Like a… family member.
Late in the evening, as I sat in the lounge and wondered how I’d managed to go so far from what felt like my previous life, Mikhail returned.
Without any men flanking him, without anyone telling him updates, he strode into the room.
I stood quickly, on my feet and rushing toward him.
Runningtohim wasn’t wise. He was an angry man, livid and still showing every crease and line of his rage on his scowling face. Hurrying to someone this mad wasn’t smart. Yet, nothing could keep me from needing to help. Needing to know if I could do anything.
“Is she?—”
He held up his hand, shaking his head as he spotted me. Stopping in the middle of the room, he shoved his free hand in his pocket and seemed to sag on the spot. His shoulders drooped. He lowered his head as he massaged his temple. But when he glanced up again, the exhaustion that shone in his dark eyes pained me.
It was never a good thing for a doctor to have a bleeding heart.
But dammit, did it seep and ooze for him. Witnessing him so anguished pushed me past the internal debate of whether he was a good person or a bad guy.
He was hurting. He was raging.
“We haven’t found her.”
I swallowed hard, not even considering wasting my breath on stupid platitudes. Condolences weren’t right. Simpering pep talks would worsen his mood.
I was unequipped to know what to say, so instead, I stood there and let him know he could lean on me. If he dared. If he could.
“Are there any promising leads?” I asked after he stared at me, seeming to search my face.
I didn’t want details. The less I knew, the better. If that Giovanni man wanted to threaten me with death until I told him where Sergei was at the hospital, I could be targeted further for any additional information I had.
But I cared, and I had to end this horrible silence between us. It sounded like defeat. It reeked of desperation.
“Too many,” he said, stepping closer to me. “Too many fucking directions to look and too many contradicting suggestions of where he could’ve taken her and who he could’ve handed her off to.”
Since he was pulled toward me, walking slowly as if he were involuntarily pushed to take my hand and hold it, I caved and met him in the middle. The details about why I was here didn’t matter right now. Iwashere, and I didn’t want to see him hurting. He wasn’t a lover who dominated and intimidated me. He wasn’t a Mafia man intent on calling war. He was a father who worried about his daughter.
I closed the distance, stepping into his space. I couldn’t tell who reacted first, me or him. My arms looped around his neck and he banded his over my back. Hugging him like this felt natural. Touching in this basic embrace soothed the worry in my soul.
“She didn’t want to be here. She protested being sent to live with me.”
I stroked my fingers over the back of his neck, fighting all the questions that filled my mind, eager to know more.
He sighed against me. “I didn’t want her here either, unused to the expectation to have a young woman in my life and have to keep her safe.”
The guilt sounded loud and clear in his admission. And still, I refused to make the mistake of offering him empty platitudes that wouldn’t help anything.
“And now?” He huffed bitterly, holding me close.
“Now you look for her.” I closed my eyes at the agony in his voice. If I’d kept my eyes open, though, I would’ve been prepared for the guards rushing into the room. The sound of their footsteps on the marble floor startled me, though, and I jumped.
Opening my eyes, I flinched. Mikhail felt it, tightening his arms around me and turning as if to block me. We were in his building, behind protected walls. He wouldn’t have had a reason to need to block me and protect me. But that was how tense and jumpy he was, how skittish I was with the hellish day of waiting for news.
“We found her,” one told us, not fully stopping in a jog. As soon as those words were in the air, he backed up, resuming his rush but out of the room.
Mikhail gripped my hand. He released me only to steer me to go with him.
Running next to him, pulled along and into the danger, I tried to keep up.
I didn’t question him, not wanting to break his concentration as the two Orlov men relayed the news that had come in. I didn’t want to tug my fingers out of his grip, uninterested in being left behind.
