Chapter Sixteen
Dimitri blinked in confusion as he tried to figure out where he was. It was dark. He seemed to be lying on something cold and hard. It actually felt a little damp. Lifting his hand, he attempted to rub his eyes. A shooting pain radiated from his shoulder, down his arm, and into his fingertips with such intensity that he thought his hand might actually pop off from the pressure.
His brain kicked into motion, spurred by a sudden burst of adrenaline. He had been in the field between the main house and Katya’s cottage. Anatoli had come. His brother had—his brother shot him. Moving his fingers, he searched for his phone. He would call someone, although he had no idea who he could call for help. It was possible that his other men had switched sides like Ivan had. He patted his pants pocket, but there was no phone. Gently touching the ground as best he could, Dimitri attempted to discover if it had simply slipped from his pocket after he passed out. It hadn’t. Great. He was out here half dead with no phone. This could take a bit of doing.
Experimentally moving his legs to see if they were still working, Dimitri decided the only thing that was really messed up was the shoulder. He blinked again to clear his vision. He was seeing spots. Another second and he realized that he was actually looking up at the hazy cover of stars barely visible above the glow of city lights. He was shivering with cold. Soon hypothermia would set in and he would have a real problem. He needed to get to Katya’s place.
Rolling to his uninjured side, Dimitri managed to get up on his knees. The monumental effort took almost every ounce of energy he had left. His head swam and his stomach heaved. Taking deep breaths helped. Putting his good hand beneath his thigh, he forced his leg to bend far enough to put a boot flat on the ground. Now he was kneeling on one side only. The trick was going to be getting all the way into a standing position.
He paused for a moment. His brain was having trouble focusing anyway. It kept returning to very pleasant thoughts of Toni. He remembered what she looked like in the shadows of his bedroom as he made love to her. He recalled her scent. Most of al he wondered if he would ever see her again. She’d gone without a word. That still confused and angered him, but now he could also acknowledge the hurt.
Dimitri moved his shoulder experimentally. The gouging intensity of pain suggested that the bullet had not gone through. That wasn’t good at all. He could still feel it inside, moving against the muscle and bone. The grating sensation made his stomach heave once again. He needed Dr. Poole. The man did plenty of work off the record for the mafiya men. Hospitals and regular doctors asked too many questions. But none of that mattered until he had made it all the way to Katya’s house.
***
Katya had taken the bus to a stop only a short distance from Dimitri’s property. Now she was creeping through the brush and trees that surrounded the exterior fence. She was trying to see the guardhouse. Being unfamiliar with all of Dimitri’s men, she had no way of knowing if the guy holding down the fort was Anatoli’s or Dimitri’s. And she refused to consider the possibility that Dimitri really was dead, which made all of the men Anatoli’s puppets.
Oddly enough, the little booth at the gate appeared to be empty. It was a bit of an ominous sight. She waited a moment, trying to decide if she was just missing something. Like maybe the guy was bending over, or he’d fallen asleep. Nobody ever appeared. She even picked up a stone and tossed it at the box. The little rock pinged of the bulletproof glass of the booth and nothing happened.
“Bad,” she whispered. “Very, very bad.”
Moving as silently as she could, Toni slipped through the little pedestrian opening near the gate and began jogging toward Katya’s cottage. It wasn’t far, but she kept to the trees in an effort to avoid any of Anatoli’s goons. She had no desire to try and convince some suspicious Russian enforcer that she was just here to pay a social call on Katya. She had a feeling that excuse would not be well received. Especially from her.
There were lights on at Katya’s. Toni hung about in the tangled brush and trees outside the cottage’s little clearing while she tried to see if there was anyone but Katya inside the house. She saw movement through the window, but realized that she was watching Katya load the dishwasher in the kitchen.
Heading across the clearing, Toni went up the back steps and knocked lightly at the door. Seconds later if flew open. Katya’s face was hopeful, but then fell when she saw it was Toni.
“What are you doing here?” The pregnant woman didn’t even bother to hide her disappointment.
“What happened to Dimitri?” Toni demanded. If Katya was going to dispense with politeness, so was Toni.
“I don’t know.” Katya’s expression was worried. “I was hoping you were him. There were shots earlier. Lots of them. All over the property. I haven’t heard anything since. I don’t know what’s going on. I know that Anatoli attempted to take over, and my brother kicked him off the property. He was so very angry.”
“I saw him—Anatoli,” Toni said, feeling as if she were drowning in horrible doubts. “He came to my uncles’ warehouse looking for me. He was pounding on the door. I was upstairs on the balcony watching the whole thing. Anatoli told the other men that they had to listen to him because Dimitri was dead.”
DIMITRI GAZED ACROSS the field. He tried to decide why it felt as if he was ten thousand yards away from Katya’s cottage. It couldn’t have been even a football field’s distance from where he was standing to his sister’s front door. In fact he should probably just take a moment to be thankful that he was actually on his feet. That had taken some real effort.
Now he needed to walk. He put one foot in front of the other. Staggering as if he was drunk, Dimitri began the trek to Katya’s cottage. He could see lights on and wondered if she even knew what was going on. Surely she’d heard something. Had Anatoli gone back to her place and declared himself the leader of the Alkaevs? Had he bragged to Katya that he had killed their older brother? Somehow Dimitri didn’t believe that Anatoli would be that stupid. Katya would have been very angry. She might not have been on Anatoli’s side. Would his brother hurt their baby sister?
The thought made Dimitri move faster. He had to get to Katya. He had to get help. And then he needed to find Toni. He couldn’t help but think that this whole crazy situation only proved to him that their lives were strangely intertwined.
He heard voices. They were definitely not male. The tones were soft, the words almost lilting and the speech patterns familiar. His muddled brain couldn’t decide if they were speaking English or Russian. Did it matter? He wobbled a little and stopped walking in order to regain his balance.
Where was he going again? Dimitri tried to remember, but his head was filled with sawdust. He’d never thought about it before, but now he realized that it was actually possible to feel his blood pressure dropping. It was such an odd sensation. He stared at the ground. Confusion made him lightheaded. Or was he confused because he was lightheaded. It was such an odd question to mull over in his mind.
“Dimitri?” someone said. “Oh my God! He’s bleeding.”
Yes. He realized that he had started bleeding again. He could feel the stickiness dripping down his arm and pooling in the palm of his hand before following his fingertips to the ground. It was such an odd sensation. Really. He balled up his fist and heard the blood made a wet noise as he clenched his fingers. Why was blood so sticky anyway? When he reopened his hand it was like his fingers were stuck together.
Two sets of soft, warm hands took hold of his arms. He caught the familiar scent of his sister’s perfume, but there was something else too. It was light and feminine and he remembered it in a way that brought him incredible satisfaction and joy.
“Toni,” he murmured.
“I’ve got you,” she told him. “Just try to keep walking. We’ll get you back to the house.”
She’d come back. It was the thought that kept cycling through his head over and over again.
TONI TRIED NOT to panic, but Dimitri’s behavior was freaking her out. He was so out of it that he could barely stay on his feet. She couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to make it this far, even though she had no notion of how far he’d come. Katya had only had the barest idea of where the gunshots had come from in reference to her house. She’d been in the bathroom at the time, which didn’t help her in pinpointing the location with any accuracy.
“Can you get him up the…” Toni grunted. “There! At least we’ve got one foot on the steps.”
Katya panted. “I’m just glad there’s only three steps up to the porch. He weighs a ton!”
“Do you know who we can trust?” This worried Toni more than anything else. “To treat him I mean. We can’t just take him to the hospital. They’d call the cops. And what if Dr. Poole is on Anatoli’s side.”
“I don’t think Anatoli’s been boss long enough to have a side,” Katya said irritably. “My brother is an idiot.”
“Which one,” Toni muttered. “How did Dimitri manage to get himself shot in the middle of a freaking field? Seriously!”
“He left here on foot, that’s all I know,” Katya explained. “He must have been standing out there. You know him. He does that sometimes.”
“Yeah.” Toni thought about the walks she’d taken with Dimitri. He enjoyed being outside and looking up at the sky. “He does like to watch a sunset.”
“It would be almost too easy for Anatoli to ambush him like that.” Katya sounded sad.
Toni took a deep breath and then heaved Dimitri up another step. He pitched forward with the effort of moving his own body, and nearly face planted on the porch. Toni tried to take most of the weight. She didn’t want the poor pregnant girl getting herself injured or accidentally starting her labor early because of this.
“Dimitri, sweetheart,” Toni coaxed. “Please try to walk. Okay?”
“I’m not walking?” He slurred his words like a drunk.
Katya let out a strangled sob. “He’s lost so much blood! Listen to him!”
“Yeah, but he got this far, right?” Toni said, trying to be positive. Most people would have quit back there in the grass.”
Dimitri finally stumbled onto the porch from the stairs. Toni braced his weight on her shoulder. “Get the door. I’ve got him.”
“Okay.” Katya pulled it open. “Can you walk him through?”
“Dimitri!” Toni snapped. “Move! Come on. Walk!”
He picked up his feet and moved them with exaggerated motions. He was bleeding worse than ever. She and Katya had awkwardly tied Katya’s sweater around his injured shoulder, but that wasn’t doing much. With Toni’s luck, he was going to bleed out before they could get the doctor here.
“Go call Dr. Poole,” Toni ordered.
“Are you sure? What if he isn’t on Dimitri’s side?”
“The guy does medical for almost all of the mafiya. He can’t possibly take sides if he can manage to stay alive doing that. Besides, we have no choice. It’s either that or Dimitri dies.”