She steps back, clearing her throat. When she speaks again, all the warmth is gone. “I’ll arrange your transport back to Moscow. Go back home and don’t look back.”
“Take her to the plane,” Marina orders her soldiers. “The others we bring back to the compound.”
“No fucking way,” Kirill snarls, stepping forward.
When one of the soldiers grabs my arm, Kirill twists the man’s wrist back hard enough to break the grip, spins him around, and yanks a knife from his back waistband, pressing the blade against the soldier’s throat. “You don’t touch her. Ever.”
Every weapon in the room swings toward us. Katya makes a strangled sound beside me.
He stares them down, his hand steady as a rock. “Anyone who moves toward her dies. Starting with him.”
Marina watches with detached interest, as if waiting to see how this is going to play out.
Out of the corner of my eye I catch movement—another soldier raising his rifle, barrel aimed straight at Kirill’s chest.
Cold realization hits me hard. This man is about to shoot him. He’s about to kill the man I love.
The man I want to call my husband for the rest of my life.
There’s no conscious thought as I throw myself forward, launching my body in front of Kirill as a shot cracks through the air.
Fire explodes in my side, white-hot and all-consuming. My legs give out and I’m falling. Kirill catches me halfway down, his arms wrapping around me as we hit the concrete together.
“Dinara!” His voice is raw, panicked. “Stay with me. Please.”
But the darkness is already pulling me under. The last thing I hear is my mother screaming my name.
CHAPTER
FIFTY
DINARA
Pain haulsme back to consciousness like a riptide, dragging me under and spitting me out gasping. Everything hurts. My side is on fire, my head feels stuffed with cotton, and I can’t quite piece together where I am or what’s happening.
The world is moving. I’m lying across something soft, my head pillowed on fabric that smells expensive and floral. An engine hums beneath me, tires eating up asphalt fast enough that I can feel the vibration in my bones.
I try to open my eyes but my lids feel like they’re weighted down. When I finally manage to crack them open, everything’s blurred, shadows and light bleeding together in ways that don’t make sense.
But even through the fog, only one thought stands out.
“Kirill.” My voice comes out desperate, raw with fear. “Where is he? Is he okay?”
“I’m right here, milaya.” His voice comes from somewhere close, rough and wrecked. “You took a fucking bullet for me. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to die saving me. Never.”
I want to tell him I’d do it again without hesitation, that watching him die would destroy me worse than any wound, but I can’t make my mouth form the words.
“She’s losing too much blood.” Another voice cuts in, trembling with emotion I’ve never heard from her before. It takes me a second to recognize it as Marina.
“Five minutes.” Kirill. Of course he’s the one driving—even now, even with me bleeding out in the back seat, he wouldn’t trust anyone else behind the wheel.
A weak laugh tries to escape my chest but it comes out as more of a whimper.
“Five minutes is too long.” Marina’s voice cracks hard.
I force my eyes open and the world swims into fractured focus. I’m lying across seats, my head cradled in Marina’s lap. Her white suit is ruined, soaked dark with my blood, and when I tilt my head just enough to see her face, I catch the shimmer of tears tracking down her cheeks even though her jaw is set like stone.
“Mama,” I whisper, the word I haven’t said since I was six years old.
