40
After the gunshot, something heavy fell to the floor, but I couldn’t see anything beyond Vasilije, or the way he brought his hand up to his neck. Dark red blood slipped between his fingers.
“Nyet!” I screamed.
Or maybe it had been in English. I couldn’t think in a specific language at that point. I threw my hands up around his, squeezing with all the life in my body.
“Calm down,” he said, his tone pained. “I’m all right.” Only his face said otherwise, and he was bleeding like a sieve. I risked a quick glance away to see my father had a disgusting red hole in the side of his face. His glassy eyes were fixed on the ceiling.
Vasilije said he was okay, but I didn’t believe him, and when I took one hand off his, my palm was wet with blood. He slung an arm around my shoulders, keeping us together as I urged us out of the office, grabbed his gun off the table, and hurried toward the front door.
A booming sound came from above, and wood splinted right behind us. I jerked and yanked on Vasilije, pulling him faster than his sluggish legs could keep up. My stepmother was apparently a terrible shot, but we wouldn’t be as lucky with the next one.
I threw open the front door and ran straight into Filip’s chest. It took him a nanosecond to survey the situation, and Vasilije was pulled from my arms. We moved as a blur through the snow, shuffling to the already-running Lexus. I nearly tripped over the body of one of my father’s men. His blood stained the pristine snow in the front yard.
All three of us were squished in the back seat when the SUV launched forward.
It was chaos in the back seat as the vehicle careened through the icy streets, speeding toward the front gate and barreling through it.
“Keep pressure on it,” Filip ordered, although I wasn’t sure which one of us he was talking to. I clamped both of my hands down on top of Vasilije’s fingers. “Anyone following?”
“No,” John answered. The back end fishtailed on the entrance ramp to the expressway and made me queasy.
Filip got out his phone, and when I heard Amit’s name, I knew we weren’t going to a hospital. “I don’t think it’s an artery,” he said to whoever he was talking to, “but he’s losing a lot of blood.”
Every mile in the car, Vasilije turned a lighter shade of gray. His hand beneath mine began to go slack and his eyes dulled. I could tell he wasn’t all there, and it scared the shit out of me.
His head lolled toward me and I had to shift my grip on him. “Aren’t you happy?” he said slowly. “You did it. Why don’t you look happy?”
Because I was worried he was dying, and it was so un—fucking—fair, I wanted to scream. I was a bad person, but I’d only killed other bad people, so wasn’t I allowed to have this evil boy just a little longer?
He wasn’t coldblooded after all. It poured through my fingers, boiling hot. “I will be a lot happier when you’re not ruining the really expensive clothes you bought me.” I tried to sound strong, but wasn’t successful.
His blood was all over the back seat. At one point, John took a turn so hard I had to put a hand on the ceiling to brace myself, leaving a smeary mess. I expected Vasilije to groan about the resale value, but his eyes fluttered closed, and it sent my heartrate into overdrive.
“Vasilije!” I cried. “Don’t you dare leave me!”
The car pulled in, the top barely clearing the garage door as it rolled up, and as soon as we jerked to a stop and John disengaged the locks, Luka was there, yanking the back door open.
“How long has he been unconscious?” Addison asked.
“He’s been in and out the last few minutes,” I rushed out.
I was pushed out of the way as she took over and the men carried Vasilije inside, moving as a team toward the dining room, and he was set down on the long table.
I scanned for space for the short Indian man I needed to save his life. “Where’s Amit?”
“Two minutes out,” Filip answered.
Addison climbed onto the table, straddled Vasilije, and pressing both hands on his neck. He groaned in agony. “Fuck, Addison.”
“What’s your blood type?” she demanded. His eyes blinked and rolled, making her turn her gaze toward his brother. “Luka?”
“I . . . don’t know.”
My heart lurched. “Doesn’t matter. I’m O negative.”
Her focus flew to me. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” My second paternity test in America, when the pathologist had discovered I was O negative, she’d lectured me non-stop about how lucky I was to be a universal donor, and the gift I could give. I’d sat in the chair, feeling anything but lucky that Sergey Petrov was my father.
Headlights flashed through the front window, and Luka sprinted to the door.
Time decelerated.
I stood blood-soaked at the table beside Filip and Luka, watching as Addison and Amit worked to clamp the bleeding and stitch the wound closed. When Amit announced the bleed was stopped, Addison grabbed his medical bag and set her sights on me.
I sank down on the couch in the living room and pushed up my sleeve. She wasn’t yet a doctor, but she moved like this was the hundredth time she’d taken blood from me and not the first. After the prep, she slid the needle easily into my vein and set the line over the side of the couch so it could drip into a collection bag.
As she pulled off the rubber gloves, I grabbed her wrist with my free hand. “I need you to tell me he’s going to be okay.” She looked down at my fingers wrapped around her. My grip was ferocious. “He’s my . . .”
My partner? My muse? My . . . other half?
I couldn’t explain it, and went with something simple. “He’s mine.”
There was understanding in her expression as she set her hand on top of mine and squeezed gently. “He’s going to be a lot better with your help.”
“Thank you.” My voice was barely a whisper. I released her, and she left me, returning to assist Amit.
Would she ever know that Vasilije’s wound came from the same man who’d taken her family?
I sat alone in the living room and heard music in my head. A sweet adagio piece that could only be described as a love theme. If I got a chance, I’d write it and replace the Scherzo. It was a better representation of how I felt about him.
After Amit pulled the line from my arm, Luka appeared with a glass of water, a bag of pretzels he’d pulled from the pantry, and a wet washcloth. I scrubbed Vasilije’s blood from my skin as best I could while I told his brother the highlights of the night. I left the big things for Vasilije. I didn’t feel like it was my story to tell.
“He’s awake,” Addison said, appearing at the edge of the living room. “He’s asking for her.”
I was woozy as I got to my feet, but didn’t know if it was the blood loss, or the evening’s effect. Everything had changed.
My father was dead.
Goran Markovic was dead.
And if he survived, Vasilije Markovic would rise to power with me at his side.
He was still on the dining room table, but they’d brought in pillows and blankets, propping him up. He was shirtless, but his color was back. A white bandage was wrapped around his neck. Even in this state, he looked intimidating and like himself.
“You look like hell,” he said.
I wanted to smile, but couldn’t. “So do you.”
His voice was commanding. “Come here.”
I moved one foot, then the other, until I was beside the edge of the table. I was close enough I could touch him if I wanted to. His head swung away from me so he could gaze at the ladder on the other side of the table. An IV bag hung off the top with barely any of my blood left in it.
Vasilije gave me a fake scowl. “Luka said that’s Russian blood going in me.”
The tension in my body broke. It shattered into a billion pieces and I laughed, feeling twenty pounds lighter. He was going to be okay. Back to his regular asshole self.
“I like your laugh,” he said abruptly. “Maybe you’ll do it more often now.”
I shrugged. “Maybe I will.”
“And maybe I love you.”
My breath caught. “If you had a heart.”
“I do. It’s fucking pumping Russian blood through me right now.”
I leaned over the table, set a hand on his cheek, and whispered it just before I kissed him. “And now we’re really the same.”