Dangerous Secrets (29 page)

Other men began shouting, men dressed in black with black helmets, looking like insectoid aliens, holding huge guns. They came into the room in a controlled rush. “Clear!” one shouted and the echoes came from inside the room and out.

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

It was hard to breathe. Something was wrong with her chest, she couldn’t expand her lungs. She looked down at herself and saw Vassily, still and unmoving, on top of her. One of the men in the room, the one who looked like a scientist, was draped over Vassily, screaming like a wounded animal. Raging in a foreign language. Russian?

She couldn’t breathe with two men weighing down her chest. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see, she couldn’t hear.

It made no sense. None of it made sense. She couldn’t gather her thoughts, they kept scattering. Her ears rang and spots moved in front of her eyes.

She moved her hand slightly and felt something wet and viscous on the floor. With enormous effort, she lifted her hand and brought it close to her face.

It was dark red.

Blood.

“Charity!” Nick, on his knees beside her, sliding a little in the blood on the floor. “Oh my God, you’re wounded! Where were you shot, love? Where does it hurt?” He looked up at all the men in black milling around. “Medic!” he screamed. “Medic, over here!”

Frantic hands felt her all over, starting from her head, down her torso, down her legs.

“Not—” Charity wheezed, trying to pull air into her lungs. Vassily and the man over him, still screaming, were so heavy. “Not wounded,” she managed to get out finally, lungs heaving for air. “Not…me.”

It had to be Vassily, had to. Charity found it almost impossible to think, but she could feel. Her entire back was wet with blood. With the amount of blood on the floor, the wound must be grave. Though she hurt everywhere, she knew she didn’t have a mortal wound.

Another pair of hands. Not Nick’s. One of the men in black.

“Step away, sir, so I can examine her.”

Nick was holding her hand, slippery with blood.

“Sir? I can’t examine her if you don’t move.”

Charity could feel Nick’s reluctance as he let go of her hand and stood up. He looked around and beckoned to one of the men in uniform.

“Get rid of that,” he said coldly, indicating the howling man. The man had pulled Vassily off her—she could finally
breathe
—and had scooted up against the wall with Vassily’s limp form cradled in his arms, rocking back and forth. He bent over Vassily, his cries painful to hear, a long lament in Russian.

The medic gave her a quick, thorough check and pronounced her essentially unharmed.

Thanks to Vassily.

Some of the shock of the explosion was dissipating, the memories of the moments before the explosion returning. The high whine, the terrorist brandishing a gun, aiming it at her. Vassily’s cry, launching himself at her.

The bullet had caught him, not her.

Vassily had saved her life. Charity looked down at his dead body, held tightly by the Russian who was now covered with Vassily’s blood.

Vassily was a criminal, a renegade.

He’d saved her life.

The huge room was lit up now, people milling about purposefully. The big suitcase full of cash had been closed up, and a number of men were examining a big metal container.

She swayed.

“Fuck this,” Nick growled, and swung her up in his arms. He marched over to where Di Stefano was conferring with a knot of men. “You guys can clean up, I’m taking her home.”

Di Stefano opened his mouth, looked at Nick, then closed it again. “Yeah, okay, get outta here.”

Nick stopped on the porch and Charity breathed in deeply. It felt like days had gone by since she’d walked up these stairs.

Nick looked down at her, grim, jaw muscles moving as he clenched his teeth. “This is the way it’s going to be,” he announced. “I’m taking you home and to bed and we’re not coming up for air until a week has gone by or my hands stop shaking, whichever comes first. Then we’re going to city hall and we’re getting married all over again,
only this time legally. I’ll be damned if my son grows up a bastard.”

He said all this belligerently, as if expecting her to argue.

But as always with Nick, only one answer was possible.

“Yes, Nick.”