The front of the house gave a sound. A door, men's boots on stone, the bolt on the inner door sliding back. Sienna's eyes moved to mine.
We were already standing when they walked in.
Mikhail came first, his coat half off one shoulder, hair stuck to his temple, a cut along his eyebrow that had clotted but not closed. He wore the smile he used when he wanted no one to fuss. He was not pulling it off. Behind him, Daniil. His left cheekbone was going purple under the skin. His lip was split at the corner and still wet. His jacket was torn at the elbow, the wool gaping in a way that turned my stomach because I knew what kind of fall did that. His right hand hung at his side, knuckles raw and shining.
I did not feel my legs move. I was just suddenly closer to him.
"What happened?"
Mikhail blew out a breath, dragging his palm down his face. "We should have done it quietly. Someone knew our plan." Another breath, harder. "Fuck the traitor inside."
Daniil's gray-green eyes stayed on me. He kept his voice low, for me, not for the room.
"It is just bruises. Nothing worse."
I nodded once. I could not trust the rest of my face yet.
"Come on. Your room, so I can patch you up." I made myself look at the other two. "Night. Both of you."
Sienna squeezed my elbow as I passed. Mikhail caught Daniil's shoulder for one beat, brother to brother, the kind of touch that said the rest later.
I closed the door of Daniil's room behind us and the world got smaller.
He sat at the edge of the bed without being told, the way a man sits when he has been hit enough times to know the order of things. He shrugged the torn jacket off one shoulder and then the other and let it fall behind him on the mattress. The shirt underneath had a smear at the collar that was either his blood or someone else's. I did not ask. I went to the bathroom and came back with the first-aid kit and a clean cloth wrapped around a handful of ice from the bar fridge.
I knelt in front of him.
My hands did the work. Antiseptic on a cotton pad, then onto the split lip, my fingertip steadying his chin. He did not flinch. My own breath went shallow at the tiny twitch in his jaw when the sting hit. I pressed a butterfly closure over the cut at his cheekbone, smoothing the edges with my thumb so it would hold. The bruise under it was already deepening, blue blooming along the bone. I lifted his right hand into my lap and laid thecold cloth over the knuckles, and his fingers curled half around mine like he was the one steadying me.
The old scar on his left index knuckle caught the lamplight, pale and familiar. I touched it without meaning to. It was the only hurt of his I had ever made peace with.
"Do not worry so much, Chloe."
Something inside me, something I had been holding shut for two hours, gave.
The first tear was quiet. The second was not. I bent my head over his hand so he would not see, and then I gave up on hiding it.
"How am I supposed to not worry? You're hurt. Why won't you be more careful with yourself?"
"I am sorry."
That made it worse. I lifted my face to him because I needed him to see it, all of it, the wet on my cheeks and the rest.
"Don't be sorry. Be careful. I'm scared, Daniil. I am not doing three months ago again. I wake up every morning and the first thing I have to check is whether you're still here. I can't lose you twice."
He moved. He did not stand, he just hauled me up against him by the backs of my arms, and his good hand went into my hair and held my head to his shoulder hard enough to hurt a little. It was not gentle. It was the way he held a thing he had decided was his.
"I promise you. They will not put a hand on me again."
I believed him because I needed to.
He shifted us back onto the bed and pulled the blanket over both of us without letting go. We lay like that, my ear flat against the side of his chest, his palm at the nape of my neck, his thumb tracing slow along my hairline. His heartbeat was steadier than mine. After a minute mine started to match it.
The lamp on the nightstand made the room small and gold.
"Did you know we had a fight before you disappeared?"
His thumb paused, then kept moving. He did not answer. He was waiting.
