Page 52 of Corrupted Guilt

Instinct took over as I floored the pedal and shot onto the sidewalk. Grass flew up under my tires as I barreled down the cemetery to reach Katya in time. Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I pulled up next to her, I was still braced against thedashboard, panic flickering now in the back of my mind. “Katya, get down, he’s going to hit me”

The escalade bucked, it dug its left shoulder into the pavement and started to roll and hit my suburban full force.

My hands could no longer push the dashboard away. The world outside the windshield was going topsy-turvy, flashes of white ground and white sky, a gray chain-link fence rushing closer, the windshield rushing closer, and I opened my mouth to say no but all the white turned black before I had a chance to say it.

My eyes opened; my vision blurred as pain exploded in my head. I was reaching for my gun, but the red escalade sped away loudly, dented, screeching. At least Katya wasn’t in danger anymore.

Grabbing my knife, I sawed off my seatbelt and crawled out the window of the upside-down car. People were screaming, and I saw a flash of raven hair running to me. “No,” I croaked as Katya neared me, “Car’s going to explode.”

“I know that” she hissed as she grabbed me. “Come on. Can you walk?”

White-hot pain lanced through every part of my body as she helped me to my feet. I kept my head down and struggled to run. The smell of gasoline was growing stronger by the second. Suddenly, the car exploded behind us.

As the loud noise burst through my ears, I felt the heat from the fire nipping at my back. I grunted, and we both hit the pavement hard.

“You, okay?” I wheezed, pushing myself up. I tried to look her over for scrapes and blood, but she was already on the phone, calling for help. “Katya,” I said sharply. “Hang up.”

Wordlessly, she stared at me. Suddenly, the light dawned in her eyes. She understood why she couldn’t get the police involved and quickly hung up. “You need to see a doctor.”

“I’m fine. Just get me to your car.” I could tell that I hadn’t broken anything. It was possible that I had some bruised ribs and a concussion, but that had happened to me more times than I could count. There was no need for a doctor.

She stifled a sigh, and it came out as a groan. Reaching down, she hooked her arms under me and helped me up. “You’re an idiot, you know that?” she said through clenched teeth.

“I just saved your life, kiska.” I scolded her, trying to stand, clutching the door frame, failing. I was hurting, battered, filthy, bloodstained, but in one piece. Katya’s hands roving all over me told me that.

I wanted her, now, to hell with my broken and bruised body. I grabbed her head and kissed her, hard, deep, painfully and her legs staggered to hold me up.

“Stop that,” Katya said finally, flushed but flattered. “You can’t even stand but want that?”

“I don’t need to stand for that,” I tell her.

“We’ll sit a moment, gather strength,” she says annoyed, and sets me down, she looks up at the car door like it’s a mountain top.

I didn’t care about getting in the car, I almost dies, everything inside me told me how much I wanted her now, before I did die. I pushed her against the side of the SUV and kissed her again, only stopping to come up for air.

“Yuri,” she begged, “Lay down, now, I need to bring you home. I’ll stay with you, next to you, I promise, just help me now, please.”

My arms held her as hard as I could until everything went black and I fell backwards, off her.

23. Katya

“Damn it, Yuri,” I snapped at his unconscious body. “I’m not a doctor. Wake the hell up or I’m taking you to the hospital. I don’t care if you end up in jail, at least you’ll be alive.”

His head had hit the windshield, he had a red sunburst on his temple now.

But he didn’t stir. I checked his pulse again and was relieved to find that it was still steady, even strong, somehow. Yuri was nothing if not resilient. But that only made me feel marginally better. He’d been unconscious for hours, with brief bouts of consciousness to help me move him into my Jeep, then into my bed. I drove him to the lake house and while I settled him down in my bedroom, his shirt rode up and I gasped at the terrible purple-black bruise spreading,now the size of a basketball across his rib cage and chest.

Yuri must have some broken ribs, I half wondered if one of his lungs collapsed, too. I washed away the blood and cleaned up his wounds as best I could. My nursing skills weren’t all that great, but at least he wasn’t bleeding anymore. But he wasn’t even stirring in my bed. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. Reaching for my phone, I decided to call my father.

Yuri said Petya had someone in my father’s Bratva, a mole or something working with Petya, and I considered not calling just in case it put us in more danger. But with Yuri unconscious and dying slowly in my bed, I decided to risk it. Let him be pissed off later, as long as he’s alive to be angry at me.

I’m in love with the big idiot. That was a certainty now. No dissembling, no lying to myself. I was in love with him. I had been since I was a kid, but the obsession and schoolgirl crush had turned into something real. Something stronger. Something I had no doubts about. I could only surrender to it.

And I wasn’t going to let him die. I had to call someone, and Viktor Kolesova would know what to do. As I scrolled through my contacts to find Viktor’s current cell number and dialed, it only rang twice before I heard Yuri’s phone vibrate from under his pile of soiled, bloody clothes.

I couldn’t believe his phone was actually still working. That should be in a commercial: ‘Get mangled in a car crash? — our phone still works!’.

The caller wasn’t a contact, and the number not listed— all perfectly normal for someone as careful as Yuri. “Hello,” I said tentatively after swiping to answer it.

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