Darker Than Love

by Charmaine Pauls

  “I see.” There’s a short, strained silence. “Then I hope to God I can help her.”

  I know what she means. If Mina doesn’t make it, both of us will feel responsible for not saving her. But I’m not going to think like that. If I want Mina to fight, I have to fight right beside her.

  “You will help her.” I’ll threaten, torture, and kill to make it happen.

  Her voice comes stronger, as if her mind’s made up. “There’s a staff entrance on the east side of the building.”

  Closing my eyes briefly, I swallow a relieved exhale. “We’ll be there in ten.”

  At the clinic, the guard waves us through the gates. Adami must’ve warned him about our arrival.

  As promised, Adami is waiting at the eastern entrance. Her face is drawn, her cheeks colorless. “Bring her through. We’ll go via the basement. There’s less chance of running into someone.”

  Ilya and I follow her down a flight of stairs and through a maze of underground hallways before surfacing on one of the upper floors. Adami leads us a short distance to a private consultation room. Thankfully, we don’t come across anyone. Once inside, she locks the door and closes the blinds on the window.

  “What happened?” she asks as I carefully lower Mina onto the examination bed.

  “She took a bullet in the side.”

  “I haven’t done surgery in years,” the doctor reminds me.

  “You’re all she’s got.”

  She contemplates me for a moment before saying, “You better get rid of those bloody clothes and wash up. I’m going to need some help.”

  “Ilya.” I motion at the door, indicating he should stand guard. At least his clothes aren’t covered in blood.

  Leaving the Glock within reach on the counter, I strip down to my underwear and dump my stained clothes and boots in a trashcan labeled “Biomedical Waste.”

  “You can scrub yourself over here.” Adami shows me a basin and shoves antiseptic soap and a clean towel into my hands.

  I clean up as fast and well as I can while she unbuckles the pillow from Mina’s side, takes off Mina’s shoes, and cuts off the dress.

  “My God,” she exclaims when she sees Mina’s bruises. “What happened to her?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  Glancing at my briefs, she says, “There’s an overcoat on a hook behind the door. I think you’ll find a pair of Crocs in the closet.”

  I pull on the overcoat and shoes as Adami takes Mina’s vitals.

  “Weak pulse and rapid heart rate,” she says, hurriedly gathering hermetically sealed instruments. “She lost some blood, but I don’t think she needs a transfusion.” She bites her lip. “I’ll only know for sure after an ultrasound. She should really be where she can be better monitored.”

  “If I take her to another hospital, she’s dead.”

  She briefly pinches her eyes shut before giving me a tight nod. “I’ll do my best. Turn her on her side and keep her like that.”

  After washing the wound with soapy water, she examines it. “It’s a flesh wound. Mina was lucky. The bullet went straight through her side without hitting any vital organs. There don’t seem to be severed arteries or bullet fragments, and I don’t see any other obvious damage.” She presses around a purple bruise on Mina’s stomach. “We’ll have to do an ultrasound to ensure she doesn’t have internal bleeding. Either way, it’ll take her some time to recover. She’ll be weak, especially from the blood loss.”

  “Can you keep her here?”

  “You mean in secret.”

  “Yes.”

  She hesitates, then nods. “Okay.”

  I hold Mina’s cold body as the doctor gets to work, stitching her up. Thankfully, Mina remains unconscious. Adami works quickly, disinfecting the wound and securing a bandage over the stitches.

  When the doctor moves to the basin, I catch her wrist. “Will she be all right?”

  “Her chances of recovering from the gunshot are good unless infection sets in.”

  “She’ll live,” I say, needing the doctor to confirm it. I need her to say those words.

  She gives me a strange look. “For now.”

  “For now?” The prognosis throws my heartbeat into overdrive. “What do you mean for now?”

  Her expression is oddly sympathetic. “She hasn’t told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “Hanna said you and Mina are getting married. Is it true?”

  Married. Fleeting shards of memories involving rubies and a ring and forever run through my head, but it’s hard to focus on anything when the doctor hasn’t given me the verdict I need. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I need to know what your relation to Mina is.”

  “We’re…” What are we? Kidnapper and captive? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Lovers? I can’t answer that question. I only know it’s not enough. Not nearly. I settle for, “Everything. She’s everything.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made that comment. This whole situation…” She waves at Mina. “It caught me off-guard. Mina is very special to me.”

  I fight the urge to grab the woman and shake her until her teeth rattle in her skull. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I can’t divulge personal information to anyone who isn’t family. Mina didn’t even want Hanna to know. It’s best Mina tells you herself, if that’s what she decides.”

  A thousand alarm bells go off in my mind. Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong. From the pitying way Adami regards me, I suddenly get the feeling a bullet wound is the least of my concerns.

  I grip her arm hard. “You don’t understand. Mina is everything. Without her, hell isn’t a strong enough word to describe what my existence will become.”

  The fever in my soul must be showing on my face, because her shoulders drop in a gesture of tired surrender. “I can see she means a lot to you. I think you mean a lot to her, too. Hanna spoke very highly of you.”

  Hanna. Fuck. In my panic, I didn’t think. I’ll have to break the news to her, but right now, I have greater worries on my mind.

  “Tell me,” I beg. “Please. I’ll fix whatever’s wrong.”

  Adami’s gaze softens. “I’m afraid this is the one thing you can’t fix, Mr. Ivanov.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes.” I’ll give my life, my very soul.

  She stares at me for a few long moments, then sighs. “All right. Knowing how you feel about Mina, and after this”—she glances at Mina’s unconscious body again—“I guess you have a right to know.” Tilting her head, she gives me a sorrowful smile. “I’m sorry you have to find out like this. Mina has cancer. Leukemia.”

  36

  Mina

  I peel open my eyelids and fight the fog that obscures my mind. It’s difficult. I feel groggy and heavy, like I’m bogged down by gravity. Slowly, my blurry vision comes into focus. The room is strange yet familiar. The white walls and contemporary paintings remind me of Hanna’s room. The clinic.

  I’m at the clinic?

  Memories rush back, flooding my thoughts. Yan! My pulse quickens. Turning my face to the side, I scan the room in a bout of panic, but then I relax. Yan is sitting in a chair next to the bed, elbows on his knees and head between his hands. As if pulled by an invisible thread of awareness, he lifts his head. The state of him makes my heart ache. More than a couple of days’ worth of stubble darkens his chiseled jaw. Under the dark rings that mar his eyes, his cheeks are sunken and hollow. He’s wearing a gray T-shirt and sweatpants with the clinic logo, and Crocs on his feet.

  Those white Crocs, so uncharacteristic for Yan, put a smile on my face, but the effort cracks my lips.

  He jumps up and grabs my hand. “You’re awake.”

  I try to swallow away the dryness in my mouth. “Unless I’m dreaming.”

  Closing his eyes briefly, he kisses my knuckles and keeps my hand pressed to his lips for a long moment. “Are you in pain?” He touches my forehead. “Cold?”

&nb
sp; “Thirsty.”

  “Water. Yes.” He looks around in consternation even though a carafe and a glass with a straw stand on the nightstand. “Ice? Maybe you prefer juice?”

  I nod at the carafe. “That will do.”

  He fills the glass and holds the straw to my lips. “Small sips. Don’t drink too fast.”

  Mindful of my cracked lips, I keep my smile slight. “I know the drill.”

  “Do you have pain?” he asks again.

  “I don’t even feel my legs.”

  “Dr. Adami gave you morphine.”

  “Adami?” I am at the clinic, as the room and Yan’s borrowed clothes indicate.

  He puts the glass on the nightstand and dabs my lips with a paper napkin. “We couldn’t risk taking you anywhere else.”

  Of course not. It makes sense. “Clever. Thank you.”

  “Thank you?” In contrast to his drawn features, the green of his eyes is darker and brighter, reflecting a frantic light. “You took a bullet for me and I…” He grips his hair and stares at me like a man on the verge of madness. “What the fuck was I supposed to do if that bullet had been fatal?”

  I try for humor. “Be grateful to be alive?”

  “Never again, do you hear me? You will never again put your life on the line. Not for me. Not for fucking anyone. Promise me.”

  I reach for his hand. “I can’t make that promise. I acted automatically. If the situation is repeated, I’ll do it again.”

  He grabs my fingers in his large palm, squeezing too hard. “Never again. Or…”

  “Or what?”

  He regards me with helpless desperation, but he doesn’t make manipulative threats. He doesn’t hold Hanna’s life over my head or say he’ll go after my only friend.

  Wow. I stare at him in wonder. This is huge. It’s the first time he’s truly treated me like an equal and not his prisoner, the first time he’s not forcing me to bend to his will. He may not like my declaration, but he’s not telling me what to do or how to behave. In his own way, he’s just given me freedom.

  The ultimate freedom.

  Choice.

  The moment is enormous. Tears well up in my eyes. They’re tears of joy for not having lost the man I love and tears of relief for being alive, but they’re also tears of gratitude for this place in our warped relationship, a place I never thought we’d reach. After the way we started out, it’s more than I ever could’ve hoped for, yet I wouldn’t want it any other way. We are what we are. We came together like our natures dictated: in violence and forced submission, in hatred and retribution. What we have now, though, is all the stronger for the obstacles we’ve overcome.

  Yan once said the attraction was always there. He was right. And the kernel of love was always a part of it. We fought for this moment, for what we have between us. It didn’t come easily, and I’m not going to deny or waste it.

  I’m going to grab it with both hands for as long as I have left.

  “Don’t cry,” he whispers, wiping away my tears with a thumb. “I love you, Minochka, more than you can ever know.”

  Taking his wrist, I kiss his palm. “I do know.”

  His eyes glitter like jade stones. “I should’ve told you.” His voice sounds tormented. “Fuck. You could’ve…”

  Died without knowing. I know what he’s thinking. I know how his mind works.

  “Clever girls know the unsaid is sometimes more important than what’s said,” I say, repeating the words he’d spoken once upon a time in a stuffy wooden shed. It already seems like a lifetime ago.

  He presses our foreheads together, his warm breath bathing my face. “Goddamn, Mina.” His anguish is so palpable I can feel it seeping through my skin.

  “It’s over,” I whisper. “I’m all right.” A stark image of Ilya with a shotgun in his hands suddenly invades my memory. “How about Ilya? He wasn’t hurt, was he?”

  He pulls away and smiles. “The butthead is right outside, anxious as fuck to see you.”

  “Tell me what happened first.” I still have too many questions.

  His expression becomes closed-off. “There’s plenty to tell, but you should get better first.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Really what?”

  “You’re going to treat me like a fragile girl who faints at the mention of guns and blood?”

  Sighing, he shakes his head. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Hopefully lots, when I can get my legs to cooperate again.”

  His eyes darken with lust. “You have no idea. The things I want to do…” Catching himself, he only shakes his head again.

  “Hanna?”

  “Don’t worry. She’s already been to see you. I told her you’d been shot by someone who held a vendetta against you from your military days.”

  “Did she believe you?”

  He grins. “I’m not sure. I thought I’d let you handle it how you see fit.”

  “What about Lena?”

  “She’s been very supportive.” A shadow passes over his face. “She’s letting us stay here until you’ve recovered fully.”

  I try to sit up, but it hurts like a bitch.

  “Easy.” Yan darts forward, helping me into a more comfortable position. “Adami did an ultrasound. You don’t have any internal damage, but you’ve got to be careful not to tear your stitches.”

  “Are they all dead?”

  “Yes.” Hatred makes the sharp angles of his face look harder. “Every last one of them.”

  “Tell me.” He won’t deny me twice.

  His strained voice betrays how difficult it is to relive the event. “When we realized it was a trap, Ilya and I split up. I went over the roof as planned while he took the stairs to go back via the hallway. That way, I could go to your aid, and he could ward off an attack in case they decided to come after us on the roof. Best-case scenario, we could trap them between us in the suite with me coming in from the balcony and Ilya from the hallway. The fuckers were overconfident. They thought having us outnumbered was enough.” He sneers. “They were waiting for us inside. I shot one as I came down from the roof. At the same time, Ilya broke down the door. That’s when they realized we had them trapped between us with no way out. They took cover, we took cover, and a big shootout followed. We might’ve been outnumbered, but they had the disadvantage of having to defend their fronts and backs.” More tension invades his big body. “In the meantime, you were locked in the bedroom with Dimitrov and his art guy.”

  “I don’t think he was an art expert.”

  “Whatever he was,” Yan says icily, “it’s a good thing Ilya killed him before I got my hands on him. It took us long enough to take out the five guards. I was going out of my mind by the time I could finally get to you.” If fury could be condensed into a color, it would be the brilliant jade-green of his eyes. Reaching over, he clasps my hand in a gentle hold. “Did that fucker Dimitrov touch you?”

  “He tried, but I gave him a good run for his money.”

  Yan’s hold on me tightens. “Fuck, Mina, I always knew you were dangerous, but I never could’ve guessed how much until I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “Did Ilya shoot the man who shot me? Things became a bit blurry at the end.”

  Yan inhales deeply, releasing my hand. Nostrils flaring, he says, “Ilya took a shotgun off one of the guards. He blew the bastard’s head off.”

  One question burns in the forefront of my mind. “Who gave us away?”

  Yan stills. Just when I think he’s not going to reply, he answers my question with another question. “Who did you tell about our plans?”

  My whole body jerks, my skin going cold. It can’t be. I only told one person, and I trust him with my life. It’s impossible. But the longer Yan and I look at each other, the more I’m forced to face the answer. If Yan, Ilya, and Anton didn’t tell anyone, and I only told Gergo…

  “The hotel manager, our connection…” I say, grabbing at straws.

  “Who did you
tell, Mina?”

  “The disguise vendor or copy artist could’ve leaked the information. Maybe your apartment was bugged or my call to Dimitrov tapped.”

  “My place is clean and our phones weren’t tapped. We scan them on a daily basis. It wasn’t the disguise man or your artist contact.” The determined set of his jaw tells me he’s not going to let me hide from the truth. “Who did you tell?”

  Covering my face with my hands, I admit the horrific truth not only to Yan, but also to myself. “Gergo. Gergo Nagy.”

  “When you warned him.” He pulls my hands away. “Look at me, Mina. When you warned him that day here at this very clinic.”

  “No.” I swallow. “Not here. He followed us to Prague. He slipped into the changing booth at the boutique where we bought the dress for my Petrova disguise.”

  Yan looks like he’s about to explode. “He did what?”

  “You were engrossed in your work.” I stare at my hands, unable to meet Yan’s harsh gaze. “He said he wanted to help me escape. I was worried he’d kill you. I said I needed the money from the Dimitrov job, but he wouldn’t let it go, so I gave him just enough to set him at ease. I never thought he’d betray me.” My mind is a hurting mass of confusion. “Why? Why would he do something like that? I don’t understand.”

  “Why didn’t you let him help you get away?” Yan grips my chin and tilts my face back to his. “Why didn’t you let him shoot me?”

  “I already had feelings for you,” I admit with a tremulous exhale. “I swear I didn’t mean to betray your trust. All I could think about was the gun in Gergo’s hand and how distracted you were, how easy a target in that moment.” Holding his gaze, I bite the inside of my cheek. “Do you hate me?”

  “No,” he replies softly. “I can never hate you. No matter what.”

  “How did you know it was a setup?”

  He releases me. “Kiss.”

  “Anton found him?”

  “Yes.” He scoffs. “We found out a lot more than what we bargained for.”

  “Such as?”

  “That Gergo had a meeting with Dimitrov the day before the mission and told him about our plan.”