My tone is dripping with sarcasm, but the guard nods seriously. “Exactly.”
As soon as she’s in the hospital bed, I start rattling off a list of the tests we’re going to need.
The guard looks at me blankly.
“Write this down,” I tell him.
If they’re not going to give me a team of medical staff, I need to work with what I have.
I squeeze her freezing hand. She’s wrapped in a reflector blanket to keep her body heat in. With hypothermia, patients have to be warmed up gradually, so we can’t start with warm IV fluids yet.
This is going to be a slow process, and I hope they’re not expecting any miracles. Her body is shutting down, and her skin is so pale thatit’s terrifying.
I’m out of my depth, but it looks like I’m all she has right now. And I will do my best, even if this setup is dodgy as hell.
I pull Art aside the second I’ve gotten her condition stable, ordering the necessary tests to a nearby lab on the basis of some very shoddy notes taken by the guard.
“What happened to her?”
This is our first proper conversation since he refused to explain anything, a week ago. He’s made his choice, and his choice is not to tell me what’s going on with his family.
Art shrugs, leaning against a wall, as though this is the kind of thing he sees every day. I hope not, but who knows anymore? I used to think I knew Art. Now I know that I’ve only barely scratched the surface.
I take a look at him, the rings under his eyes, the layer of stubble across his jaw. Whatever he’s not telling me, it’s stressing him out. I can’t stop the intrusive thought that he makes being dishevelled look good.
“There’s a power struggle on at the moment,” he says vaguely. “She’s been at the center of it, because she’s the Pakhan’s fiancée.”
“This isn’t normal, Art. How did she end up in the snow for so long?”
“She was waiting for someone she shouldn’t have been waiting for. Took a while to track her down.” His uneven eyes flicker over me, then dodge away to the other side of the room. “I know it’s disturbing. But she’ll be okay.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. You’re not going to let her die. And her fiancé…” He pinches the bridge of his nose, like this is something he doesn’t want to talk about. “Semyon might be an ass, but he won’t let her die either.”
“Well, it kinda seems like that’s being left up to me right now.”
I have to take another week off from working at Middlefield to care for Lisette. This is going to look terrible on my records, but it can’t be helped.
The Pakhan is absolutely refusing to have her hospitalized anywhere else, and everyone treats his word like it’s law.He comes to visit once a day, a tall, thin man who treats their engagement like it’s a business decision.
I shudder to think that I’m in a similar boat. If I am, at least Art and I have some kind of connection. Not this arms-length, transactional — as though she’s a shipment which is overdue.
I heat up the IV fluids to give her. I’m the only one who’s allowed near her, no family or friends are allowed to visit, because of what the guards describe as security concerns.
I don’t understand how this tiny blonde ballerina could be a security concern to the Bratva, but there’s a lot I don’t understand.
“She should be healthy by now,” he says after three days, when she stays in the induced coma.
“We are trying to save her fucking life.”
That shuts him up.
I spend my week defending her at every turn. From the guard’s crude jokes, her fiancé’s incessant questions about when she’ll be ready for thewedding.
Every day that she stays unconscious, my heart sinks a little deeper into my stomach.
The second she wakes up, blinking and groggy, on day five, the Pakhan asks when they can get married.
