“How much blood?” Boris asks.
“Enough to follow without trying. It’s painting the snow all the way to the tree line.”
Boris turns to me, reads my arm, and makes the call. “Eduard, take three men and follow those tracks. Marat, hold the perimeter. He’s wounded and on a snowmobile in dense forest. He won’t get far on that thing before the trees force him off it.” He grabs my good shoulder. “You need a medic.”
“I need Bogdan.”
“You need to stop bleeding first. There’s a safehouse two kilometers east. Tony set it up as a fallback. We’ll regroup there.” His voice leaves no room for argument. “Eduard will track him. Bogdan is on foot in the snow with no coat, no vehicle, and no allies. He won’t get far.”
I want to argue. Every instinct I have is screaming to follow the tracks into the trees and finish what I started. But Boris is right. The blood running down my forearm is dripping off my fingertips, and my left hand is losing grip strength. If I chaseBogdan into the forest and pass out from blood loss, I become a liability.
“Fine,” I grit out. “Two kilometers. Then I’m back on comms.”
Boris keys his comms. “Grisha, scene is secure. Bring her up.”
Two minutes later, footsteps crunch across the clearing. Grisha is walking Daria toward the cabin with one hand on her arm, and when she spots me on the porch steps, she tears free of his grip and breaks into a sprint.
She slams into me before Grisha can catch up. “You’re bleeding,” she shrieks.
“It’s through-and-through. I’m fine.”
“You are not fine. Sit down.”
“Daria—”
“Sit. Down.”
I sit on the porch steps because arguing with her right now would take energy I don’t have. She strips my jacket off my left side and examines the wound with the focus of a woman who has cleaned up blood, though never under circumstances like these. Boris appears with a med kit and sets it beside her.
“Safehouse is two klicks east,” he tells her. “Can you drive?”
“Yes.”
“Take him. I’ll send Grisha with you as an escort. We’ll handle the rest here.”
The SUV is still running where we left it. Daria drives with white knuckles on the wheel, and I lean my head against the seat andpress a wadded field dressing against my arm. The safehouse is a hunting lodge tucked behind a ridge, stocked with supplies and a woodstove that someone has lit. Grisha clears the rooms, posts himself on the porch, and leaves us alone.
Daria sits me at the kitchen table and opens the med kit with trembling fingers. She peels the field dressing away and cleans the wound with antiseptic, and I watch her face while she works. Her jaw is locked tight. Her breathing is uneven. Every few seconds, she blinks hard and fast like she’s fighting something that wants to pull her under.
“What were you thinking?” I ask her.
She wraps the bandage around my biceps with hands that won’t stop trembling, pulling it snug and tucking the end the way I showed her weeks ago. “I heard the gunfire from the car, and I didn’t know if you were alive or dead for almost four minutes. Once it stopped, I took my chance to find out.”
She ties off the bandage and checks it once. Then, instead of pulling away, she drops her forehead to my shoulder and folds her body into mine. A sound comes out of her that is deeper than a sob. More primal. The sound of a woman who spent the worst four minutes of her life waiting for news that might have destroyed her.
I wrap my good arm around her back and hold her against me. Her breath comes out uneven against my neck, and I can feel her pulse hammering through every point where her body touches mine.
“I’m here,” I reassure into her hair. “I’m right here.” I tilt her chin up with my good hand. “Look at me. I’m right here.”
She kisses me then, smashing her mouth against mine like it’s the proof she needs to believe the bullet didn’t kill me. I taste salt on her mouth and know she’s been crying.
I try to pull back. “Daria, I’m bleeding?—”
“I don’t care.” She grabs a fistful of my shirt and drags me closer. “I need to feel you. I need to know you’re real.”
Her mouth finds mine again, and this time, I stop fighting it. She climbs onto my lap at the kitchen table and wraps both arms around my neck. My left arm protests, a bolt of white heat from shoulder to wrist, but I brace it against her hip and pull her tighter against me with my right.
“Tell me yes,” I breathe against her mouth.
