19. Cara #2
Near the rear corner, where the truck blocks me from the yard office, I set the towels on a crate, pull out the knife, and tuck it inside my waistband with the handle flat against my skin.
Above the yard office, a camera shifts. Small flakes begin to fall.
I move along the truck’s blind side with the towels held against my chest, keeping the produce truck between me and the men near the yard office.
The service lane lies ahead, black under the lights, with the smaller guard post beyond it and the gate farther past that.
For two seconds, I have a path.
I break into a run.
Someone shouts behind me, and Dmitri’s voice cuts through the yard from the office side. He says my name once, and it hits harder than the cold.
I duck around the rear of the truck, trying to keep the vehicle between us. The knife digs into my waistband, but I keep moving. Snow grinds under my boots. Cold metal skims my sleeve. The service lane is right there, only a few yards past the truck’s rear corner.
Then my sock slips.
My foot slides wrong, my ankle twists, and I go down hard on one knee. Pain shoots up my leg so fast, I almost lose the towels. I bite back a cry, shove one hand against the frozen ground, and force myself up.
I make it two limping steps before he catches me.
One arm comes around my waist, and my back hits his chest. I twist, slam my elbow behind me, and feel it connect. He grunts. My good heel strikes his shin, but the sock over my boot slips and kills half the force.
The knife falls somewhere behind me. Dmitri drags me back against the rear of the truck, pinning me where the metal blocks the yard on one side and his body blocks the lane on the other.
“Stop,” he shouts over the wind.
“Let me go.” I squirm hard enough to bruise myself against the truck.
“No.”
I swing again, and Dmitri catches both wrists. He pins them against the truck above my head, close enough that his coat brushes my sweater, careful enough to keep his hands away from my throat and face.
He adjusts his hold just enough to stop me from twisting. “What were you doing?”
My breath comes hard against his coat. “Leaving.”
“You wouldn’t clear the first gate.” His grip stays firm, but his thumbs don’t press.
I jerk against him.
Across the yard, men wait near the yard office. I turn my head and see Sergei, his face pale under the floodlights, with Dima beside him, coat open and one hand low near his belt. Nobody comes closer.
Dmitri glances toward Sergei, then back at me. “Sergei reported the moment you passed him. He was told not to stop you.”
Heat crawls up my neck even with snow melting on my face.
Shit.
Dmitri’s voice stays flat. “Kitchen staff saw you take the service passage. Abramov had you on camera before you reached the stairs.”
My stomach drops. All that sneaking. All that careful breathing. Pretending to be a woman with towels and a job. Everyone knew.
Dmitri lowers his voice. “I let you reach the yard because I needed to see where you’d go.”
“Patrick wants exactly this,” he says. “He wants you scared, moving, and alone.”
“Patrick found the only part of my life that matters.”
Dmitri’s hold changes. “What?”
“Move.” I shove at his chest.
“No.”
“Dmitri.” I stop half an inch from saying please, but the word sticks.
His attention drops to the ground. The table knife lies near my boot. Dmitri releases one wrist, bends without taking his body out of my way, and picks it up. I stay against the truck, shivering, because he’s still between me and the lane.
“You walked into a delivery yard during an active threat with a table knife,” he says.
“I had to get home.” My voice comes out rough, and I hate how much it gives away.
Dmitri holds the table knife at his side, blade pointed down. “You have no phone, no passport, no coat for the road, and no way to know which cars outside this estate belong to Morozov.”
“I would’ve figured it out.” I push my shoulder harder against the truck.
“You would’ve been taken before the trees.”
His eyes stay on mine, and I hate that part of me believes him. That hurts more because he doesn’t sound angry now. He sounds right.
I press my back harder against the truck. “You left once.”
Dmitri goes very still.
My hands curl against the cold metal. “No note, no call, no proof I was anything past one night.”
His eyes stay on mine. “Cara.”
I swallow hard and keep my chin up. “You lost almost everything that night. I know that. But you had me, and you decided I didn’t count.”
Dmitri sets the knife on the crate beside him, slowly enough that every man watching can see him do it. Then he eases his grip on my wrists without letting go. “I didn’t throw you away.”
My fingers press harder into the side of the truck. I turn my face away. “You left.”
His hand drops to his side. “I buried wanting you.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
Dmitri looks toward the falling snow for one second, then back at me. “Every time I thought of you, I made myself think of the fire instead.”
My throat tightens. “That was your grief.”
“Yes.”
I shake my head. “You turned it into punishment.”
“I know.”
“No.” My voice breaks, and I hate that more than anything. “You don’t.”
Dmitri’s attention drops to my shaking hands. I close them into fists.
He takes one step back and keeps both hands where I can see them. “What is it I don’t know, Cara? Tell me.”
My knees give before I can answer. I sink down against the truck, grab my arms with both hands, and try to stop shaking.
Dmitri drops in front of me. He goes down on one knee first, then both, close enough that I can see the snow melting in his hair. One hand is on my shoulder, careful and steady.
“Cara,” he says, his face near mine.
The yard feels too bright. The gate lights burn behind him. Snow falls between us in small, kind flakes, melting as soon as it touches his coat.
Dmitri lowers his voice. “Whose name are you protecting?”
Mikhail’s red car flashes behind my eyes. His sticky fingers. Patrick’s message. Make it casual, Cara, I tell myself.
“Mikhail.” I make myself say it.
Dmitri doesn’t move. The name sits between us, small and huge and real.
I pull my hands to my sides before they can cover my mouth. “He’s four.”
Dmitri’s face changes by inches. “Four.”
“He likes cars and pancakes.” The words come faster now, spilling because I can’t hold them back anymore. “He thinks a spoon can fix anything if you try hard enough. Kathryn has him because I sent him there when your men came for me. Patrick must have guessed enough. The clinic.”
My voice breaks on the last word. Dmitri waits, his face unreadable under the yard lights, and somehow, that makes it harder to stop.
I force the rest out. “It was proof Patrick could get close, and I couldn’t take one more piece of him near Mikhail.”
Dmitri doesn’t say anything for an eternity. Then he says, “Who’s the father?”
My hands shake against my thighs. The service lane is beside him, and the gate lights burn past it, still out of reach. Boston feels farther than both.
I lift my chin and give him the rest. “Yours.”
Dmitri stops breathing, and every way out disappears.