34. Mila
MILA
Lev didn’t need to remind me that I had no time to search and hunt for files. I heard the same commotion that he did downstairs. I felt the vibrations of gunfire.
“Please, Mila.” He raised his arms higher, trying to swivel his gaze between me, the other connector door to the office, and then the main entrance off the hallway.
“I’m hurrying…” I winced, feeling like a ticking bomb was counting down and about to blow.
There!
I grabbed the drives that slid out and smacked against the inner slot of a drawer as I yanked on the knob to open it. They crashed into each other, but it didn’t matter. They’d hold up. The plastic sticks were outdated, but I wasn’t going to complain.
Much like how I memorized the landscape and routes that were pertinent to smuggling runs, I had memorized the abbreviations on that list that I found in the other meeting space on the first floor.
They matched. I didn’t know exactly what they meant, but if the odds were high that they led to a labeling system of confidential papers and files, then it was exactly what we needed.
What we needed.
The Volkovs.
Because it was no longer instinct to think of them as something different or apart from me.
I was one of them, and as I snatched the handful of slim plastic drives and crammed them into the zippered pocket of my black pants, I knew that this, too, would be proving my commitment to see them prosper.
I hadn’t come here and shot Yusef Antonov in the face, but I wasn’t tagging along and doing nothing.
I came. I saw. And I conquered the fine art of searching for intel and stealing it.
Secrets that had to matter to Gregori.
And now they could be secrets that counted as resourceful clues to the Volkovs.
“Let’s go,” I told Lev, not even bothering to close the drawers or care about what the office looked like.
Our intrusion had been noticed despite no alarm systems being triggered. The sound of gunfire had to have informed a guard, and as men rushed in here to be greeted by the Bratva soldiers’ firearms, more and more would come.
It was time to run, to take this intel back to Adrik and the others. To flee with Lev and know that we’d had a productive night.
I cared now, not just going through the motions of another smuggling run.
I cared that we had done well. That we would come back victorious and be able to plan another step against Gregori now.
Before that could happen, we had to escape and live.
I looked up as Lev retreated a step from the door. The distance he put between his previous vantage point and where he stood now meant he couldn’t see the thug rushing down the hall, his murderous face implying the intention to get to us.
He shouted something in Russian at the same time that I screamed, “Get down!”
I ducked, aiming my taser at the thug.
Lev lurched to the side, to get shelter behind the desk with me. Zinging bolts of a current shot out from the taser and got the man, but as I leaned up to see if he was down, I was hit.
A piercing ray of agony lanced through my upper arm. Then again, near my neck. Or was it my shoulder?
With the distortion of my senses as I was shot, I couldn’t slow down time to fully comprehend any details.
They all blurred together.
Lev shouting and the ensuing gunfire.
The pulsing heat of an injury at my shoulder and arm.
Weightless pressure to fall to the floor and force my now-heavy lids to blink or stay open.
I will…
I strained to push myself up, determined not to sit here and droop lower and lower under the crushing intensity of the pain.
I will… survive.
I will survive?
I swallowed hard and gritted my teeth to roll over. Maybe being on my hands and knees would give me leverage to move. Lev stood firmly in place, blocking me from the men rushing in and firing at us. Bullet holes dotted the desk, but none were through to pierce us.
I was shot, though, and as I lifted one arm to press my hand over the gaping gash on my flesh, I tried to breathe through it all.
The shock.
The numbing realization of pain as it consumed me from head to toe, radiating from the inside out.
The fear of being stuck in here and experiencing more of this rabid, raw agony.
Lev…
I kept crawling, on both my knees and one hand slapped to the blood-stained floor.
Inch by inch, I kept retreating for the side door, the connection to the next room.
I hoped it was empty. I wanted to pray that the Bratva men weren’t hurt and that they could come and back up Lev shooting back at the guards.
He ordered me to go. To run. To escape. To get the fuck out of here as he held the men back.
That was who he was. The man who bought me, who owned me, who instructed me what to do.
If he gave an order, I followed. It was the simplest submission to adhere to as an employee in the Volkov Bratva.
But he was also the man I loved, the one I wanted to keep by my side always.
And so I did as he ordered.
I crawled and dragged myself out of there, counting on him not to be hurt.
I forced myself to cross the room and aim for the clearest route with the fewest obstacles.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t make it.
The edges of my vision turned dark. Black wisps of blurred images made up the perimeter of my view. The doorframe waved and curled. The floor rose up then shot back down. The ceiling split into two, double-mirrored images that yawned apart then snapped back together like an overlap of my eyeballs.
Dizziness swept over me. Nausea churned my stomach. My lungs burned, so desperate for more air even though I was breathing.
I staggered and toppled to the ground. Face-planting tipped my ass into the air. Lopsided like this, I grunted at the increase of pain. I’d dropped and smashed my cheek into the carpet, but the angle also ensured my wounded shoulder and arm were shoved onto the hard surface.
“Oh, fuck…”
My words came out slurred, a mess of sluggishness as my world threatened to turn black again.
And again.
Breathing felt like it was too much to concentrate on, but the thudding bass of my pulse roared too loudly for me to think straight.
“Mila!”
Lev’s voice sounded clearer right as I plopped forward, sprawled out on the carpet. I’d reached the doorframe, dragging a trail of blood in my wake, but I couldn’t go on.
Hope rooted in my heart at the sound of his voice. He was so frantic, furious and fearful. He stooped low and slid his arms around me.
I knew this embrace.
I remembered this warmth.
As he hoisted me into his arms, I felt like a limp rag doll, unable to speak, helpless to move.
“Mila!”
Keeping my eyes closed felt like a crime when all I ever wanted to do was see that this rugged protector was nearby.
Opening my eyes was too difficult to fathom.
With the blurry vision I was experiencing, that dizzying imbalance, and the loudness of all the shouts and gunfire, I couldn’t ground myself at all. Not even on him.
Jostled and in motion, I knew deep down in the recesses of my mind that I was being carried. That he was taking me out of here.
No more bullets hit me. No more adrenaline rushes came at me with another strike.
I was floating.
Wait. No.
I was carried.
Lev. His strong arms were around me, bringing me to safety.
Survive.
You can do this.
Survive.
I coughed, and pain coursed through me. Starting at my neck and spreading over my chest and down my arms, I felt the electric brand of my flesh, so hot and inflamed, the molten spillage of my blood as it seeped from me.
Survive. I need… to survive.
My throat burned, every molecule of air so hot and raw.
My heart raced, each pulse and push of my blood weakening me further.
No. I can’t…
I need to survive.
The mantra looped in my mind, but in the intermittent flashes of lucid moments, I heard Lev saying the same thing.
“I can’t lose you, Mila. I can’t. Stay with me.”
I will. You won’t lose me. I’ll never leave you, Lev. Never.
I wanted to sob it. Scream it. Promise it in any variation of those words.
My mouth couldn’t form anything. My words—that one and only power I thought I had—failed me. I was just too weak.
“I can’t lose you forever. Please, Mila. Please. Stay with me.”
Hearing him beg me to live and stay with him sliced at my soul. As I bled out, my heart cracked and ached at the utter desperation in his tone.
“Please, Mila.”
I want to.
I will, Lev.
I’m trying. I’m fighting.
Falling in and out of consciousness, I was locked in a cycle of hopelessness.
This was what it felt like to be truly powerless.
The darkness never faded, tripping me on a weightless and numbing sensation of the most basic functions of living.
Breathing. Heart beating. Sleeping… as I bled out.
In between the darkness and the almost-awake stretches of time—periods I couldn’t begin to quantify—I was taken back to when I’d first met him.
At that standoff in the desert, I never could’ve known that he would change my life. That he wouldn’t end up being just one more owner among so many others.
He’d asked me if I wanted to be free. It had seemed like such a cruel mockery at the time, but he’d meant it. At that moment, he’d posed the question to signify how I could wish to be free.
Dead.
Or under his control, his ownership.
He had offered me a mercy no other had ever considered. To kill me. To put me out of the misery of the life I was supposed to believe I had.
And he’d suggested the alternative. That I could choose to be his slave. To be “free” under his watch and order.
But I am.
I am free with you, Lev.
I’m free to know what love is. I’m free to love you.
The aching hole in my chest stunned me. Raw pain filled me as I realized I might not have that option anymore if I was dying now.
A scream built in my throat. I wanted to roar it. I needed him to hear my answer now.
I hadn’t replied to him then. That day at the failed handoff, caught between the Hernandez and Garcia Cartels, he’d asked me if I wanted to be free in death or under his rule.
I couldn’t have known that being with him would lead to so much goodness and present me with the lure of happiness like this.
If I had known then what I did now, I would have immediately chosen a life with him.
Forever.
I choose you, Lev. I choose to love you. To be with you.
I can’t die.
Please, don’t let me die.
I would have no peace or freedom at all if I lost him.
The only future I wanted to look forward to was the one where I could be with him.
Where we could be together—against all odds.