Page 173 of Cruel Demands

Nikita looks down. Then up at me. Her eyebrows rise. Mikhail follows everyone’s gaze. His entire face changes.

“Taylor,” Olga says again. “Your water broke.”

A small clear pool is spreading slowly across the dusty concrete beneath my shoes. “Oh.” I look back at Mikhail. For perhaps the first time since I met him, he looks completely unprepared for what comes next.

The doctor is already moving toward me. Mikhail reaches for my waist. The corridor beyond us is filling. Government officers. Hospital staff. Voices. Footsteps. We are out of time. I look at the men.

Another contraction begins. I breathe in slowly. Nikita rubs my back. This one doesn’t fade as quickly. “Taylor,” she whispers.

“I know.”

“You need to sit.”

“In a second.”

“You have a family to think about,” Olga reminds Mikhail coldly. “You should have considered that before killing him.”

“I did,” Mikhail says simply. I look over at him. His jaw his tight, his gaze fixed on Olga. “I did this for my family. I chose Taylor.”

My breath catches.

Mikhail doesn’t look at me, but Olga does. There’s accusation in her eyes, though perhaps she doesn’t mean it for me. I swallow hard.

“You think love makes you noble? It does not make you judge and executioner,” Olga says coldly to Mikhail.

“I was both long before I met her.”

The words settle heavily over the room.

“The ambulance bay is down the service hall,” I say behind Olga’s shoulder. Her head snaps up toward me. I nod once at Mikhail’s men.

Mikhail’s men have Orlov’s body off the chair now. One has him beneath the arms. Another has his legs.

Olga says only my name. “Taylor.”

“I know.”

“If that body leaves this hospital⁠—”

“I know,” I say. The men are waiting. I look toward the hallway. I know these corridors. I was dragged through them. Twice now. “Second left after the elevators.”

Nikita releases me. “I will show them.”

Mikhail looks at his mother. “Mama.”

“I know where it is.”

Olga stares at me. “You understand what you are doing?”

Another wave of pressure rolls through my stomach. I grab Mikhail’s arm. “Yes.” The word comes out through my teeth.

“Taylor,” the doctor says, “we need to move you.”

Orlov’s body disappears through the doorway. Olga watches it go. She does not draw her gun or open the door to the hallway and let police in. That is the answer.

I look back at her.

Olga says, “I am only delaying action because arresting him this minute would damage an active investigation, destabilize public programs, and warn men I have spent months trying to identify.” Mikhail says nothing. Olga steps closer. “When Orlov’s network is dismantled, I decide what happens to you next.”