Once I’m in the room, I lower Stella onto the mattress, praying that neither Kira nor Luciano sees how badly my hands are shaking.
I gently pick up Stella’s wrist in my hand, her pulse fluttering beneath my fingers in a steady rhythm. I let out a sigh of relief as my eyes scan the rest of her body, my hands slowly trying to discover where all the blood is coming from. All too soon, and not soon enough, do I find the cause of her injury—a bullet to her shoulder.
Unlike my shot, Pyotr’s was messy. The bullet is still lodged somewhere in her shoulder, buried in a crowded intersectionof nerves and blood vessels. With it sitting this close to the subclavian artery, all it would take is the slightest shift for it to press on or even nick that vessel to trigger massive internal bleeding. And that’s not even counting the other risks that come with leaving a bullet inside her. Infection, abscesses, sepsis, and even lead poisoning if it sits there long enough.
If I don’t want her to die on me, then I can’t wait until we land in Moscow to save Stella.
“Stay with her. I’ll be right back,” I tell Kira, then slip out of the room before my control finally snaps.
I pull the door shut behind me and lean back against it, the cool surface pressing into my spine. Still, my hands won’t stop shaking as the image of Stella, lying motionless in that car trunk, keeps flashing behind my eyes.
This was supposed to be one of the happiest nights of my life. And yet I feel like I just walked into a nightmare of my own making. Everything that could have gone wrong tonight did. Fucking Lev and Pyotr messed up in the worst possible way imaginable.
No. This is on me. I’m the one who told them to bring Kira to me by any means necessary. They were just following orders. And I was following thePakhan’sorders. However, I told them to bring her when she was alone, not drive her off a road and shoot at her! Not shoot atmyStella! Fuck!
I lift my shaking hands to my face and grimace when I see Stella’s blood smeared across my fingers. That bastard Pyotr got a merciful death. If I’d had the time, he’d be screaming for mercy right about now. But time was a luxury I didn’t have. Especially since Lucky, as Kira calls him, showed up just as we were boarding my family’s jet.
Blyad!I fucking warned Misha that taking Kira abruptly, without investigating how deep her affiliations with the Romano clan were, might cause us unwanted problems. Still, my brotherdidn’t want to hear it. And now, here we fucking are. Neck deep in problems. If Misha didn’t want a war with the Outfit, I think I just lit the first match by kidnapping two children of theCapo Dei Capi.
“Okay, the pilot said we should be in the air in five,” Kostya says, running toward me through the aisle.
If my brother expected a reply, he doesn’t get one. My eyes are still locked on the blood in my hands.Her blood.Blood I practically spilled myself.
“Kirill, the fuck is wrong with you?” he snaps when I keep standing there like a ghost.
“Nothing,” I mutter, brushing past him and forcing myself to move.
I need to get that bullet out of her shoulder. If I don’t…
No. I can’t think like that. Stella is a fighter. She’ll survive until we get to Russia. Until I bring her home where she can get the proper care she needs.
Twenty hours. That’s how long I have to keep her stable. Twenty fucking hours.
“Boss, we might have a problem,” the copilot calls out from the cockpit, pulling me out of my grim thoughts.
“What is it?”
“Best you come see for yourself.”
I run to the cockpit and spot a line of black SUVs tearing down the tarmac, ready to gun the plane down before we can lift off.
Mne pizdets.I bet this is Lucky’s doing. He must have called for backup before trying to play the white knight. How he found us in the first place is anyone’s guess.
“Get this plane in the air. Now.”
“That’s not so simple,” the pilot blurts like I’ve lost my mind.
I cock my gun and press it to his temple. “Get this motherfucking plane in the air. Now!”
The pilot goes ghostly pale, sweat shining on his brow, but he keeps his grip on the controls, mumbling a prayer as he pushes the engines harder.
“Fuck. He’s not going to make it,” Kostya mutters in panic beside me, eyeing the SUV barreling straight toward us like a bad game of chicken.
I rack the slide to my Glock just enough to let the pilot hear the round in my chamber. “If you don’t get this plane off the ground, I promise you’ll be the first to die tonight.”
Sweat beads trickle down his face as the co-pilot straps himself in, ready to help with the lift, fearing my wrath will fall on him next.
“This is going to be tight! Hold on!” the pilot warns, the nose of the plane jerking upward, just in a nick of time. We skim so close to the first SUV leading the battalion that I swear I feel the scrape.
