I had nothing to help me.
But as I kept walking and spotted a cop car parked at the curb, I nodded to myself and knew I had to stop thinking this wouldn’t work. The police were here to help civilians, to be everyday heroes.
“Help. Please help.” I ran up to the officer standing outside the car.
“Whoa, Lady. What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
He looked like a normal man. An officer in uniform. His partner strolled to us as I tried to explain that I needed help. Not wanting to drag the Orlov name into this, I tried to instead explain that my colleague had been beaten by Mafia men. That we needed a detective. An investigation. Something. This lawlessness couldn’t be right.
One jotted notes on a small pad. The other watched me closely, his brows pinched.
“You said Harroun?”
I nodded. “Dr. Jack Harroun. These mobsters beat him and he’s hiding in the hospital’s break room.” I winced. I wasn’t looking for helpforhim. I just needed to talk to the highest-ranking person of authority that I could about my apartment being destroyed and how men were searching for me. Implicating anything Mikhail said or did wasn’t feasible. I still wanted to protect him, but I exhaled in relief when the cops urged me to calm down.
“We can take you to the station. We’ll help you,” one said.
“Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I climbed into the backseat, ignoring how much I felt like a traitor to go to the standard members of law enforcement. It seemed like I was defying Mikhail, but on the short ride to the station, I reminded myself that he wasn’t my boss. He wasn’t my overlord.
When we arrived, the cops opened the door for me and ushered me out. Just before we reached the doors to the side, the second officer slapped a cuff on me.
“Hey!” I tugged to get free to no avail. “What are you doing? What the fuck is?—”
“Shut up, Doc,” he snarled, urging me forward through a hallway. Cells soon lined the space, and anxiety lit up like a fire inside me.
They were cuffing me?
Arresting me?
Weren’t they going tohelp? Dragging my feet and protesting, I tried to deny that I’d entered a Twilight Zone.
“It’s about time you give it a rest, being that fucking Orlov’s little girlfriend, huh?” the first cop taunted.
Oh,fuck!
They knew who I was. I bet as soon as I gave them my name, they knew. Because all at once, and much too late, Mikhail’s bitter words came back to me.
“The Popovs have half of them on their fucking bankroll, Claire.”
They weren’t standard members of law enforcement. They were with the enemies. With Mikhail’s enemies, those thugs who’d wanted me dead when I didn’t tell them where Sergei was in surgery so they could kill him.
“Let me go!”
“Not so fast,” the second one said. “We’ve got a couple of friends here who aren’t doing so well.”
He shoved me into a stall where two Russian thugs were lying on the floor, bleeding and moaning in pain.
“Fix them up, Doc.” The second one thrust a medical first-aid kit through the slats of the cell.
“I—What? No. I can’t just?—”
“Fix them up, Doc. As a favor, huh?” The first cop snickered as he got his phone out. “I’ll tell the Boss we got some help now.”
I gripped the bars of the cell, stunned but snapping to the need to fight back. This was insane. This was ironic to the most bullshit degree that existed. How could I have run from Mikhail tothissituation? “No! I’m not helping anyone like this. You can’t make me?—”
“Sew them up, bitch,” the second cop said. “Or else.”
I trembled, backing away from the locked door. The cuff dragged heavily in my hand as I glanced at the fallen Mafia men. Not Orlovs. Not the guards and soldiers I was familiar with at Mikhail’s building.
