Anna
Seeing Luka simultaneously fills me with hope and deep dread. What’s he going to do when he finds out that I was running away? It’s my fault that I’m here.
“Dmitri, this doesn’t have to be difficult,” Luka says, his voice laced with warning and command like the leader of a pack of angry dogs. His gun is drawn, pointed straight at Dmitri, who doesn’t appear to care at all.
“You’re right! It doesn’t have to be difficult. Just give me what I asked for, and I’ll be happy to hand them over,” Dmitri replies, completely unbothered by the group of infuriated Russian men pointing loaded guns at his face. He almost seems to be enjoying this, enjoying the game.
He should know by now that Luka doesn’t play games. He shot Alexei in the face point-blank.
“I’m not going to give you a goddamn thing,” Luka growls.
“That’s pathetic, Luka. First, you kill my brother. Then, you let your pregnant wife get sold to the highest bidder in Russia? Jesus,” Dmitri says, his face curling into a hideous, self-congratulatory grin.
Luka’s eyes widen, and I can’t interpret his expression at all. “Pregnant?” he asks, completely astonished and temporarily removed from the gravity of the situation completely.
Dmitri laughs, his voice wavering on insanity. “Yeah, you didn’t know? And she was about to take that baby away from you. What a worthless slut,” Dmitri replies, maintaining that infuriating smirk.
My heart sinks to the floor at the mention of the baby and my attempt to run away. I want to believe that Luka wouldn’t hurt me, but now that I’ve openly betrayed his trust, I’m terrified that I’ll meet the same fate as Alexei.
“What the fuck are you talking about?!” Luka shouts, approaching Dmitri with his gun outstretched in front of him.
Dmitri doesn’t attempt to stop his approach. Instead, he allows Luka to press the gun into his forehead, finger on the trigger, and ready to blow his brains out.
Everyone watches in horror.
Dmitri doesn’t flinch at all. It’s almost as if he wants to die, but now I’m not so sure he’ll be the only one. Will Luka kill me because he feels taken advantage of? Will he regret killing me at all? Would he let Rachel go? I feel myself growing faint at the potential of the increasingly heated situation.
Dmitri chuckles. “Did you think I broke into your house and stole these girls from you? No, I had one of your ‘loyal’ associates put a tracker on the vehicle they used to get away from you. It wasn’t hard to find them after that. The second they started moving, I was right behind them. It was easy enough to follow them since I already knew where they lived,” Dmitri explains casually.
At this point, I don’t even know how Dmitri is alive.
I can see the confusion and anger on Luka’s face as he retraces the events of the last two weeks. My sickness, my sudden cagey attitude toward him. I’m sure it’s all beginning to make a ton of sense, and I hate the fact that my disappearance has brought him here only for him to find out that I’ve betrayed him.
Before Luka can respond, Leo shoves him out of the way and shoots Dmitri in the left arm, and Dmitri returns fire, hitting Leo in the lower abdomen. He crumbles to the floor as deep red blood begins to pour from his wound.
“Fuck!” Luka shouts, firing at Dmitri and hitting him in the chest. Dmitri falls back into the wall, blood oozing from his chest and mouth.
Rachel screams at the top of her lungs, crying and writhing in her chair in an attempt to escape, but there’s nothing she can do. She’s trapped in this place full of power-hungry, homicidal criminals.
Luka shoots Dmitri again and again, taking out his rage on a man who’s already dead.
Leo lies on the floor, a smile on his face even as blood pools from his stomach into his hands. “You might want to save some bullets for later, man. Get the girls untied.”
“Goddamn it,” Luka growls, and he runs over to me, watching my expression change as I cower from him.
“What happened? How the fuck did this happen?” he pleads with me, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a knife to cut the tape that keeps me bound to my chair.
I begin to sob, nearly uncontrollably, to the point where I can barely articulate what I’m trying to explain to him. I almost resent him for even asking at a time like this. If he wants to save me and his baby, he needs to get us out of here before any more of Dmitri’s men emerge and attack.
Seeing my emotional state, he softens his tone. “Okay, okay, we can talk later. Let’s just go,” he says as he cuts me loose, working the knife through the tape at my wrists and ankles and swiftly moving to free Rachel as well.
At first, I’m nearly paralyzed with fear, unable to move my own limbs as I scream internally at them to function as a matter of survival.
As soon as Rachel is unbound, she lunges towards me and embraces me, squeezing me so tight that I’m worried she won’t let go until I’ve quit breathing. I’m able to force my arms to cooperate and hug her back. Knowing she’s safe for at least the next few minutes is enough to calm me into getting up.
It takes more time than we have, but I eventually gain full control over my limbs again, and Luka grabs my arm and pulls me the rest of the way out of my chair. He’s aggressive, but I’m not sure if that’s a result of concealed panic or true anger. My brain feels split between an animalistic drive to sprint in the opposite direction of the club and the distinctly human need to dissect every piece of information that has just entered Luka’s brain.
“Pavel, grab his legs. Anna, I need you to go out to the car and bring it around the back. We won’t be able to carry him all the way out the front door. I’m trusting you,” Luka orders, and Pavel joins Luka in carrying Leo’s paper-white body.
Luka tosses the keys in my direction, and I’m astonished and confused as to why he would literally hand me a getaway car after he found out I had tried to leave him before.
I pause at first, but Luka’s expression grows impatient as I hesitate. Know isn’t the time to question his trust again.
I bolt out of the basement with Rachel, gripping her wrist so tightly that she yelps.
We reach the top of the stairs, and I peer out, glancing around the main club area for a back door that could guide me.
“Rachel, stay here and close the door to the basement if you see anyone with a gun. I’m going to pull the car around back,” I say.
I don’t give her time to respond before I sprint toward the exit.
Fortunately for me, Luka’s car is one of only maybe six or seven outside, and it’s certainly the easiest to spot with its bright coloring. I climb into the driver’s seat and a rush of excess adrenaline and anxiety courses through me. I need to steady myself, or I’m going to lose it.
I start the car and pull it around the back of the club, waiting for Luka and Pavel to appear through the door with Leo’s failing body. For as little as I’ve known Leo, he came through for me in a major way by putting his life on the line like that, and I could never forgive myself if he didn’t pull through.
Time crawls as I wait outside, and my anxiety only grows worse as minutes pass. Even in a place like this, it would be a miracle if someone hadn’t called the cops already. If they get here before Luka and the others get out, we’re going to be in even worse trouble.
I sigh in relief when the door finally opens.
Pavel and Luka emerge with Leo, who is looking worse by the minute. They’ve managed to try and stop the bleeding by taping the wound, but it doesn’t look like it’ll hold for very long. They need to get him to a hospital as soon as possible, and I’m lucky to know one pretty close to here.
I get out of the driver’s side and attempt to help Luka and Pavel drag Leo into the car, but Luka shoots me a furious look. “Don’t hurt the baby,” he warns. “Get back inside and be prepared to step on the fucking gas.”
I stumble back, shocked by his coarseness but even more by the fact that he cares so much about the baby already. I thought he’d be angry about it, but he seems more protective than anything.
Once they manage to get Leo’s body into the car, the rest of them slide into the back with Rachel. While it looks extremely uncomfortable, I feel relieved that we can finally get the fuck away from this place and get him some help.
I slam on the gas and peel out into the street, following the single-lane road St. Gianna’s Hospital. It’s not the biggest or most technologically advanced hospital, but I figure they can at least stop the bleeding and send Leo to a bigger facility if he needs additional help. Considering the location, I’m sure this hospital sees tons of gunshot wounds, so I at least feel confident that they’ll be able to save him.
As we drive, I can hear Leo’s breathing change, growing rapid and panicked as he goes into shock. His body goes from being rigid to limp, and Luka has to hold his head up to avoid hurting his neck. He attempts to speak on a number of occasions, but his words are slurry and unintelligible, heightening the worry of everybody in the car.
I doge a few slow-moving vehicles as we arrive at the Emergency Room entrance, and I haven’t even stopped before Rachel is sprinting to get help. She runs inside without looking back, and I know she’s familiar with the layout of this hospital from the times we’ve been here to visit family or friends.
Within moments, a barrage of medical staff is wheeling a gurney out to the car, hastily preparing for Leo’s transport inside of the hospital. They seem to have an endless supply of tubes and IV bags that they prepare as Pavel and Luka work with them to get Leo out of the car.
Leo’s groaning is gut-wrenching, striking an existential fear into me as he likely prepares to die right there with his body halfway out of the car. I can’t imagine the pain he’s in, the absolute terror and anguish he’s experiencing.
As the nurses and doctors work Leo’s body out of the car, I clutch my belly instinctually. What am I doing bringing a child into a world with so much suffering? How can I prevent this from happening to my own baby? The concept of Leo’s personhood, his place in the world as someone’s son or brother, sends a deep wave of sorrow through me.
Once the hospital staff is finally able to strap Leo’s body onto the gurney, they immediately demand his blood type from Luka so that they can give him an infusion.
“Um, uh, O-negative, I think,” Luka stammers, watching his brother in disbelief.
Watching them stick needles into Leo’s already suffering body is agonizing, but I can’t allow myself to look away from him. He’s enduring this because he chose to risk his life for me. How can I spare myself even an empathetic alignment with his experience?
One of the nurses places a bag valve mask on him, and he’s finally wheeled away from us.
Luka stands frozen in place for a moment, unsure of what to do with himself.
I nudge him. “Should we, uh, park the car somewhere better?”
He snaps out of his daze and nods. “Right, let’s go park the car, then we can have them check out you and the baby.” His voice is strangely calm now, given the circumstances, but I’m certain he’s been in a similar position many times. He’s probably got a mental protocol in place by now.
We park the car in the parking structure attached to the hospital and head for the catwalk that connects the second floor to the cardiac unit, where we take an elevator back down.
The walk from the car back to the Emergency Department is agonizing. There are so many people here that our pace is slowed considerably, and I can see Luks growing frustrated that we’re being delayed so much.
When we finally reach the Emergency Department, Luka walks right up to the front of the line of patients and cuts in front of somebody who is in the middle of explaining their persistent abdominal pain to the triage nurse.
“My girlfriend is pregnant and just experienced an attempted homicide. She needs to be seen immediately,” he commands.
The nurse glances at him, unblinking and impatient. “Sir, we can take your details as soon as we’ve seen the other patients who have been waiting longer than you. Unless she has chest pain or abdominal pain, we can’t rush her. We’re severely understaffed,” she says flatly, refusing to even make direct eye contact as she types away at her computer.
“Do I need to speak to your supervisor?” Luka threatens. “Luka! It’s fine! We can just wait!” I hiss.
I grab his hand, squeezing tightly as I pull him from out of the line. “I’m not in any imminent danger. I’m fine with waiting. Let’s just take it one minute at a time, okay? There’s no reason to get belligerent with the nurses,” I say.
He sighs heavily, and I can tell that he’s fighting the urge to place blame and shout at the nursing staff. He’s not used to not getting what he wants, and it’s killing him to be so powerless in multiple facets.
I gently guide him to the back of the line, where we wait together, and he maintains a consistent grip on my arm. I don’t know if he’s using me as a security blanket in the face of uncertainty or if he’s afraid that I’ll run away again.