17. Zoya #2
I look at Ruslan. He’s watching Mila now, not me.
His face is pale, sweat at his temple, blood dark around his thigh where his hand presses hard against the wound.
He has seen violence I can’t imagine. Caused some of it too.
Yet the way he looks at my daughter is strangely still, as if she has asked something he doesn’t know how to refuse.
“Mila,” Ruslan says quietly, “your mother is right. You should leave.”
Mila frowns. “You shouldn’t talk when you’re bleeding.”
For one absurd second, even with everything happening, Ruslan chuckles. He tries to hide the surprise in his eyes, but I see it. I can tell he’s not used to being scolded by kindergarteners.
“She gets that from me,” I say before I can stop myself.
His eyes move to mine.
There’s too much in that look. Too much history. Too much pain. Too much he doesn’t yet understand, and too much I am terrified he might.
I set Mila down but keep one arm around her shoulders. “Can you walk?” I ask him.
Ruslan’s jaw flexes. “Yes.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
His mouth twists faintly.
I look at his leg. I can see splotches of blood, but not pouring the way it would if the wound were higher or deeper.
I know almost nothing about bullet wounds, which feels wildly inconvenient.
I know library systems, overdue notices, children’s fevers, lunch boxes, rent math, and how to remove glitter from sofa fabric with tape.
None of that helps with a mafia boss bleeding under a shelf of stuffed animals.
I grab one of the small blankets from the bin and kneel beside him.
Ruslan stiffens when I move close.
“Relax,” I say.
He looks at me. “That is not a useful instruction.”
“Neither is ‘leave,’ but you kept saying it.”
Mila kneels beside me and holds out the edge of the blanket with solemn concentration.
“Mila,” I say, “stay behind me.”
“But I’m helping,” she says.
“You can help by watching the door.”
She looks toward the door, then back at me. “What if someone comes?”
“You tell me.”
She nods, suddenly serious. “Okay.”
I press the folded blanket against Ruslan’s thigh. He sucks in a breath through his teeth.
“Sorry,” I say automatically.
“Don’t be,” Ruslan says.
“I wasn’t that sorry.”
His eyes flicker. Pain, maybe. Or something almost like amusement, gone too quickly to trust.
The bleeding slows under pressure. Not enough, but some. I tie the blanket as tightly as I can around his thigh, my fingers clumsy, every movement made worse by the shaking I can’t stop.
Ruslan watches my hands. “You learned to tie knots?” he asks.
“I have daughters,” I say. “I can secure anything with a blanket, a hair tie, and panic.”
Mila whispers from the doorway, “Nobody is coming.”
“Good,” I say.
Outside, the shooting has stopped. That doesn’t make the silence safe. It’s worse in some ways. People are still crying, but the sharp panic has shifted into a frightened waiting.
I put Ruslan’s arm over my shoulders before I can think too hard about touching him.
The weight of him hits immediately. He smells like blood, cold air, smoke, and something that is still him underneath all of it. My body recognizes it before I can tell it not to.
I hate that.
“On three,” I say.
Ruslan looks at me. “Zoya.”
“If you tell me to leave again, I will let my daughter lecture you.”
Mila says from the door, “I can.”
Ruslan closes his eyes briefly, as if asking some violent god for patience.
“Three,” I say, skipping the rest.
He pushes up. His injured leg gives almost at once, and most of his weight comes down on me. I stagger, but he catches the shelf with one hand and keeps himself from taking us both to the floor.
Mila gasps.
“I’m fine,” I say.
Ruslan says, “No, you are not.”
“I’m upright,” I say. “That counts.”
He grimaces, breath rough, but manages to stand on one leg with his arm around my shoulders and his hand pressed to the wall.
For a moment, we are too close. His face is inches from mine. Pale. Strained. Older than the man I left by the sea. Still impossible.
His eyes drop to my mouth for half a second, then away.
I shift under his arm. “We find Karina and Nadia. Then we get out.”
He nods once. “Back exit.”
“You know the building?”
His silence answers.
Of course he does.
I decide not to ask. If I ask why he knows the back exit of my daughters’ kindergarten, I will lose the fragile thread holding me together.
Mila walks ahead of us, tiny and fierce, carrying her bent paper crown in one hand like a battle flag.
The hallway outside is dim, littered with dropped art folders, cupcakes, a little shoe, someone’s handbag spilled open near the wall. I can hear voices from the front classrooms. Teachers. Parents. Someone calling emergency services.
“Stay close,” I whisper.
Mila nods without turning. “I am close.”
Ruslan’s weight shifts, and I nearly stumble. He catches himself against the wall again, breath hissing.
“You’re too heavy,” I mutter.
“You offered.”
“My daughter emotionally blackmailed me.”
Mila says, “I heard that.”
“You were supposed to,” I say.
Ruslan looks at her as she moves ahead, and something passes through his face too quickly for me to name.
We reach the main classroom. Karina is near the reading table with Nadia clutched against her side. Miss Elena stands by the door, counting children with a clipboard she’s holding so tightly the paper bends.
Nadia sees me first.
“Mama!” she cries. She tears away from Karina and runs to me, then stops when she sees Ruslan. Her eyes go huge.
Karina looks up. When she sees him, all the color drains from her face.
“Oh my God,” Karina whispers.
Ruslan’s body goes still beside me. I feel it because I’m holding half his weight.
Karina remembers him. She steps closer slowly, Nadia pressed against her leg now, Mila at mine. “You,” she says.
Ruslan looks at her. “Karina.”
The fact that he remembers her name makes something twist in my stomach.
Karina’s mouth parts. “You remember me?”
“We were supposed to find you, I guess?” he says.
Karina nods, still giving him a suspicious look.
She knows who he is—not the man I had a huge crush on.
No, she knows he’s Ruslan Karelin, mafia boss, and one of the worst men to be around in New York.
She’s a smart girl, and there was an article in the newspaper after the attack that named him and his men directly for the attack.
She did some digging and found his picture, and when she showed it to me, I pretended to be surprised.
But it quietly disappeared after that, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. He’s rich and powerful. What she doesn’t know is what happened between us afterward.
“Fantastic,” Karina says, voice shaking. “That makes this even worse.”
Miss Elena looks between us. “Do you know him?”
“No,” Karina says at the same time I say, “Yes.”
Miss Elena’s expression does not improve.
Ruslan says, “This building is not secure.”
Karina laughs once, sharp and disbelieving. “Oh, is that your professional opinion?”
“Karina,” I warn.
“No,” Karina says, eyes still on Ruslan. “No, I think I’m allowed one second. Six years, Zoya. Six years, and he appears bleeding in a kindergarten during a shooting? Hello, do you not remember who he is?”
Nadia looks up at her. “Aunt Karina, you said shooting.”
Karina closes her eyes. “I know, baby. I’m sorry.”
I crouch as much as I can with Ruslan leaning on me and pull both girls close.
“Listen to me,” I say. “We are going to leave with Aunt Karina. You stay quiet, hold hands, and do exactly what I say.”
Mila looks at Ruslan. “Is he coming?”
I hesitate.
Ruslan answers before I can. “No.”
“Yes,” Mila says.
Ruslan blinks again.
Nadia studies him with cautious suspicion. “You are bleeding a lot.”
“I’ve noticed,” Ruslan says.
Mila takes my sleeve. “Mama, we can’t leave him.”
I look at Ruslan, furious all over again because somehow even injured and pale, he is still making my life harder by existing.
Then I look at my daughters. Their faces are scared, stubborn, and waiting for me to be the person I told them I was.
“Fine,” I say.
Ruslan’s eyes cut to me. “No.”
“Stop saying no.”
“You have children.” His gaze flicks to them when he says it. I hear the weight in his voice.
I ignore both of them. “Yes, I have children, and one of them is about to start a moral protest in a danger zone if we leave you here.”
Mila nods. “I am.”
Nadia whispers, “I will help if needed.”
Karina mutters, “God help us all.”
Miss Elena says, “There’s a staff exit through the kitchen. It leads to the side lot.”
Ruslan looks at her. “Is the side lot clear?”
Miss Elena’s lips tremble. “I don’t know.”
Karina says, “I can check.”
“No,” I say immediately.
Ruslan says, “No.”
For one uncomfortable second, we agree.
Karina looks between us. “Lovely. United front. Hate it.”
Ruslan shifts his weight and nearly goes down.
I grip his waist with my free arm. “Okay. Enough. We move now.”
Karina takes both girls’ hands. “Mila, Nadia, eyes on me.”
Mila says, “But Mama—”
Karina’s voice goes firm in a way I have only heard twice before. “Eyes on me.”
Mila obeys. Nadia too.
We move through the kitchen, slow and awkward.
Ruslan tries to take as little support as possible, which only makes it harder because stubbornness is apparently his preferred blood-loss strategy.
I keep one arm around him, my shoulder under his, while Karina leads the girls ahead with Miss Elena following long enough to unlock the side door.
The cold air outside hits like a slap.
The side lot is darker than the front, half-hidden by the kindergarten building and a row of overgrown shrubs. A few cars are parked there, staff vehicles mostly. Beyond the fence, I hear sirens in the distance.
Karina gestures us to her car. She turns to Ruslan and says, “I just had my car detailed last week, but I suppose you can’t help the blood.”
Ruslan just gives her a look, not saying anything else.