Chapter 34 Natalie
NATALIE
Andre burst into the room.
I stiffened, unable to resist flinching and jerking at his abrupt entry.
After being this tense and anxious for so long, I feared I’d have a heart attack or stroke out at the stress.
More than the night that I’d learned of Fitz’s death, I suffered through the endless panic.
My sanity was hanging on by a thin thread as it was, and I couldn’t stomach any more surprises, like his sudden arrival.
Mikhail spun around to face him.
He hadn’t relaxed for one second since we all saw Maisie disappear in the enemy’s hands.
I volleyed my gaze between them. Claire went tense too, suspended with the anticipation of news.
“Did they get them?” Mikhail asked. His face was somber, serious, yet his eyes shone with hope.
Andre nodded. “They’re on their way now.” His throat worked hard to swallow, as if he’d been talking and shouting all morning long. Facing me, he exhaled a long breath. “Sergei found her, Natalie. Maisie is alive. She’s safe.”
I dropped to the side, hugging Claire tightly. Relief swamped me, dizzying me with the opposite of the peril and fear that I’d succumbed to.
“She’s alive,” Andre repeated.
“Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Blubbering and partly sobbing all over again, this time with the overwhelming force of gratitude, I wiped my face.
“Sergei is bringing her home. George too. They were wounded,” he said, hurrying across the room to reach Claire. “They’ll need your help.”
I rose with Claire, eager to move, to stretch. To help. To do anything to welcome them home.
As soon as I laid eyes on my daughter, I’d be focused on her, but I wanted to do anything and everything to help these brave heroes as they returned.
“Is Maisie hurt?” I asked as we all rushed toward a lower level of the building.
Mikhail had paid to have the whole floor renovated for Claire.
She was supposed to use it as a private practice, even as a work space for a telehealth service because she would never stop being a doctor at heart.
With state-of-the-art equipment, she now had a full clinic to aid the Orlov men in their recoveries.
A few recruits to the family were going through schooling to be nurses and technicians to assist Claire.
Several daughters and wives of the men were more than eager to take up the scholarship and full tuition coverage to start up an unofficial—for now—private urgent care.
“No.” Andre led the way, impatient to ensure we were all ready to patch them up. “Roman said Maisie looked uninjured. It’s not easy to tell.”
“Why?” Claire asked. “Is there a concern for internal bleeding?”
“Fuck if I know, I’m not a doctor. Roman’s not either.
Maisie won’t let go of Sergei at all. He’s holding her in the car and he’s wounded, so it’s not easy to tell whose blood belongs to which one.
But George was conscious and with it when they found them.
He has been reporting what went down, and it sounds like he blocked them from even laying a finger on her, other than to gag her. ”
Anger and heartache mixed together, but I refused to sink back into the abyss of too many emotions consuming me. I had to be on. I had to be strong and brave to help Maisie recover. To be there to assist Sergei however I could.
I owed him my life.
I did. As I followed Claire’s instructions as she bossed me and Anya, as well as a couple of men, to prepare the stretchers and beds for her to examine all her incoming patients, I was shaken by the solid conviction that I owed Sergei my life.
My utmost thanks and gratitude. For saving me twice. For saving my daughter three times now.
It would be so very stupid to keep a tally of any kind, but this man’s commitment to loving and protecting us was beginning to erase and diminish the sorrow and anger I’d felt about Fitz’s death and how it had ended up being connected to Sergei and his men.
Anya and I rushed through the clinic, grabbing everything that Claire told us to collect and set out. It seemed that she was most concerned with the prediction of stitching up the men and stopping any bleeding, because we picked up sterilized packages of tools and resources for those purposes.
I didn’t have the time to worry about someone bleeding out. I couldn’t slow down for even a second to visualize the injuries. Suspended in the joy and impatience of their returning, I could barely think straight.
Throughout the panic and chaos, I lost track of how fast the time passed since Andre told us that they were all coming back. When I looked up at the sound of the door opening, they were there.
She was here.
Maisie was home.
Mikhail had gone out to the doors to the garage to help them get everyone out. He strolled into the room, carrying my daughter and seeking me out with a grave expression.
“Maisie!” I dropped the packages of gauze I’d been getting out of a cupboard for Claire and ran to my daughter.
“Mommy!” She turned in Mikhail’s arms and reached out for me. “Mommy!”
I grabbed her from him as he stopped.
“Go on. Take her.” He didn’t hesitate to hand her over. Instead of lingering to make sure she was okay, he doubled back, jogging to help the others again.
Our reunion was messy, with both of us crying. She wouldn’t stop saying my name, sobbing in relief as her tears wet my shirt.
“It’s okay, Maisie. I’ve got you. It will be all right, baby girl.” I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, staving off the need to break down and bawl and never let her out of my sight again. “You’re home. I’m right here and we’re home.”
Clutching her to me, I held her small body with all the strength I had.
Tucking her head against my chest, I braced my other hand on her back and let her cry it all out.
I couldn’t begin to rationalize what was going through her mind, but I would do as I swore.
I would be here for her to comfort her and soothe her.
Relief washed over me, almost making me shaky and needing to sit down with how wobbly my knees were.
But I couldn’t go anywhere. Not as I watched Andre help Roman limp into the clinic.
Guards filed in, all sporting different wounds but able to walk unassisted.
They all entered, but I didn’t see any sign of Sergei or George.
Even though I had my daughter safe in my arms again, I couldn’t rest until I saw the other love of my life.
A different love from what I would always have for her.
A strong love that no other man could ever compete with for the rest of my life.
The love I couldn’t deny for the strong protector I was so lucky to have found.
The wounded Orlov men came in and waved off Claire and Anya. They shook their heads at their attempts to triage them. All of them made clearance, insisting that George and Sergei needed help more.
Four men brought in George on a stretcher. He was alive. Awake. I saw it in the way he scanned the room for Maisie. Seeing her in my arms was all he seemed to need to lie back and rest his head on the stretcher.
Then Mikhail and Andre came in, joining a pair of suited soldiers as they brought Sergei in.
Oh, God.
Oh, no. Please, no. Don’t—
I sucked in a deep breath, shocked by how rough he looked. So much blood coated him. His face was devastated under the crimson, showing cuts and swollen spots. He looked like he’d gone through hell and back to rescue Maisie.
Oh, Sergei.
You have to live.
You have to survive.
My heart ached at the sight of him suffering, feeling the wicked slash of pain in knowing he’d been hurt at all.
“Mommy, I don’t want him to die!”
Maisie cried out, and I hugged her closer as I shushed her.
“I don’t want him to die!”
Multitasking, Claire ordered one of the guards to start helping Anya clean off the blood and find George’s wounds to compress the bleeding.
“Stop the blood,” she ordered, her hands moving as she inventoried Sergei.
But she focused on me, too, while rapidly assessing her patient.
She hadn’t forgotten about our smallest patient.
Looking up from Sergei while not stopping her hands, she blew out a breath to keep her hair out of her face. “Nat. Is she hurt?”
I moved to the side and propped Maisie on a counter against the wall.
She wouldn’t let me release her fully as she clung to me, but I soothed her and urged her to let me see.
“I just need to check that you’re not bleeding or hurt.
” She allowed me a little gap to look her over.
No cuts were visible. Her dress was intact without any rips or tears from a blade.
“Did they hurt you? Did those men hurt you, baby girl? Show me where.”
She shook her head, staring at Sergei behind me as Claire assessed him on the table.
He had yet to move.
“No, Mommy. George stopped them.” She tore her gaze from Sergei and looked at George on the other table. “He wouldn’t let them hurt me.”
I exhaled in relief, turning to shake my head at Claire. “No. I don’t think she’s hurt.”
She nodded once and resumed giving all her attention to Sergei, assisting the guard she was using as a trainee to listen to his heart and lungs, to hook him up to get a read on his vitals.
“I don’t want him to die, Mommy,” Maisie sobbed.
I scooped her off the counter and held her tightly, making sure to stand with her back to the table.
Blocking her view of the man who lay bleeding out, I stroked my hand over the back of her head and shushed her.
I didn’t know what I said. I didn’t know what I could say.
All I could do was murmur to her and comfort her as I rocked in my step almost like I had when she was a baby.
“Remember that Claire is a doctor,” I told her softly. “She’s a good doctor. She used to work in the hospital.”
“But they said he was dying!”
Roman sat up on his bed slightly, shaking his head as he overheard her. So many people were talking, and with Claire barking out orders, it was chaos. But he’d heard. “No, Maisie. He’s not going to die. Claire is helping him.”
Maisie didn’t believe him. “I heard you. I heard you say so in the car that he’s dying. He’s bleeding too fast.”
I latched my gaze on Roman, afraid it could be true. He made eye contact and shook his head.
I couldn’t tell if he was denying what she said or if he was willing it not to be true.
It couldn’t be true.
Sergei nearly dying for her shifted something visceral in me. Something permanent.
No.
You can’t die.
Staring at him as Claire rushed to reveal his skin littered with cuts and wounds, I swallowed hard and swore it just couldn’t be true.
I couldn’t bear the idea of losing my first love when Fitz died.
I couldn’t stomach the possibility of losing my new love, either. Sergei. I wanted him to be my last love, my man to grow old with as we watched Maisie through her life.
Any trace of hatred evaporated as I watched Claire frown at the vitals on the panel.
My grudge waned in the face of this love I couldn’t hide from.
This show of the ultimate sacrifice with Sergei being so selfless to risk his life for my daughter’s.
Please, Sergei.
You have to live.
I love you.
Unaware that I let out a loud gasp, tearing up with the need to cry all over again, I blinked at Mikahil approaching me. Andre was jumping in to help Claire as she ordered someone to hand her something else.
“Maybe it would be best to wait in the other room,” the boss told me. His serious expression was full of sympathy but also the logic only a leader in charge could manage.
He dipped his chin, gesturing at Maisie as she continued to cry.
The concept of sparing her from any more trauma was smart.
I had him to thank for that consideration, but as I let him guide me out of the room, carrying my daughter from the scene of surgery and first-aid, I prayed that this wouldn’t be the very last I’d ever see of the man I loved.
The man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.