Chapter 11
ELEVEN
“Does it hurt?” the kindly but exhausted-looking emergency room doctor said as he finished wrapping an Ace bandage around her forearm. Which was sprained, thank God, not broken. The doctors had warned her against a third fracture.
“No,” she replied, which was a lie. Of course it hurt. But Chloe didn’t dare say anything because Mike looked so wild-eyed she was afraid he’d attack the doctor at the slightest provocation.
Mike stood by her side, every muscle tense, on the balls of his feet as if ready to spring to action any second. He looked like a force of nature.
He’d saved her life. In the ambulance, she’d tried to thank him but he’d waved it off, hovering over her with his wide shoulders as if space aliens might claw their way through to her from the roof of the ambulance van. And if they did, by God he’d be ready.
The doctor hadn’t even tried to throw him out. He looked as if he’d welcome a fight.
It was, in a strange way, reassuring. He was so vigilant, she didn’t have to be.
Back in the shelter, with Cassie and Ann and Joanne and Emily and one young girl so traumatized they hadn’t yet learned her name looking on, she’d had to be strong.
Chloe didn’t dare let her fear and pain show.
Her shock at the near-rape and the brutal assault.
The women looked to her for reassurance and hope and Chloe would rather die than let them down.
So she’d squeezed Cassie’s hand as she walked past them under her own steam, down the hall and into the waiting ambulance, leaning heavily on Mike without showing it, because Cassie was just starting to recover from a husband who’d taken a knife to her.
The shelter was putting these women back together again and Chloe didn’t want to do anything at all to jeopardize that.
But later, knowing that no one who was vulnerable was looking, she leaned on Mike, who was a rock.
“Maybe we should keep you overnight for observation,” the doctor mused, writing down a prescription for painkillers.
As soon as he spoke the words, Chloe rapped out a loud “No!” So sharp the doctor raised bushy blond eyebrows and looked at her over his glasses.
She’d had panic in her voice. Chloe tried to swallow, throat dry. “No.” She tried to make her voice sound normal when a scream was rising from her gut. Tried to keep the shaking out of her voice. “I don’t need to stay overnight. I feel fine. No problem. I’d rather go home. Please.”
God, she sounded like a madwoman, and she probably was.
The very idea of spending a night in a hospital, when she’d been held like a prisoner in hospitals for most of her childhood and adolescence was terrifying.
She’d have a heart attack. At the very least a panic attack, of the kind she hadn’t had in fifteen years.
She looked over at her new family, a plea in her eyes. They were all there. Of course they were. The hospital staff hadn’t even tried to keep them out of the treatment room, either. It helped that RBK had donated half a million dollars toward the establishment of a Women’s Wellness Center.
They were there. All of them. Harry, Ellen, Sam, Nicole. If there was one thing Chloe had learned over the past six months, it was that they were loyal. They acted as a unit with unquestioning love and support, starting from her wonderful brother Harry.
“Honey,” he began, opening his hands in a cajoling gesture. “Maybe the doctor is right. Maybe you should stay just for one night.”
“No,” Chloe said and closed her mouth because her throat was too tight for another word.
“No,” Mike echoed, putting his arm around her shoulder.
Oh God, did that feel good, to have his heavy arm around her, strong and sure.
“Hospitals scare her. Quite rightly, too. And anyway, the doctor said it would be a precaution, right doc?” And he swiveled to direct his fierce scary gaze at the doctor, who looked startled.
“Ah, yes. I saw no signs of concussion, but to be certain, it would be best if she were not left alone.”
“Oh, of course!” Ellen cried. “She’ll be staying with—"
“Me. With me.” Mike dropped the little bomb in the room and scanned everyone in it—Harry, Ellen, Sam, Nicole—narrow-eyed and defiant. “She’s staying with me.”
Utter silence. Deep, uncomfortable silence.
“Now listen here—" Harry began.
The doctor cleared his throat. “I think, ah, I have other patients. Yes. Um.” He left in a hurry, white coat fluttering behind him.
“What the fuck—" Harry began again.
“Listen to me.” Mike directed his gaze between Harry and her. Each time he looked her way, she had the feeling he was somehow reassuring himself that she was okay. “Those two guys came looking for Chloe. It wasn’t some random rape attempt. And one of them told me that they’d be back.”
Chloe jolted under his arm, mind racing to understand the implications of this. It had been bad enough thinking she’d been the victim of a random attack by two violent men. Horrible, but unfortunately something that happened in this violent and unstable world.
But they’d been after her specifically? It was almost impossible to process. There was no way she could grasp this.
“Why me?” she whispered, dry-mouthed. Chloe tried to be brave, but the truth was she was terrified. Those two men had been unstoppable. Only Mike had saved her from rape and a violent beating. “What could they possibly want from me?”
“I don’t know, honey. And until we do, you’re staying with me.
” Mike’s big arm tightened around her shoulder.
He turned to stare at Harry. “Those two guys were ex military, I’d swear to it.
I guess we’re lucky they weren’t armed. I wasn’t, either, out of respect for the shelter, but that’s not gonna happen again.
No, sir. Next time I’ll be carrying, count on it. ”
A shudder went through her. Next time…
Soldiers, Mike had said.
“They had foreign accents. I don’t know if that helps,” Chloe offered.
The three men focused their attention on her.
“What kind of accents, honey?” Harry’s voice was gentle.
Chloe closed her eyes, eliminated her emotions. Took herself right out of the equation. An old trick during those long, terrible years of excruciatingly painful operations.
She’d been so shocked, it was hard to remember even what they’d said. But there was something…
We need for you to listen to us, the tall guy had said. What about that sentence resonated?
Like many introverts, Chloe really listened to people. She listened to their words, she observed their body language, she watched their eyes.
She liked to play a game and guess where people came from.
She often failed with Americans since she’d had few contacts with people in what she called the Hospital Years and had spent so many years in England after that.
But she was pretty good with foreign accents since there were so many foreign girls at Sacred Heart. Her best friend there, Lydia…
Why was she thinking of this? Because Lydia had a catchphrase—you need to listen, with a swooping sound in listen. Lydia’s family had come from Moscow.
“Russian,” she said decisively. She turned to Mike. “They had Russian accents. Or maybe East European.”
“Ok.” He nodded sharply. “That makes sense. They used SAMBO moves. One of the guys got me to the ground immediately. And I think the knife he threatened Chloe with—" he gave her a look so fierce she almost expected to see beams coming out of his eyes. “That knife looked like a Kizlyar. We’ll have to ask Kelly. So, we’ve got Russians after Chloe, for some reason. We’ll get to the bottom of this but until we do, she’s in danger, every minute of every day. ”
“I’ll take care of her,” Harry growled. “She’s my sister.” Harry’s face with tight and pale with tension. “I’m not going to let anything else happen to her. She’s my responsibility.”
Ellen looked up at her husband and then at Chloe, face sad. She’d told Chloe how losing his baby sister had tormented him all his life.
“Look at you,” Mike said. “You’ve got a wife and a child.
And you—Sam.” Sam had his arm around a hugely pregnant Nicole, due any day now.
“You’re going to become a father again in a few days.
You guys have divided responsibilities. Your attention’s going to be split at all times between caring for your wives and children and protecting Chloe.
I don’t have that. My full attention will be on Chloe.
I don’t have divided loyalties. Right now there is nothing more important in my world than keeping Chloe safe and she’ll have 100% of my attention until we figure out what’s going on and we can be sure the danger is gone.
However long it takes, whatever it takes, I’m on it.
24/7.” He tightened his arm even more and kissed the top of her head.
Harry looked at Sam, then Ellen and Nicole.
“He’s right, Harry,” Ellen said. “I know you like to think you can do it all, but I think he’s right.”
Harry’s mouth worked. “Chloe?”
Everyone turned to her. She looked up into Mike’s face. He wasn’t trying in any way to convince her with gentle words. His features were drawn tightly in harsh lines.
There was only one possible answer. “I’ll be with Mike,” she said softly, “until this mess is cleared up.”
Nikitin sat in the very comfortable armchair in the very elegant room Sands had given him to operate in.
It was almost too lush, this place. Made men weak, dependent.
He’d spent years living in an unheated tent outside Grozny trying to crush the rebels, who were living under better conditions than he was.
He sat back and waited, watching his satphone on the coffee table in front of him, programmed to vibrate, not ring.
Lyov was supposed to check in at 1600 hours.
Lyov was utterly reliable. He’d been sent with Ivan to rough up one woman.
How hard could that be? It wasn’t the kind of mission Lyov could possibly fail.