Page 169 of Cruel Demands

I drop the tie beside his body. “Where is my family?”

44

TAYLOR

The men find us before the guards can get us to the ambulance level. One moment, Nikita and I are being pushed down another empty corridor, the first man holding a blood-soaked hand over his broken nose while the second keeps his gun pressed into Nikita’s side. The next, someone shouts from behind us.

The man holding Nikita turns. I know the voice before I know the face. “Down!”

Nikita drops faster than I expect her to. I don’t. A hand catches the back of my dress and yanks me sideways just as the corridor erupts with shouting. I hit the wall shoulder-first and throw both arms around my stomach. Someone fires. The sound inside the narrow hallway is enormous.

The man with the broken nose runs. The other doesn’t get the chance. Two of Mikhail’s men are on him before I understand what’s happening. One knocks the gun from his hand. The other drives him face-first into the wall.

“Tie him,” someone says. I recognize Arkady when he reaches me. His eyes go immediately to my stomach. “Taylor?”

“I’m okay.” He looks at the blood on my leg. “It isn’t mine.”

Nikita straightens beside me, one hand pressed to her temple. There’s blood in her hair now. I hadn’t noticed it before.

“Mama,” Arkady says.

“I am not your mother.”

“You are currently everybody’s mother.”

She waves him away and reaches for me instead. Another tightening moves across my stomach. I stop breathing. It starts low and pulls slowly around my middle until my entire stomach feels hard beneath my hands.

Nikita notices. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

Another one of Mikhail’s men approaches. “We have to move. The public corridors are filling.”

Arkady touches his radio. “Pakhan, we have them.” The word is loud enough that everyone in the corridor hears it. Nobody reacts. That seems worse. Arkady looks me over once more, then speaks into the radio. “Alive. Nikita too. Taylor has injuries to her knee.”

I touch my knee. I had forgotten about it. “It isn’t my blood,” I squeak, my voice barely registering, but he doesn’t hear me.

“The baby?” Mikhail’s voice comes back.

Arkady looks at me. “Unknown.”

“Bring them to me. Bring a doctor with them.”

“Yes, Pakhan,” Arkady says calmly.

Nikita mutters something in Russian under her breath.

“What?” I mutter, breathing through the cramping low in my pelvis.

“I said your boyfriend has excellent timing.”

“He is not my boyfriend,” I say. Arkady looks at me. I glare at him. “Not now.” He wisely says nothing.

We start moving. The hospital is no longer empty. Whatever control Orlov’s men had over the private corridors is collapsing by the second. Nurses hurry past us in groups. A hospital administrator is shouting at two armed men that this is still a functioning medical facility. Government security officers are appearing at intersections. Somewhere farther away, people are yelling questions.

Reporters. I can hear them even before I see the cameras.

“What happened?”