I—What? No. I can’t just—”
“Fix them up, Doc. As a favor, huh?” The first cop snickered as he got his phone out. “I’ll tell the Boss we got some help now.”
I gripped the bars of the cell, stunned but snapping to the need to fight back. This was insane. This was ironic to the most bullshit degree that existed. How could I have run from Mikhail to this situation? “No! I’m not helping anyone like this. You can’t make me—”
“Sew them up, bitch,” the second cop said. “Or else.”
I trembled, backing away from the locked door. The cuff dragged heavily in my hand as I glanced at the fallen Mafia men. Not Orlovs. Not the guards and soldiers I was familiar with at Mikhail’s building.
The enemies.
I sank to my knees and rifled through the bag. Forced to treat them and held captive in a worse way than I had been with the sexy man I'd dared to run from… I willed my fingers to stop shaking.
Coerced into providing medical care, I mentally recoiled at my hands being dirtier now. I was embroiled with Mafia politics now.
The law wouldn’t help me.
My workplace wasn’t safe.
I thought I’d been doing the right thing to run from Mikhail, scared of deepening my association with him and his brand of mayhem and violence.
But now I was stuck here, caught like I was the villain and used against my will to help those who didn’t deserve a single iota of my compassion or skills.