32. Dmitri
Dmitri
Three hours since she walked out. The vodka isn’t helping.
The glass sweats in my hand, and my desk is littered with ash and bottles. Her face won’t leave me. The way her voice turned to ice when she called me a kidnapper. When she stopped looking at me like I was hers.
I should’ve stopped her.
Instead, I let her go. Now I’m sitting here with nothing but liquor and the thought of the FSB knocking down my door.
The bottle’s half-empty, but it’s not enough to forget. Just enough to make the edges blur. I pour some more. The sound fills the silence she left behind.
I lean back, stare at the ceiling, and wonder which comes first—her hatred or my arrest.
Either way, it’s over.
Then, the pounding starts. Not in my head, but at the front door. Hard. Like someone’s trying to break their way inside.
Boris bursts into the office, out of breath.
“Boss, you need to come now. It’s Dr. Sokolova, and she’s got?—”
“Tell her to make an appointment like everyone else.”
“She’s got Mrs. Kozlov with her, and there’s blood.”
The glass slips from my hand and shatters on the floor.
I’m moving before the sound fades, pushing past Boris and racing toward the front door where I can hear Anya’s voice through the wood.
“Open the door, Dmitri! She needs medical attention!”
I wrench the door open, and the sight that greets me makes something primal and violent roar to life in my chest.
Katya is slumped against Anya’s shoulder, with blood soaking through her shirt and her face pale as snow. Her eyes are closed, and she’s barely conscious.
All thoughts of our fight evaporate. She’s hurt. Someone hurt her while I sat here feeling sorry for myself.
“What the fuck happened?”
“Pavel shot her,” Anya pants as she helps Katya through the doorway. “We need to get her to a doctor immediately.”
“Pavel?” I stare at Anya like she’s lost her mind. “What the fuck are you talking about? Pavel’s my security consultant.”
“He’s dead now. I’ll explain everything, but right now, we need to move fast.”
My world skids to a halt. And I swear to God my heart stops beating.
The man I hired to improve our security, the one I entrusted with access to my home and my business, is a government operative who tried to murder Katya.
I scoop Katya into my arms without thinking, and she makes a small sound of pain that nearly drives me to my knees. Her blood seeps through my shirt where I’m holding her against my chest, and the feeling makes my stomach lurch with rage.
“Kotyonok, stay with me,” I whisper against her hair.
Her eyes flutter open and focus on my face with effort. “Dmitri?”
“I’m here. You’re safe now.”
The relief in her voice when she says my name breaks through the anger, if only slightly. After everything that happened between us today, she still sounds like I’m the person she was hoping to see.
“Pavel… tried to kill me.”
“I know.” I carry her toward the living room and set her down carefully on the leather couch. “Where are you hit?”
“Shoulder. It’s not that bad.”
The bullet hole in her shoulder suggests otherwise. Blood seeps from the wound despite the makeshift bandage Anya wrapped around her arm. My hands shake as I examine the injury, assessing how much damage has been done.
“Boris, get Dr. Orlov on the phone. Tell him it’s an emergency, and he needs to get here now.” I kneel beside the couch and examine Katya’s injury more closely. “And get me towels, bandages, and whatever medical supplies we have in the house.”
“Already on it, boss.”
I turn to Anya, who’s standing near the window, keeping watch like she expects more trouble to follow them.
While I wait for Dr. Orlov, Anya fills me in on everything—Viktor’s corruption, Pavel’s true identity, the unauthorized operations, and the evidence she’s gathered. The scope of the conspiracy makes my head spin, but the details will have to wait.
“Is he dead now? Pavel?”
“Very much so. But Viktor’s going to come looking for her.”
“Let him come.” The words come out flat and final. Anyone who wants to hurt Katya will have to go through me.
Dr. Orlov arrives twenty minutes later, carrying his medical bag and wearing the grim expression of a man who’s patched up more gunshot wounds than he cares to count.
“How bad?” he asks as he kneels beside the couch.
“Through and through,” I tell him. “She’s lost some blood, but she’s been conscious the whole time.”
Orlov cuts away Katya’s shirt to examine the wound. “Clean entry and exit. No major arteries hit, but she’ll need stitches and antibiotics.”
“Do what you need to do.”
“This is going to hurt,” Orlov warns Katya as he prepares his instruments.
“I’ve had worse.”
Probably true, given her training. But watching someone dig around in her shoulder with surgical tools while she bites down on a towel to keep from screaming makes me want to hunt down everyone responsible for putting her in this position.
“Dmitri,” Anya says quietly while Orlov works. “We need to discuss security arrangements. Viktor’s people won’t stop looking for her.”
“Then we make sure they can’t find her.”
“It’s not that simple. Her former handlers have resources you can’t match. Government-level surveillance and intelligence networks.”
“I’ve been avoiding government attention most of my life. I think I can handle a few rogue agents.”
“These aren’t just a few rogue agents. Viktor built a network inside the FSB that extends to other agencies. They have access to official resources even though their operations aren’t authorized.”
Katya makes a sound of pain as Orlov sutures, and I reach over to take her uninjured hand. She squeezes my fingers hard enough to cut off circulation, but I don’t pull away. If holding my hand helps her get through this, she can break every bone in my fingers.
“How many people are we talking about?” I ask Anya.
“At least a dozen operatives, maybe more. Plus whatever criminal contacts Viktor cultivated during his unauthorized operations.”
“Where does that leave Katya?”
“Officially? She died in the gallery explosion. Unofficially? She’s a loose end that Viktor’s surviving network needs to eliminate.”
Orlov finishes with the sutures and starts bandaging Katya’s shoulder. “She’ll need rest and pain medication. No strenuous activity for at least two weeks.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
After Orlov leaves, the three of us sit in silence while the weight of the situation settles over us. Katya’s curled up on the couch with her head resting against my thigh. Anya’s still watching the windows like she expects snipers to appear at any moment.
Katya adjusts her position against my leg and looks up at me. The vulnerability in her blue eyes makes my chest ache. Three hours ago, she was walking away from me in fury. Now, she’s injured and afraid and asking for help.
“Dmitri, I need to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Will you help me? Will you protect me from my own people?”
My throat constricts, and I swallow hard. She’s asking me to choose her over my safety, to risk everything I’ve built to keep her alive. After she called me a kidnapper and told me she hated what I’d done to her.
But the alternative is letting the people who tried to kill her finish the job.
“You’re asking me to go to war with rogue FSB operatives for you?”
“I’m asking you to help me survive long enough to figure out what comes next.”
“And what do I get in return?”
“What do you want?”
The honest answer is that I want her to choose me. Not because she has nowhere else to go, and not because I’m her only option for survival, but because she wants to build something real with me despite everything that’s happened.
But after what I put her through, I have no right to ask for that.
“I want to know that protecting you is worth the risk I’m taking. That you’re not going to disappear the moment you find a safer option.”
“I can’t promise that. I don’t know what I’m going to want once this is over.”
At least she’s being honest. After everything I’ve done, I can’t expect guarantees about her feelings or her future.
“Fair enough.” I stand and help her to her feet. “But I’m still going to keep you alive, regardless of what happens between us afterward.”
“Why?”
Because three hours ago, I was drowning in vodka, replaying every moment of our fight and wishing I could take back everything that brought us to this point.
Because seeing you bleeding in Anya’s arms nearly drove me to my knees.
Because losing you would be worse than losing everything else I’ve built.
“Because it’s the right thing to do. What I did to you was unforgivable, and this is my chance to make some small part of it right.”
Anya clears her throat. “This is touching, but people are still trying to kill us. Maybe we could focus on survival first and sort out the relationship dynamics later?”
“Right.” I turn back to Katya. “So, what’s it going to be? Do you trust me enough to let me protect you?”
“Yes.”
That answer transforms something fundamental between us. For the first time since she walked into my life, Katya’s making a conscious choice to be here instead of being forced to stay by circumstances beyond her control.
“Good. Then we plan how to eliminate Viktor’s network before they eliminate us.”
“Any ideas?”
“Several. But first, you need rest and time to heal. We’ll figure out the rest tomorrow.”
As I help Katya toward the bedroom, I realize that she’s no longer my prisoner or my victim or my unwilling guest.
She’s my partner in this fucked-up situation we’ve created.
Now, we just have to survive it.