Page 192 of Dark King Daddy

He folded the cloth over my palm. I sucked in a breath as he closed his hand around mine.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

His voice was rough. He kept checking my face, then looking down at my hand, as though there might be another injury he hadn’t found yet.

“Anywhere else?”

“My knees. The car—when we crashed.”

“Your head?”

“I don’t know.”

I hated the answer. I tried to remember the collision properly, to put it in order. The truck, the sound, Boris’s voice. My head against something. Had that been before the gunfire or after?

“I don’t know,” I said again, and this time I sounded frightened.

Daniil kissed my forehead.

“All right. The doctor will check.”

“Teterboro?” Nikita asked.

“Straight there.”

The traffic lights ahead turned red. Nikita braked, and I gripped Daniil’s shirt so hard my fingers cramped.

A white delivery van stopped alongside us.

I couldn’t look away from it. The driver leaned towards his window, staring at our shattered rear glass. I watched his hands. I waited for the door to open.

“Ksyusha.”

Daniil shifted, putting himself between me and the window.

“Look at me.”

I tried. My eyes kept going back to the van.

“I can see him,” he said. “Nikita can see him. You don’t have to watch him.”

The light changed. We moved. The van fell behind.

I put my face against Daniil’s neck. He smelled of sweat and the cologne I had kissed off his skin that morning. I knew that smell. I tried to breathe it in instead of the cold air and gun smoke.

His phone rang.

He took it from his pocket without letting go of my hand and put it on speaker.

“Arkady.”

“We have Kostya. Alive.”

I lifted my head.

“Anton?” I asked before Daniil could speak.

There was a pause. Then my brother’s voice, further from the phone.