Chapter 15
VIKTOR
The sound that comes out of her mouth isn’t a scream. It’s a short, strangled exhale, like her body is trying to pull air in and realizes it can’t. Her hand jerks toward her ribs, and for half a second she’s still upright, stubborn enough to pretend she can fight through anything.
Then her face drains. Her eyes lose focus. And she starts to fold.
“Anya!” I shout, and I don’t like the way my voice sounds.
She sways and I catch her, pulling her against me hard enough that her weight knocks the wind out of my chest. She’s warm and heavy in my arms. For a second my hand is pressed against her side, and I feel the blood under my palm.
The street is still a war zone. Horns blare. Glass crunches under boots. My men are shouting positions and firing in controlled bursts, but Mikhail’s crew is still moving, still searching the convoy for the car she’s in. They’ll wipe all of us out just to get to her.
Now that she’s down, she’s an easy target.
“I need cover,” I snap into the comm.
Static answers me for a fraction of a second, then Misha’s voice comes through. “On you.”
The gunfire shifts immediately. My men tighten around us.
I don’t have to explain. They understand that this is an extraction.
I drag her away from the SUV, using the vehicle as cover.
She’s still conscious for a moment. Her eyes flick toward me, unfocused, jaw tight like she’s trying to keep herself present through sheer will. I hate that it’s not enough.
“Stay with me,” I tell her, and I keep moving.
Her fingers twitch against my shirt. Her breath comes shallow, uneven, like she can’t get enough air. Someone screams behind us. A body hits pavement. I don’t look. I can’t afford to lose focus for even a moment. That’s how she got shot in the first place.
The lead vehicle’s driver is slumped against the wheel, horn blaring continuously. The sound is shrill and constant, and it makes everything feel even more exposed. Sirens are wailing somewhere in the distance, getting closer.
The police will make this worse for everyone. None of us want the cops involved, but I know Mikhail’s men will retreat once it gets too hot. For that reason alone, I wish they’d hurry up and get here.
I scan the street and spot the last SUV in the convoy, farther back, intact, angled behind a delivery van.
The driver was smart enough to fall back when he saw the chaos start to break out.
No one’s in the car, but the lights are still on.
It’s the only vehicle that hasn’t been hit.
The only one that can get us out of here. I move toward it with Anya in my arms.
A man breaks from cover two cars down and starts sprinting toward us. He isn’t aiming at me. He’s aiming for her.
I raise my weapon and fire without slowing. He drops hard, skidding on the pavement. His gun clatters away. Another shooter tries to cover his advance. Bullets crack against the delivery van near my head.
I don’t stop. I don’t duck. I keep moving because every second she’s outside a vehicle is a second she can be taken. My men shift fire to give me a corridor. Their discipline is the only reason I’m not dropped from behind.
We reach the last SUV. I shove Anya inside carefully, then move to the driver’s seat and pull away before any of Mikhail’s men realize what’s happening.
The SUV lurches forward, scraping past the delivery van by inches.
Tires scream as we take the corner too fast. Another vehicle tries to cut us off at the end of the block.
The driver jumps the curb and swings wide.
Behind us, gunfire continues for a few more seconds. It fades the further we get away from the fight.
I look at Anya in the rearview mirror. She’s pale and her lips are parting. Blood is pooling on her blouse, blooming in a dark pattern. Her eyes flutter open briefly. She tries to focus on me.
“Don’t let him get me,” she whispers weakly before her eyes roll slightly into the back of her head.
My throat tightens.
“Stay with me,” I command her, nearly screaming in the small space. “Anya, stay awake.”
She doesn’t answer. Her breathing turns shallower. Time is of the essence. I know a place not far from here that will treat her immediately, I just have to get there fast enough. The doctor there is efficient, quiet, and obedient. Those are the only traits I need from him.
The clinic door opens the second we pull up. The doctor is already waiting. I’d bet that Sergei alerted him. He always knows what I need before I do.
I carry Anya inside, barking information at the doctor as he guides me to a bed. I lay her down, keeping her jacket in place until he cuts it away. Blood has soaked through her shirt now.
“Open your eyes,” I order.
She doesn’t. The doctor’s hands move quickly. He checks her pulse. Pupils. He presses lightly around the wound and she flinches, even unconscious. He pulls the vest open and inspects the impact point, then the skin beneath it.
“The bullet didn’t penetrate,” he says calmly.
I don’t breathe.
“It’s blunt trauma and bleeding from the impact breaking the skin. The ribs took the brunt of it,” he continues. “It may be superficial. It may be deeper. I’ll need to get her into imaging to make sure.”
“Do it,” I say.
He nods once and calls a nurse over to him. They move me out of the way as they work to clean the wound and get her bandaged. I stand at the edge of the room, hands curled into fists so hard my knuckles ache. My shirt is streaked with her blood.
The doctor wheels her away, leaving me standing there, helpless. All I can do is wait. I pace the length of the small room. Finally, the doctor and nurse wheel her back in after what feels like an eternity. There’s an IV in her arm, and she’s still not awake.
“She has two cracked ribs,” he tells me after a moment. “Possibly three, but there’s a lot of swelling in that area. As far as I can see, her lungs weren’t punctured and there’s no collapse.”
Relief washes over my body, but I can’t fully feel it. She’s still unconscious. I won’t have any kind of peace until her eyes are open and she can speak to me.
“Is there any internal bleeding?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Not from what I see. The bullet really just grazed her. I’m sure you’ve suffered worse.”
His joke doesn’t land the way he wants it to.
“Then why the hell isn’t she waking up?” I growl at him.
“It’s still a trauma,” he answers patiently. “She’s likely in shock and a lot of pain. I’ve put a mild pain reliever in her IV for now.”
My eyes snap up at him. “Why mild?” I ask combatively. “Give her the strongest thing you have.”
He’s about to answer when the door opens and Sergei steps inside. His face is hard and controlled, like he’s holding back a hundred things he wants to say. He looks at Anya on the table, then at the blood on my hands.
“How bad is she?” he asks quietly.
“You may want to take this outside,” the doctor interjects. “She needs her rest.”
I nod and guide Sergei into the hallway so we can speak.
“She’s alive,” I tell Sergei. “The bullet just clipped her.”
Sergei nods once, but I see the relief in his face.
“What happened after we left?” I ask.
“Mikhail’s men pulled back once they realized she wasn’t there anymore,” he says. “They didn’t want police arriving while they were still shooting up an intersection. They’re not stupid.”
“How many did we lose?” I ask.
Sergei exhales slowly. “We lost four, and two are in critical condition.”
My jaw tightens. “What about Mikhail’s side?” I ask.
“Five confirmed down. Possibly two more,” Sergei says. “They were efficient about their retreat. It was hard to get an accurate count.”
I nod once. They came prepared with extraction and cleanup. This was a coordinated move with a fallback plan.
“Any sign who talked?” I ask.
Sergei’s lips tighten. “Not yet,” he confirms. “And it’s possible no one did. I didn’t recognize any of those men. It’s possible Mikhail has had crews roaming around looking for any sign of trouble.”
“No way.” I shake my head. “They were looking for her. They knew she was in that convoy. I need you to find out how.”
“I will,” he promises, and I believe him. Then his gaze meets mine. “She could’ve gotten herself killed.”
“She nearly did,” I snap. “She got hit because she pushed me out of the way. She almost died because she couldn’t do what she was told.”
I’m fuming, but he and I both know that I’m not actually angry with her. She acted with swift bravery. That bullet was meant for me, and she pushed me out of the way.
“Don’t spiral about this,” Sergei replies. “It was a tough situation. Anyone could have gotten hit.”
I nod, but it doesn’t matter. I’m already at my wit’s end. The doctor steps out of the room and asks if he can speak to me for a moment. Sergei makes his excuses and promises to check on how the others are doing.
“We’ve just gotten some labs back from pathology. We should have waited to get them until we did the scan, but time was of the essence.”
“Okay,” I say, feeling instantly worried. “Is there something wrong?”
“No, not wrong. Not exactly,” he looks nervous, and probably for good reason. If he’s done something that’ll leave Anya hurt or permanently injured, there’s not a good enough malpractice lawyer in all five boroughs to protect him.
“Just spit it out,” I say, annoyed.
“She’s pregnant,” he answers quietly.
His words don’t register immediately. They sound like a foreign language, and for a moment, I have to catalog my entire brain to determine if that’s a word I’ve ever heard in my life. It takes me so much by surprise.
“That’s not possible,” I say before I manage to land on the word in my lexicon.
“I’m afraid it is,” he says slowly. “We did an MRI, so there shouldn’t be any complications, but I wanted to make sure you were aware in case—”
“How far along is she?” I ask, cutting off.
“It’s very early,” the doctor says. “Hard to say exactly without an ultrasound but just based on her labs and the look of her, I’d say about six weeks.”
The room tilts, and it isn’t from shock. It’s from the fact that every detail suddenly rearranges itself in my head. Her quiet. Her distance. She shut down. She stopped fighting me, as if she was resigned to her fate.
She knew or at least suspected. How could she know for sure? It’s not like I kept the bathroom stocked with pregnancy tests.
The doctor keeps talking, saying words like risk and stress and rest. I barely hear him.
All I hear is that there’s more to lose now.
Because it has to be mine, right? The timing makes sense, doesn’t it?
Then again, she could have been with Mikhail right before I took her.
No, I don’t even let myself think about the two of them together.
It’s got to be my child. She’s carrying my child and she’s been keeping it a secret for me for at least a couple of weeks. I try to think back to when she stopped being so argumentative. My mind is racing, trying to pinpoint an exact date.
“You’re sure?” I ask, because I just can’t make myself believe it.
The doctor nods. “Yes. One hundred percent. That’s why I had to give her a mild pain reliever. Anything stronger might harm the baby.”
“Is it enough?” I ask. “Is she going to be hurting when she wakes up?”
“We’ll help her manage the pain the best we can,” he confirms. “Don’t worry, Mr. Kovalev, she’s in the best possible hands.”
“I want you to give her the strongest pain reliever she can safely have,” I tell him. “Make her as comfortable as she can be. And I want to be the first person to know when she wakes up.”
“You can wait with her, if you’d like,” he says, gesturing into the room.
“I need to clear my head,” I tell him, pushing past and heading toward the exit.
None of this makes sense, and yet, it all falls into place perfectly. She kept this from me. She knew she was pregnant and she never said anything. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?