Page 39 of Savage Reins
Yuri leads me, and I don't stop until I reach her bedroom, where I lay her carefully on the bed and check her over for serious burns. Her hair is singed, and there are angry red marks across her palms. She smells of smoke, and her breathing comes too fast, too shallow. But she's alive. She's here.
"Get wet rags," I bark at Yuri. "And ice for her hands."
There isn't much I can do personally, so I bark at Anton, who has since followed us into the house, and order a doctor. Then I kneel by the bed, pressing her knuckles to my forehead, probably a lot more tightly than I should be, but I pray. To the god of my mother, to the universe, to any thing out there that may be listening, to save her. To not let the smoke she inhaled take her. Because I don't want to see the bloodshed that will follow if she dies tonight.
The family physician arrives within twenty minutes, a thin man with steady hands and no questions. I pace the hallway while he works, my rage building with every passing second. The Karpins crossed a line tonight. They didn't just attack property—they tried to kill her.
They tried to kill Mira.
I'm going to destroy them for this. Every last one of them.
When the doctor emerges, he nods at me with his professional demeanor, but I can't respond with anything other than my pent-up rage. "She'll be fine. Some minor burns on her palms, smoke inhalation, but nothing serious. Her lungs are clear, but she needs rest and plenty of fluids."
I want to go back in, to sit beside her bed and watch her breathe. But Yuri appears in the doorway, and I can see he needs to talk.
"Thank you," I tell the man gruffly, my own throat still choked with the soot that now stains the sky. He gives a curt nod and retreats out the back, past the flashing lights of emergency vehicles that arrived at some point in my chaos. I follow his movements, and my eyes catch sight of my cousins,
Rolan and Maksim. They're barking orders at the first responders, trying to save one of our assets. I'm sure I'll hear about this from Vadim later.
After the doctor is out of sight, Yuri and I walk to the front porch in mutual understanding. The barn still burns, though the flames have died down to angry embers. The smell of smoke and ash fills the night air.
The old man's eyes are red-rimmed from smoke and fear, but his voice is steady when he speaks. "If you're playing games with my little girl's heart," he says, meeting my eyes directly, "you'll regret it."
I turn to face him fully. The threat should amuse me—this aging rancher trying to intimidate a Vetrov enforcer. Instead, I find it touching. He's protecting what he loves, the same way Mira protected him.
"That sounds personal," I say.
Yuri shakes his head, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "It's not a threat from me." He looks toward the house, where Mira is sleeping off the smoke. "I just know my daughter…" His jaw sets and his eyes become stone-cold serious. "If you cross her, you'll regret ever looking at her. She's that strong of a woman."
The old man's words settle into my chest. He's right. Mira isn't someone who needs protecting. She's someone who protects herself. And anyone foolish enough to underestimate her will learn that lesson the hard way.
The way I learned it.
"The Karpins did this," I tell him.
His jaw tightens, and for a moment I see where Mira gets her steel. "What happens now?"
I look at the smoldering remains of the barn and the flashing lights around it, then back at the house where she's recovering. The rage in my chest has crystallized into something cold and final. Something that will make the Karpins wish they'd never heard the name Petrov.
"Now they pay."
16
MIRA
Ilie in the darkness, staring at the ceiling while my mind races. The burns on my palms throb beneath the bandages. How close I came to dying in that barn… If not for Renat. My throat still feels raw from the smoke, and every breath tastes like ash, but I still have breath.
The memory floods back in sharp fragments—men with guns in the building while I was sneaking through to go make a very bad choice. Three of them there and their intent was clear enough.
I close my eyes and try to push away the image of flames licking at the walls, the suffocating darkness as smoke filled my lungs. But every time I drift toward sleep, I'm back in that inferno, trapped and waiting to die.
The house has gone quiet. Dad and Renat stepped outside after they got me settled, their voices too low for me to catch through the walls. Probably discussing what Renat plans to do to make sure this doesn't happen again, how this changes everything. The timeline, the plan, our chances of survival.
I must doze despite myself, because the soft creak of my bedroom door startles me awake. A large silhouette fills thedoorway, and I recognize Renat's massive frame even in the dim light.
"Sorry," he says quietly. "Didn't mean to wake you."
"I wasn't really sleeping." I struggle to sit up against the pillows, wincing when the movement presses against my burned palms. "Where's my father?"
