Page 54 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

My stomach tightens so hard, I almost bend. Karpov. I hear his voice again in my head, calm, careful, talking about status and recognition and what other houses might do if Maksim didn’t act first. He didn’t sound reckless then. He sounded practical. That’s the ugly part.

“And find the security chief,” Maksim adds, his voice turning harder. “Alive, if he’s smart enough to surrender.”

Dima’s jaw sets. “Understood.”

Maksim turns to another man, his hand still holding mine. “Ilya.”

“Here.”

“Hold the outer roads. No one leaves this zone without my say.”

“Got it.”

The driver is already at the wheel, engine running, one hand on the gear shift. The headlights catch the wrecked cars, the bodies, and the blood on the gravel. Karpov’s man lies crumpled near the rear tire, the tablet he carried shattered beside him, its screen dark. I look away before I see more.

Maksim keeps his hand at my waist as he moves me toward the car, and I let him because arguing takes more strength than I have right now.

“Can you walk?” he asks.

“Yes.” I nod my head. The answer comes out too fast, and his mouth tightens because he hears the lie in it.

“I asked if you can walk,” he says, “not if your pride wants to.”

“I can walk.”

“Then walk with me.”

He takes my elbow and slows his steps to match mine. The coat slips off one shoulder. He fixes it without looking down. The simple care almost undoes me. I make it three steps before my knees dip. His grip tightens right away, firm enough to catch me and controlled enough not to hurt.

“Breathe,” he says.

“I’m breathing,” I say, but my voice comes out hoarse.

The back door is already open. I lower myself into the seat, biting the inside of my cheek when my ribs pull.

“Badly,” he says, then braces one hand at my waist and helps me settle.

He fixes his coat around my shoulders, then reaches across me and draws the seat belt over my body.

His eyes flick to mine. “You’re safe in this car,” he says.

I look at him. Blood on his knuckles. Dirt on his shirt. His jaw locked, his eyes hard, his control held in place because I’m within reach now and alive. I could be afraid of him, but right now I’m afraid of everything outside this car.

“I know,” I say, and my throat closes around it.

He nods once, then gets in beside me and shuts the door. Another man slides into the front seat, and the car pulls out.

I lift my head off the seat and turn toward him. “Where are we going?”

Maksim sits beside me with one arm set behind my shoulders, his other hand braced along the back of the seat, holding me steady as the car takes the turn. “We’re not going back.” That’s all I get.

The man in the front glances over his shoulder, waiting.

“Take the river road,” Maksim says. “Call ahead to the second house. I want Irina there and two outside, no one else.”

“Yes, Pakhan.”

Morning starts to break across the sky, dull light spreading over shuttered gas stations and wet pavement where the frost has started to give. The road bends along the water and the buildings thin out into long stretches of trees as the city drops away.