“Yes, Boss.” Dmitri flashes me his shit-eating grin, and I do roll my eyes this time. “Say hello to the twins for me.”
I send a wave over my shoulder. “Just make sure you get home to do it yourself.”
“When I get tired of the nurses, Boss.” His voice follows me out the door.
The big, black SUV pulls up to the curb as I step outside. I can’t see anything through the ultra-tinted windows, but my entire body knows who’s inside. I feel Eva’s pull like a magnet, like the pull of the tide, just as inexorable, just as unchanging.
A Kucherov man comes around the side of the SUV, giving me a nod of acknowledgment, and opens the door to help Eva down. She grips the door and his hand as she navigates the big step down from the SUV with her awkward, pregnant body.
She gives me a tired smile as I step up and take her into my arms, grateful simply to have her there again. I am always aware of how close I came to losing this great joy in my life, to losing Eva and the twins.
Letting Eva out of my sight that horrible night had been one of the most challenging things I’d ever done. But Dmitri needed help.Ineeded help. And I’d hoped someone could help Vasya, though I had shot to kill.
The EMT crews had found us all minutes later, splitting off to attend to Dmitri and then me as I knelt there, still holding on to Vasya’s hands as they lost their warmth. With their help, I made it to the front of the estate and to Eva, who flew into my arms as soon as she saw me.
My brave wife, who had kept it together through the entire ordeal, through the EMTs seeing to my wounds, until we had seen Dmitri alive, at least, and off to the hospital. Until first, the fire captain and then the police detained us for preliminary questions as the fire crews finally beat back the blaze that had been my estate.
That’s when Eva disappeared, and I only found her again in the back of an ambulance after a frantic search of the rescue vehicles that had turned the street into a parking lot.
“What’s wrong with her?” I’d demanded.
“She needs to be checked out,” the female EMT replied, calm and measured. She ignored the anxious bite to my tone as she moved around my wife with the ease of experience. “Miss, I need you to look at me and breathe.”
Eva’s eyes focused on the EMT as the woman searched her face, gloved hands tracing scratches and bruises and the still-healing scar on her forehead. Her partner responded to the clinical terms that left her mouth calmly as she continued the inspection.
“Can you tell me what happened? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I—” Eva stuttered, her eyes flicking from the EMT to the ambulance wall to the floor and back in an unnatural way that I didn’t like. “I, uh, sorry, what?”
“Are you hurt anywhere? Can you tell me what’s going on? What happened?” The EMT tried to catch Eva’s gaze.
“I, uh…”
The EMT put her gloved hands on either side of Eva’s face, finally drawing her attention. “I need you to breathe, okay? You’re safe. Take deep breaths and relax.”
Eva did as instructed, her shoulders rising and falling with the effort.
“Can you tell me what happened?” the EMT repeated for the third time.
“I, uh, I think the door hit me in the nose…” Eva stammered, gesturing to her face. “It, uh, hurts, and there was blood…”
I could see the bruises setting in under her eyes, though Eva’s nose wasn’t misshapen.
“You look like you’re bleeding here.” The EMT pointed to the blood on Eva’s shirt.
My wife blinked as though it was her first time seeing it. “That’s, uh, not mine.”
And then her face crumpled as she no doubt realized it was Dmitri’s. Or Vasya’s. Or both.
“Miss, I need you to take a deep breath. You’re safe. I need you to be calm.”
Eva nodded, her lower lip quivering as she took a shaky breath, then another. The only thing I wanted to do was take her into my arms and never let her go, to protect her from the rest of the world so no one could touch her, including the EMTs.
But they needed to make sure she was okay.Ineeded to know she was okay.
“I’m going to put this on your finger, okay? It’ll check your pulse and oxygen, and then I’ll check out the rest of you. How many weeks are you?”
“I, uh…” Hovering between tears and breathing, Eva looked down at the swell of her stomach. “I…”
