Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77879 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
This woman would never go down without a battle.
The muzzle of the gun shook wildly as she placed her finger on the trigger.
My hand whipped out, grabbing it and wrenching it from her fingers. It was far too easy to take it from her.
She was losing strength, and fast.
“Zoya?” I said, just before she stumbled forward.
I didn’t think.
I didn’t consider the risks.
There wasn’t any time.
I grabbed her before she collapsed onto the floor, my fingers tight on her shoulders, steadying her.
Then her knees buckled.
Fuck.
I swooped her up in my arms, more and more blood gushing from the wound, the blonde hair at her temple now dark red and sticky.
Her pulse was rapid, but faint.
She was going to bleed out in my fucking hands.
I’d seen gut shots, slashed throats, men crying out for their mothers as their lifeblood pooled around them—but none of that had ever made me feel this fucking helpless.
What the hell?
She needed a doctor, but I couldn’t take her to a hospital. There were too many ways for her to get away, too many innocent people that would ask questions I couldn’t answer. Too many eyes, too many risks.
I couldn’t take her back to the compound, either.
Artem and Gregor would kill her before the blood loss had a chance to do it for them.
That wasn’t even an assumption—it was a fact.
Hell, there was a good chance that Alina would kill her before Gregor or Artem got near her. That girl was sweet and quiet, but her love for Pavel was fierce, and she was already in the medical suites.
As Zoya slumped in my arms, I held her to my chest, her hot blood soaking the front of my shirt, and I knew I had minutes before she went into shock.
“Get the doctor, now,” I demanded, my voice sharp, slicing through the air as I carried her to my bedroom.
Not the guest room, or even the office where I could lay her out on the desk.
I took her to my bed.
She felt so small in my arms, too small.
Too frail, too delicate for the fierce beast of a woman I knew she was.
The second I got her down on the bed, I grabbed towels and pressed them to her wound, trying at the very least to slow down the bleeding. There was just so much of it, and she was so pale.
Even her fingers as I held them in my hand were icy cold.
She looked ghostly white against my dark sheets. Like something already buried. Her skin had a waxy, bluish tint—the kind I’d only seen in morgues.
She couldn’t be dead.
Not now. Not ever.
Not like this. Not by accident. If I was going to break her, it was going to be with purpose, not because I let her die like a careless fucking amateur.
Where the fuck was that doctor?
It felt like hours passed before he finally showed up.
With Kostya on his heels.
I hadn’t even realized he was here.
Or maybe he had driven the doctor from the compound?
I had no idea. It didn’t matter.
The bleeding hadn’t stopped or slowed.
The white towel I was holding to her head was soaked through with it.
It wasn’t the first time I had ruined towels this way, but it was the first time I cared more about the injury than the mess.
The old man was red in the face, panting as he slammed his black leather bag onto the small wooden table next to the bed and shoved me out of the way.
If any other man shoved me like that, I’d have cut his throat before his hand left my chest.
I tried to push back at him, not wanting to let go of her hand.
She was in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by men she didn’t know.
It wasn’t rational, but I didn’t want her to think she was alone.
Kostya stopped me, putting a hand on my shoulder as he held me back. “Let him work, cousin.”
I had never wanted to strike a member of my own family more in my life. But he was right.
At that moment, Zoya’s life was more important than my pride. So I let her hand go. Her fingers slipped from mine, limp and cold like a doll’s, and something cracked open in my chest.
“How long has she been like this?” the doctor asked.
“It started less than a minute before you were called. She hit her head, not even very hard but—”
He shot me a skeptical look but nodded and started reaching for things in his bag.
Kostya kept his hand on my shoulder. I had no idea if he meant it to ground me or not, but that was what it did. And I was grateful.
The doctor worked quickly—a shot of glue to close the wound and then hurried but practiced movements to clean it and stitch her up.
“Do you know her medical history?” he asked.