Then I’m falling to the ground.
39
YULIAN
It’s not Desya’s bullet that brings me to my knees.
It’s Mia.
Her arms close around my waist. She’s a wisp of a woman, but the weight of her urgency knocks me off-balance. I remember hearing about the strength of mothers in a crisis, lifting cars to save their kids, beating impossible odds to save someone they love.
It’s her love, more than anything, that floors me.
Literally.
My back hits the ground. The impact knocks the breath out of my lungs, but only for a second.
Then I’m springing into action.
I shield Mia with my body and whip out my gun.
But Desya’s melted back in the crowd, invisible. A ghost—never there.
He was there, though. The shot he fired, the panic in the crowd… all those things are real.
Just like Mia’s terror.
“Oh, my.” Desya’s voice rings out from somewhere in the crowd, dripping with mockery. “That couldn’t have been good for the baby.”
My head whirls around, searching for the source.
But at that moment, Mia makes a pained sound in my arms.
The baby,I realize.
I check Mia over. “Are you hurt?” I hate the edge of panic in my voice, but I can’t seem to keep it off. It’s all too fucking familiar, hitting way too close to home.
“I-I’m fine?—”
“No, you’re not.” My tone is ice. “Show me where it hurts.”
Wordlessly, she points at her belly.
My heart sinks. I don’t see any bullet wounds on her, no blood anywhere, but that doesn’t mean anything. She’s pregnant—she could be bleeding in places I cannot see.
The crowd is scattering, screaming, giving us a wide berth. It leaves us completely exposed. “Blyat’,” I curse under my breath, pulling Mia closer.
“Yulian!” It’s Maksim, rushing towards us. “I’ve got you. You’re covered.”
Thank fucking God.“Tell me who got shot.”
“Uh, that would be me,” Tikhon chimes in weakly. “Don’t worry, it’s just a flesh wound.”
My eyes flick to the graze in his side to make sure he’s telling the truth.
Luckily, he is.Good. The last thing I want is to lose my chief engineerandanother one of my men to Desya’s sick revenge plot.
But that means he’s still around. He hasn’t gotten his body yet.
