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“Galina. Look at me.”
She does, though I get the sense she wants to go back to tenderly fixing me up.
I search her face, trying to make sense of where her head is. “I’m sorry I couldn’t bring your mother home.”
Her brows make perfect little arches, her mouth going slack. “Arsen. I’m just relieved you’re alive. I just …” She frowns, hanging her head so her hair covers her face. “I can’t lose you too.”
“You won’t,” I reply grimly. My men were murdered. “But the fact that the police were there means we have bigger problems.” I jump, startled, as she packs gauze into the bullet hole, patching it until the doctor can handle it. “Yevgeniy found the upper hand. It was a trap.”
“Madison.” Her face contorts with regret. She’s reliving her part in allowing Madison to get close enough to nearly kill me. “He sent Madison knowing that she’d say the right things to get us to act.”
“Yes,” I agree. “He planned this from the start.”
“He couldn’t have known you’d spare her.”
“He knew you would.” I adjust in the chair, going rigid as pain shoots through my body. Galina squeezes my knee with worry; I give her a reassuring smile.
“We have to tell Josh about this.”
I nod in agreement. “Yes. For all we know, the cops are already on Yevgeniy’s payroll.”
“I’ll get my phone.” She half rises, eager to jump to the next step. Galina wants to put the fact that I nearly died on the cold, dark street tonight as far behind her as possible. But the mind doesn’t work like that. Running from our mortality won’t help us take big, full breaths the next time danger comes around. If anything, it will make her more skittish than ever.
Before she gets away, I stand up, wrapping my hands around the smooth skin of her forearm. “Wait.”
She turns, ready to reprimand me for standing when I’m hurt. I keep pulling until she stumbles against me. When she lands in the chair, off balance, it jolts me with enough pain to leave me silent.
Luckily, I don’t need my voice to kiss her.
Galina stiffens, but soon, she melts into my embrace. Her clothes will be stained by my blood, but neither of us cares. People are watching; we don’t care about that either.
“When I was out there,” I whisper against her lips, “standing in front of the police with their weapons drawn, I was terrified.”
“Who wouldn’t be scared of dying?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“It wasn’t death I feared.” Stroking each cheek in turn, I rub my mouth across hers with a shudder. “I was afraid that I’d never see you again.”
Her arms circle my hair, my throat, my shoulders. She wants to touch every inch of me as if to confirm I’m not a ghost. I lift her arm, kissing the sensitive skin inside her wrist. She smiles until she notices the prayer beads she wears are stained red from my blood. “Oh no.”
“It’s fine.” I study the beads before plucking them carefully off her wrist. “Let me wash them. I’ll return them tonight.”
“At this rate,” Dr. Helsan grunts, appearing behind Galina, “you’ll be in the hospital from sepsis before you’re in your own bed. Let me get that damn bullet out.”
Galina smiles with chagrin, moving away so he can get close with his bag of tools. Her eyes remain on me as she backs away, as if she’s worried that I’ll vanish if she loses her line of sight.
Fingering the prayer beads, I consider them for a long moment.
Yes. I know exactly how she feels.
20
GALINA
It’s bright outside, and oddly sunny for winter. The glare through the car’s windshield blinds me at certain angles. Arsen’s sunglasses make it hard to catch the way his eyes skirt toward me before returning to the road.
“Where are we going?”
