"You fucking bitch!"
Behind me came his furious roar and the sound of him struggling to free his leg.
I cleared the corner in under five seconds. Thank you, adrenaline.
But I didn't stop. Didn't even dare breathe too loud. This wasn't over. I'd been ambushed—the rest of the staff had no idea what was happening.
I had to find Olga. Get her somewhere safe. Then figure out how to evacuate the other patients and workers—
"Harper?"
A sharp, distinctly annoyed voice cut through my thoughts.
I jerked my head up and saw her.
Olga stood in the middle of the hallway wearing her lavender velvet robe, silver curls pinned immaculately in place. She gripped a cane with a silver handle, but judging by how she stood, it was more accessory than support.
"I've been looking for you for half an hour." Her critical gaze traveled over her gold-rimmed glasses and landed on my disheveled face. "You know how much I hate waiting. I told you—three o'clock is my tea time. And you—"
She stopped. Her eyes swept over my tangled hair, the cold sweat on my face, the torn corner of my scrub collar.
Looking at that sharp face, I felt an absurd urge to cry.
"Olga..." I rushed over and grabbed her arm. Normally, I'd never dare—it guaranteed getting whacked with her cane. "Quick, we need to hide. There's someone out there with a gun. They're lookingfor you!"
Olga stayed eerily calm. She just frowned slightly, like she'd heard about an inconvenient but expected problem.
"Looking for me?" She repeated the words, her tone disturbingly flat. "Well then. We should find somewhere to hide."
I froze. How could she be this calm? This wasn't how normal old ladies reacted.
"Madam Olga, who... who are you really?"
"No time for that," Olga cut me off. "If you want to live, do what I say."
She suddenly clamped her hand around my wrist—her grip shockingly strong—and spun around with movements so sharp I doubted the "78" on her file was real.
"How many are out there?" she asked, pulling me swiftly toward the stairs.
"I don't know. I only saw one, but he was talking to others on his radio," I stumbled after her, feeling like the world had flipped upside down. "Definitely more than just him."
"Dammit," Olga muttered something in Russian I didn't fully catch, but the venom in her tone sent chills down my spine. "This is why I told Kirill not to push the business too hard. These Italian bastards are like cockroaches—can't kill them, can't get rid of them."
My brain short-circuited.
Kirill? She was talking about Kirill?
The man I'd been crushing on for three months. I thought he was just well-off, maybe a lawyer or businessman—that's why I'd dared to make that Valentine's card, dared to imagine maybe we had a chance.
But now... "push the business too hard"? "Italian bastards"? Those words belonged in movies—mafia, gunfights, drugs.
Jesus Christ, this wasn't my world. I was just a caregiver trying to save up for my brother's surgery and work a quiet Valentine's Day shift. If I'd known Kirill was involved in this kind of thing, I never would have—
"You fucking bitch—!"
A roar cut off my thoughts.
Heavy footsteps thundered down the hall. The man had freed himself from the trap and brought backup.
