“For me?” I ask, genuinely confused. I run a quick internal scan—head clear, vision straight, legs steady, hand?—
Teresa’s fingers tighten on my left arm. Her face pales. “Vlad,” she gasps, pointing to my right side.
I look down. The right side of my coat is soaked through with blood, the shirt underneath wet, hot, and sticking to skin. The wisp of heat across the shoulder was a bullet’s kiss. Not too deep—my arm still obeys—but deep enough.
CHAPTER 41
TERESA
Hospitals all smell the same—antiseptic and old coffee, hope and fear wrestling under fluorescent lights.
A nurse with tired eyes placed me in a curtained bay, cool gel on my belly, a doppler wand catching and releasing the noise I’ve been desperate to hear but scared out of my mind that I wouldn’t.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.
I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until the sound of my baby’s heartbeat fills the space.
“Strong fetal heart tones,” the OB on call says, smiling at me. “No signs of trauma. Get plenty of rest and fluids, and please try not to elevate your adrenaline for a while.”
“I’ll pencil that in,” I manage, tears escaping.
A nurse wipes away the gel, presses discharge papers into my hand, and insists I drink a bottle of water. I thank her and promise to sit if I feel dizzy. Then I’m set loose in a maze of hallways filled with soft shoe squeaks and fluorescent lights. AnAngeloff guard positions himself a polite distance behind while he shadows me.
Vlad’s room is at the end of a short corridor guarded by Dmitri, who looks like a particularly unimpressed gargoyle in a chair two sizes too small for his frame. He stands when he sees me, his expression softening.
“He’s all patched up,” Dmitri says. “It was through-and-through, clean. He’d never say it, but he could probably go for some sympathy right about now.”
“Noted.” I chuckle.
“Five minutes,” he adds, then, gentler, “but you can take ten.”
I pause for a moment. “Dmitri, thank you. I?—”
He shakes his head, cutting me off. “Appreciated, but you don’t need to thank me.”
I can’t help but open my arms and pull him into a hug. He gives me a soft pat.
“Glad you’re OK,” he says. “Now, go see the old prick before he becomes even more unbearable.”
I laugh, letting Dmitri go with a squeeze of his arm.
I ease inside the room. The lights are low, monitors pulsing soft green. Vlad is propped up against pillows, shirt off, bandage hugging the curve of his right shoulder. The rest of him is annoyingly perfect as always.
He turns at the sound of the door, the cool, careful mask he wears for everyone else peeling away. Relief crashes across his face like a wave breaking.
“Kotenok,” he says, voice husky. “Come here.”
I cross the room, careful not to tug the IV line when I snuggle against his left side.
“You’re okay?” he asks, hands skimming over me. “Both of you?”
“Yep. Strong heartbeat, everything’s good,” I assure him, crying in earnest, unglamorous and completely beyond pretending I’m fine. “We’re both okay.”
“Spasibo,” he breathes, forehead tipping to mine. “Thank God.”
For a minute we lay together, breathing one another in, his left hand in my hair, my palm spread over his chest. I want to scold him and shake him at the same time, kiss him and crawl into his skin.
Love feels too small of a word to explain how I feel.
