Taylor
The men find us before the guards can get us to the ambulance level.
One moment, Nikita and I are being pushed down another empty corridor, the first man holding a blood-soaked hand over his broken nose while the second keeps his gun pressed into Nikita’s side.
The next, someone shouts from behind us.
The man holding Nikita turns. I know the voice before I know the face. “Down!”
Nikita drops faster than I expect her to. I don’t. A hand catches the back of my dress and yanks me sideways just as the corridor erupts with shouting. I hit the wall shoulder-first and throw both arms around my stomach. Someone fires. The sound inside the narrow hallway is enormous.
The man with the broken nose runs. The other doesn’t get the chance. Two of Mikhail’s men are on him before I understand what’s happening. One knocks the gun from his hand. The other drives him face-first into the wall.
“Tie him,” someone says. I recognize Arkady when he reaches me. His eyes go immediately to my stomach. “Taylor?”
“I’m okay.” He looks at the blood on my leg. “It isn’t mine.”
Nikita straightens beside me, one hand pressed to her temple. There’s blood in her hair now. I hadn’t noticed it before.
“Mama,” Arkady says.
“I am not your mother.”
“You are currently everybody’s mother.”
She waves him away and reaches for me instead. Another tightening moves across my stomach. I stop breathing. It starts low and pulls slowly around my middle until my entire stomach feels hard beneath my hands.
Nikita notices. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Another one of Mikhail’s men approaches. “We have to move. The public corridors are filling.”
Arkady touches his radio. “Pakhan, we have them.” The word is loud enough that everyone in the corridor hears it. Nobody reacts. That seems worse. Arkady looks me over once more, then speaks into the radio. “Alive. Nikita too. Taylor has injuries to her knee.”
I touch my knee. I had forgotten about it. “It isn’t my blood,” I squeak, my voice barely registering, but he doesn’t hear me.
“The baby?” Mikhail’s voice comes back.
Arkady looks at me. “Unknown.”
“Bring them to me. Bring a doctor with them.”
“Yes, Pakhan,” Arkady says calmly.
Nikita mutters something in Russian under her breath.
“What?” I mutter, breathing through the cramping low in my pelvis.
“I said your boyfriend has excellent timing.”
“He is not my boyfriend,” I say. Arkady looks at me. I glare at him. “Not now.” He wisely says nothing.
We start moving. The hospital is no longer empty.
Whatever control Orlov’s men had over the private corridors is collapsing by the second.
Nurses hurry past us in groups. A hospital administrator is shouting at two armed men that this is still a functioning medical facility.
Government security officers are appearing at intersections.
Somewhere farther away, people are yelling questions.
Reporters. I can hear them even before I see the cameras.
“What happened?”
“Was there an abduction?”
“Who fired the shots?”
“Is Governor Korolev safe?”
Another tightening grips my stomach. I grab Nikita’s arm.
She stops immediately. “Taylor.”
“I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that.”
“It keeps being mostly true.”
She looks down at my stomach. “How far apart?”
“I’m not timing them.”
“You should be.”
“This feels like a bad time to start.”
Arkady turns back. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“She is having contractions,” Nikita says.
“Nikita,” I say. Arkady looks alarmed in a way I have never seen before. “I am thirty-seven weeks pregnant. My stomach does things.”
“We need a doctor,” Nikita says, ignoring me.
“Yes, Mikhail wants her to see one,” Arkady agrees.
“Can everybody please stop discussing my uterus while men with guns are escorting us through a crime scene?”
No one says anything after that. For approximately thirty seconds. Then Nikita squeezes my arm. “You will tell me when it happens again.”
I sigh. “Yes.”
We pass through a set of unfinished doors. The smell changes. Dust. Plaster. Antiseptic. Blood.
Mikhail is standing in the middle of an unfinished treatment room.
For one second, I see only him. His shirt is untucked at one side.
Blood marks his cuff. There is dust on his coat and a darkening bruise along his jaw.
His hair has fallen forward across his forehead.
Relief floods my body, and tears fill my eyes. He is beautiful. And he is alive.
Then he sees me. Everything in his face changes.
He crosses the room so quickly that I barely have time to release Nikita before his hands are on me. His palms close around my face. “Where are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Nowhere. My knee. Nothing serious.”
His hands move down my arms, over my shoulders, as though he cannot trust anything I tell him until he checks for himself. “The baby?”
“I think the baby is okay.”
“You think?”
“I’m not a doctor, but I think, yes.”
A doctor who has followed us into the room steps forward. “Take her,” Mikhail says.
“Mikhail,” I protest.
His eyes close. His forehead lowers to mine. For several seconds, he only breathes. His hands settle against my stomach. The baby moves beneath them.
Mikhail’s breath catches. “There.” He opens his eyes. Nikita stands beside us. Only then does he see the blood dried along the side of her face. “Mama.”
“I am fine.”
“You were struck.”
“I have survived worse.”
He reaches for her without releasing me. His hand closes around hers. She squeezes once. My chest aches for all the bloodshed and hurt this family has endured.
Then I look past him. Olga is standing near the doorway. Her cream suit is stained at one cuff. Her face looks gray.
And behind Mikhail is a chair with Orlov still in it. I recognize him from the photographs. His head has fallen forward. His hands hang behind him. There is a tie loose around his throat.
My chest tightens. Mikhail feels me go still. “Taylor.”
I step around him, and he lets me. Orlov doesn’t move. The room smells like blood. I don’t need to touch him. I don’t need to see his face. I know.
“You knew we were safe,” I say. It’s not a question.
“Yes.”
“And then you killed him.”
“Yes.” No apology. No attempt to soften it.
Relief moves through me before horror can stop it. Orlov will never send another man to my apartment. He will never touch Nikita. He will never know my child. The relief makes me feel sick.
Behind us, voices grow louder in the corridor.
Another voice calls from farther down the hall. Someone is demanding Mikhail. Someone else is demanding Olga. The hospital is swallowing the private little world they made in this room.
Mikhail looks toward one of his men. “Move him.”
Olga turns sharply. Two of Mikhail’s men step toward Orlov. One grabs the chair. The other reaches for the tie around his wrists. “Stop,” Olga says. They don’t stop. Olga’s face hardens. “I said stop.”
Neither man even looks at her. They look at Mikhail.
Olga sees it, and so do I. “Mikhail,” she says, softer now. He doesn’t answer. “That body is evidence.”
Mikhail finally looks at her. “Then you have a decision to make.”
Her eyes narrow. “You think this is a negotiation?”
“I think everything is a negotiation.”
One of his men cuts the tie from Orlov’s wrists. Olga steps forward. “Do not move him out of this room.”
The men continue.
“Olga,” I say.
She turns toward me, and something like pity crosses her face. “Taylor, this is not something you should involve yourself in.”
“I think we’re past that.”
Another contraction catches me. Harder. I curl one hand around the edge of a counter.
Nikita notices immediately. Her hand lands against my back. “There.”
I breathe through it. Mikhail turns. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not nothing.”
“It’s really not important right now.”
“You are in pain.”
“I am thirty-seven weeks pregnant and have spent the morning being kidnapped. I’m stressed,” I say. The doctor takes a step toward me. I hold up one hand. “Give me a second.”
Olga looks between us. Then at Orlov. His body is being lifted from the chair. “Mikhail, if he leaves this hospital—”
“What?” he asks. “You arrest me?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
The room goes quiet. I turn toward him. Olga looks equally startled. “That is all you have to say?”
“What would you prefer?”
I look toward Orlov’s body. Then back at her. “If you arrest him right now, what happens?”
“He is charged.”
“I mean to everything else.” Outside, the police radios and chatter grow louder, more insistent. There is pounding on doors. I continue, “Orlov’s people are still out there.”
“I know…” She’s hesitant, looking behind her like I may have conjured them by saying it.
“His contractors. Police. Officials. Whatever else. If Mikhail gets walked out of here in handcuffs in front of every camera in Moscow, what do they do?” She remains silent, her face blank, but I know she’s considering it.
“They run,” I say. “They burn things. They move money. They call each other. Whatever people like them do when they know someone is coming.”
Mikhail watches me. Olga looks back at Orlov, and then her eyes meet mine, and she says, “And then the investigation becomes more difficult.”
“And the reform?” I ask. A strange warmth moves between my legs.
“Taylor.”
“No, what happens to the reform?”
“Taylor.”
“Just think about it. If you—”
Mikhail speaks behind me. “By morning, every member of the coalition will distance himself from my name. Appropriations will be frozen. Every contractor attached to the hospital project will be reviewed. Legitimate or not.”
Olga stops talking. Her eyes drop to the ground. I keep mine fixed on Mikhail as he continues, “Teachers will lose raises. Hospital renovations will stop. Medical programs will be delayed. Orlov’s allies will call it oversight while redirecting the money.”
Nikita looks down. Then up at me. Her eyebrows rise. Mikhail follows everyone’s gaze. His entire face changes.
“Taylor,” Olga says again. “Your water broke.”
A small clear pool is spreading slowly across the dusty concrete beneath my shoes. “Oh.” I look back at Mikhail. For perhaps the first time since I met him, he looks completely unprepared for what comes next.
The doctor is already moving toward me. Mikhail reaches for my waist. The corridor beyond us is filling. Government officers. Hospital staff. Voices. Footsteps. We are out of time. I look at the men.
Another contraction begins. I breathe in slowly. Nikita rubs my back. This one doesn’t fade as quickly. “Taylor,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“You need to sit.”
“In a second.”
“You have a family to think about,” Olga reminds Mikhail coldly. “You should have considered that before killing him.”
“I did,” Mikhail says simply. I look over at him. His jaw his tight, his gaze fixed on Olga. “I did this for my family. I chose Taylor.”
My breath catches.
Mikhail doesn’t look at me, but Olga does. There’s accusation in her eyes, though perhaps she doesn’t mean it for me. I swallow hard.
“You think love makes you noble? It does not make you judge and executioner,” Olga says coldly to Mikhail.
“I was both long before I met her.”
The words settle heavily over the room.
“The ambulance bay is down the service hall,” I say behind Olga’s shoulder. Her head snaps up toward me. I nod once at Mikhail’s men.
Mikhail’s men have Orlov’s body off the chair now. One has him beneath the arms. Another has his legs.
Olga says only my name. “Taylor.”
“I know.”
“If that body leaves this hospital—”
“I know,” I say. The men are waiting. I look toward the hallway. I know these corridors. I was dragged through them. Twice now. “Second left after the elevators.”
Nikita releases me. “I will show them.”
Mikhail looks at his mother. “Mama.”
“I know where it is.”
Olga stares at me. “You understand what you are doing?”
Another wave of pressure rolls through my stomach. I grab Mikhail’s arm. “Yes.” The word comes out through my teeth.
“Taylor,” the doctor says, “we need to move you.”
Orlov’s body disappears through the doorway. Olga watches it go. She does not draw her gun or open the door to the hallway and let police in. That is the answer.
I look back at her.
Olga says, “I am only delaying action because arresting him this minute would damage an active investigation, destabilize public programs, and warn men I have spent months trying to identify.” Mikhail says nothing.
Olga steps closer. “When Orlov’s network is dismantled, I decide what happens to you next. ”
Mikhail looks at her steadily. “You may try.”
“Mikhail,” I say. He looks down at me. The contraction tightens harder. I squeeze his hand. “Do not antagonize the woman currently deciding whether you go to prison while I am in labor.”
Olga’s attention returns to Mikhail. “If I delay this, you are finished in politics.”
Mikhail almost laughs. “I am reasonably certain that part has already been decided for me.”
“I mean permanently.”
“Fine.”
His answer is so easy that Olga looks annoyed by it. “No office. No appointed position. No political proxy standing in for you.”
“Fine.”
“You give me every account connected to Orlov.”
“Yes.”
“Every contractor.”
“Yes.”
“Every police officer, judge, ministry official, financier, and intermediary you know.”
“Yes.”
“You do not warn them.”
“No.”
“You do not destroy evidence connecting them to you.” Mikhail pauses. “That was not optional,” Olga says.
“I understand.”
“And the reform continues. The money goes where it was promised.”
“It will.”
“You do not threaten my officers, witnesses, or staff.”
“Provided they do not threaten Taylor, fine.”
Somewhere beyond the corridor, another wave of shouting rises as more people flood the hospital. Olga closes her eyes briefly. Then she points toward the doctor. “Take her upstairs.”
Behind us, government officers begin filling the unfinished treatment wing.
Ahead of us, Nikita is already disappearing toward the service elevators with Mikhail’s men and Orlov’s body.
Olga remains in the middle of it all, shouting orders, trying to hold together a hospital, an investigation, a reform package, and whatever remains of Mikhail’s political career.
Another contraction grips me before we reach the end of the corridor. Mikhail picks me up like I weigh nothing. “I can walk,” I protest.
“You are bleeding.”
“I’m not bleeding.”
“You are leaking. It is not better.” I choose not to argue as we get into the elevator and just let myself relax against his chest. “My career is over, I think,” he says, and I feel the rumble of his words against my cheek.
“What now then?”
“We are about to find out, kotik.”