33
Polina
Gunfire drags me out of sleep before the shouting does.
I sit upright so fast my stomach rolls, and for one horrible second I have no idea where I am. Then the room comes back into focus. The guest suite. Kozlov compound.
Another burst cracks through the dark, closer this time.
I throw off the blanket, rush across the room, and snatch my robe off the chair. My pulse pounds as I tie it and move toward the door, but before I can reach it, someone pounds on the other side.
I yank it open, and Dmitri is on the other side, fully dressed and armed. He looks like he hasn’t blinked in an hour.
“What’s happening?” I demand.
“Morozov men hit the perimeter before dawn,” he explains, glancing at one of his men who runs past him. “We’re still clearing the house, but we pushed them back too easily. This wasn’t a full assault. It was a message.”
I don’t need him to explain whose message. Vadim knows where his son is. Worse, he’s willing to strike Kozlov territory to make a point.
I let out a slow breath. “What do you need?”
His face changes from cousin to pakhan in the span of a heartbeat. “Boris’s men brought in a few injured. More may come if Vadim sends a second wave. The garage is being cleared for triage.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
Dmitri nods once. “Good. Lock your door after me. Take the back stairs. They’ve been cleared. And Polina.”
I look up.
“Do not leave the main house unless I say so.”
He leaves before I can say anything else, and I shut the door hard enough to rattle the frame.
I pull on clean scrubs, a sweatshirt, and sneakers before I head out. The back stairs smell like coffee and gun oil. That alone tells me how bad things are.
Usually, the mornings here start with voices from the kitchen and somebody arguing over something petty. Today, the halls are full of men with their weapons drawn and barked orders. Every face I pass looks harder than it did yesterday. Nobody smiles. Nobody pretends we are not already in it.
When I reach the converted garage, Boris is standing near the roll-up door with a phone to his ear and dried blood on one sleeve. He sees me and jerks his chin toward the folding tables someone has set up down the middle of the room.
He ends the call and shoves the phone into his pocket. “Two with gunshot wounds already stabilized. One concussion. One broken wrist. Another took a knife to the thigh. We’ve got enough supplies for now, but if this turns into a longer day, I’ll need somebody on a run into town.”
I head for the nearest cabinet and start sorting gauze, antiseptic, sutures, and gloves. Thank God I took inventory of everything a few days ago. “Then let’s hope everyone behaves and stops getting stabbed.”
Boris snorts. “You’re in the wrong family for that.”
“That’s become clear.”
A young guard I recognize from the front gate sits on a folding chair with his forearm wrapped in a bloody towel. He tries to stand when he sees me.
“Don’t,” I tell him.
His mouth twitches. “You sound like Mila.”
“Then you should listen.”
He does.
Work settles me faster than anything else could. Not because the room is calm. It isn’t. Men keep coming in and out, boots thudding across concrete, voices carrying from outside, radios hissing from clipped belts. Somebody wheels in another table. Somebody else drags a box of bottled water across the floor. The whole compound has gone to war footing in less than an hour, and every person in this garage knows it.
