Page 51 of 10 Days to Surrender

Right up until it didn’t.

Her body splayed on the sidewalk. My hands, too small to stem the bleeding. Eyes blank…

My wounds pulse in time with my heartbeat. Blood trickles warm down my side, but the pain is almost welcome. It’s something to focus on besides the crushing weight of helplessness.

I’ve killed men with my bare hands. I’ve built an empire from blood and bullets and sheer fucking bravado. But here, in this sterile hallway with its buzzing lights and judging eyes, I’m nothing. Less than nothing. Just a man who couldn’t protect what matters most.

Another lap. Another seventeen steps. The mud continues to flake away, leaving pieces of me scattered across the floor like breadcrumbs leading from nowhere to nowhere.

I stop my pacing halfway through a lap and rest my forehead against the cold glass of the door, willing it to open. On the other side, Ariel fights for three lives. On this side, I can only wait and pray to a God I stopped believing in long ago.

Don’t you dare leave me, Sasha Ozerov,she’d said.

But I’m the one left behind, pacing these seventeen steps in a loop I can’t escape.

Through gritted teeth, I pull out my phone. The screen is still damp from the springs, but it works. Kosti picks up on the first ring.

“Don’t talk; just listen. Ariel fell. We’re at—” I look around me until I find the name of the hospital printed above the door. Then I read it off in clipped, emotionless syllables. “Get here. Now.”

He doesn’t waste time with questions, just grunts his acknowledgment before hanging up. Good man.

But when the call ends, my thumb lingers over the screen. It’s strange to be so distant from a man I’ve always called my brother. Since our days in the slums of Moscow together, causing chaos and evading my father’s tyranny, Feliks has been at my side for everything of importance. Now, I’m half a world away from him, and it’s like missing a limb.

Fucking hell. I’m getting sappy. God forbid he ever learns about these thoughts; he’d never let me hear the end of it.

I hesitate for a moment longer. It’s not assistance I need; there’s precious little he can do from America. There’s nothing to coordinate, nothing to torture, nothing to kill.

Nothing but the demons in my head.

I press call.

“Well, well.” His voice is hazy with sleep, but the sardonic edge is there. “The ghost speaks. Speaketh. Whatever.”

“Shut up.” But there’s no real heat in it. The cadence of his voice smacks me harder than I expected, like homesickness for a place I didn’t know I’d missed.

“Your social skills haven’t improved in exile, I see. “

“Ariel’s in the hospital. I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

The humor drains from his voice instantly. “How bad?”

“I don’t know yet. She fell. There was blood. That’s all I’ve got.”

A sharp intake of breath. Then: “What do you need?”

“Nothing. I just…” I trail off, unsure why I really called. To hear a friendly voice? To confess my failures to the one person who’s seen me at my worst? “I fucked up, brother.”

“You’re there with her?”

“Yes.”

“Then you haven’t fucked up completely.” A pause. “What about the babies?”

“No word yet.” My voice stumbles on the last word. Feliks is kind enough to pretend not to notice.

“Want me to fly out?”

“No. Stay in New York. Keep building.”Keep the empire standing for when I return.

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