Anya and I had just been talking about how quiet and peaceful it was on the back garden patio after lunch when too much commotion sounded from inside the main floor.
“What is going on?” Anya asked, jumping to her feet.
I stood quickly, too. Instantly alarmed, I put my arm out and barricaded her. Scanning the patio space and then squinting to see inside, I was frantic to find the source of danger.
It wasn’t supposed to be dangerous here. Too many guards were all over the place, patrolling and keeping invaders out. Now fully aware of how Anya had been taken from here, though, I knew better than to ever assume the impossible couldn’t happen.
“I don’t know.” I backed her up toward the door that would give her the clearest and fastest route up to her room. “But you need to go. Go to your room and hide. Wait for me or Mikhail to come and tell you that the coast is clear and?—”
“What?” She dropped her jaw, scared now.
I was the adult. I had to be the one to take charge, and keeping her safe was paramount.
“You need to come hide with me!”
Shaking my head, I urged her to back up and go. I’d watch her back.
As soon as we entered the main open space of this floor, though, Sergei frowned at us as he approached. “What’s wrong?”
Anya and I shared a look. “That’s what we want to know,” I said.
At least he looks calm…
“We were sitting out there,” Anya said, pointing.
The fear in her voice sliced at my heart. Maybe it was time for me to suggest to Mikhail that we both go through some training, to learn how to defend ourselves or shoot.
“And then we heard all this shouting and everything,” I added, scanning the room. Once I landed my focus back on him, I furrowed my brow. “You’re bleeding.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah.”
Herolled his eyes. I knew these men were tough, but… “Sergei!” I steered him toward the nearest couch. “You’re bleeding out.”
“I hope I’m not,” he admitted candidly. “Anya, do you think you could go get one of the first aid kits this wonderful doctor has insisted upon having throughout this house?”
I shot him a firm look. “What happened?”
Anya didn’t move. “Is it… safe?”
Sergei nodded, moving with me to get his suit sleeve off and then his shirt. It looked like the gash through the fabric lined up with the wound. “Yeah, it’s fine.”
More shouting sounded in the distance, contradicting him.
“We got into a little bit of a scuffle,” he admitted. Now instead of rolling his eyes at being wounded, he almost smiled. As if he were proud.
I winced, doing my best to acclimate and not judge.
I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know…
Proverbially keeping my head in the sand was getting old, though. The more I confronted my fear of violence and helped out, I got quicker and better at reasoning with myself that this was just the way things were.
“No one’s breaking in,” he added with a glance at me.
“Anya, he needs to be stitched up,” I told her, assessing the deep wound. Pressing the pure-white pillow that happened to be on this sofa on it wasn’t the most sanitary compression. Nor was it right. This little thing probably cost a fortune, but it was all I had on hand. “Can you please get the closest kit?” She would know where they were. When I told Mikhail I wanted to be prepared for any emergencies, he gave me unlimited funds to stock up inthe building. Anya had made it a project with me to find places for all the kits.
She scurried off, seeming to trust my assumption that Sergei was right, that it was safe here.
“Claire, before I forget and since it’s not often I can talk to you privately,” Sergei said once Anya was out of earshot, “I wanted to ask you something.”
