“Kotyonok, stay with me,” I whisper against her hair.
Her eyes flutter open and focus on my face with effort. “Dmitri?”
“I’m here. You’re safe now.”
The relief in her voice when she says my name breaks through the anger, if only slightly. After everything that happened between us today, she still sounds like I’m the person she was hoping to see.
“Pavel… tried to kill me.”
“I know.” I carry her toward the living room and set her down carefully on the leather couch. “Where are you hit?”
“Shoulder. It’s not that bad.”
The bullet hole in her shoulder suggests otherwise. Blood seeps from the wound despite the makeshift bandage Anya wrapped around her arm. My hands shake as I examine the injury, assessing how much damage has been done.
“Boris, get Dr. Orlov on the phone. Tell him it’s an emergency, and he needs to get here now.” I kneel beside the couch and examine Katya’s injury more closely. “And get me towels, bandages, and whatever medical supplies we have in the house.”
“Already on it, boss.”
I turn to Anya, who’s standing near the window, keeping watch like she expects more trouble to follow them.
While I wait for Dr. Orlov, Anya fills me in on everything—Viktor’s corruption, Pavel’s true identity, the unauthorized operations, and the evidence she’s gathered. The scope of the conspiracy makes my head spin, but the details will have to wait.
“Is he dead now? Pavel?”
“Very much so. But Viktor’s going to come looking for her.”
“Let him come.” The words come out flat and final. Anyone who wants to hurt Katya will have to go through me.
Dr. Orlov arrives twenty minutes later, carrying his medical bag and wearing the grim expression of a man who’s patched up more gunshot wounds than he cares to count.
“How bad?” he asks as he kneels beside the couch.
“Through and through,” I tell him. “She’s lost some blood, but she’s been conscious the whole time.”
Orlov cuts away Katya’s shirt to examine the wound. “Clean entry and exit. No major arteries hit, but she’ll need stitches and antibiotics.”
“Do what you need to do.”
“This is going to hurt,” Orlov warns Katya as he prepares his instruments.
“I’ve had worse.”
Probably true, given her training. But watching someone dig around in her shoulder with surgical tools while she bites downon a towel to keep from screaming makes me want to hunt down everyone responsible for putting her in this position.
“Dmitri,” Anya says quietly while Orlov works. “We need to discuss security arrangements. Viktor’s people won’t stop looking for her.”
“Then we make sure they can’t find her.”
“It’s not that simple. Her former handlers have resources you can’t match. Government-level surveillance and intelligence networks.”
“I’ve been avoiding government attention most of my life. I think I can handle a few rogue agents.”
“These aren’t just a few rogue agents. Viktor built a network inside the FSB that extends to other agencies. They have access to official resources even though their operations aren’t authorized.”
Katya makes a sound of pain as Orlov sutures, and I reach over to take her uninjured hand. She squeezes my fingers hard enough to cut off circulation, but I don’t pull away. If holding my hand helps her get through this, she can break every bone in my fingers.
“How many people are we talking about?” I ask Anya.
