Page 40 of Crimson Curse
Time snaps back to full speed. He's moving before I hit the floor, his arms catching me before marble can claim me, pulling me against him as if he can shield me from what has already happened.
Blood spills between my fingers, staining his shirt, spreading like ink across the fabric. My vision blurs at the edges, red bleeding into everything, but I fight to keep my eyes on his face.
“Naomi, stay with me,” Daniil commands, his voice fierce and urgent. “Do not close your eyes. Do you hear me? Do not.”
I gasp, the pain searing through me like lightning, my chest struggling to rise with each breath. When I try to speak, my voice comes out as a breath, but I need him to know what I'm thinking about. What I'm afraid of losing.
“Daniil...” My voice trembles. “The baby...”
I can see on his face the realization of what we might be losing, the future that might be bleeding out on the marble floor. The baby that already means everything to both of us.
His eyes are fire and ice all at once, fury and terror warring in his features. “I will not let you go. Either of you. Do you understand? You fight. You fight, Naomi.”
The command in his voice reaches some survival instinct deep inside me that refuses to surrender. I try to nod, try to show him that I'm still here, still fighting, but the movement sends fresh waves of agony through my side.
Viktor staggers across the hall, his gun lowering for a moment, his expression flickering between triumph and something close to horror at what he has done. Blood drips down his own side, his shirt sticking to his skin where someone else's bullet found its mark earlier tonight.
I can see the confusion in his eyes. He expected satisfaction, expected to feel powerful and vindicated. Instead, he looks like a man who has just realized he destroyed something he didn't mean to touch.
Daniil snarls, shifting me gently onto the floor even through the ferocity driving him. My blood is warm against the cold marble, pooling beneath me in a spreading stain.
He lifts his gun again, his body shielding me completely. “You don’t get to win.”
The barrel finds Viktor's center mass, and I can see Daniil's finger tighten on the trigger. I can feel myself slipping away from him. The edges of my vision are going dark.
Somewhere distant, boots pound across the floor. Lex's voice cuts through the air with curses. But all I can focus on is Daniil's face above me, the way his ice-gray eyes have gone molten with grief, rage, and desperate love. And all I can think is that the life I dared to sketch may never come to pass.
“Stay with me,” he pleads again, his voice distant, fading, like it’s slipping through water. “Stay.”
But the darkness is taking everything, and I fall into it completely.
16
DANIIL
Blood is hot on my hands. It slicks my palms, coats my fingers, and turns the marble beneath my knees into a treacherous mirror. Naomi breathes in jagged pulls, her lashes wet, her lips pale, her pulse a frantic tremor under my thumb. I press my hand harder over the wound at her side, praying to a God I do not trust.
“Stay with me,” I urge, my voice hitting the air like gravel. “Stay.”
Across the hall, Viktor staggers back, shock tearing apart his polished mask. He has a gun in his hand and triumph burning in his eyes. He thinks he has finally ripped out my heart.
I raise my gun first. The muzzle lifts from instinct. I don’t stand or shift Naomi’s body. I sight down my arm, squeeze, and watch the round punch into his abdomen. The force buckles him. His mouth opens silently in shock. Red spreads across his shirt like a blooming flower he cannot stop.
The estate erupts. Boots thunder over stone, and men scream in Russian. Lex appears from the half-lit corridor with his gun already drawn. Timur explodes from the opposite end with afirst-aid kit under his arm, a length of tourniquet webbing tangled at his wrist.
“Pakhan,” Timur barks, dropping to his knees beside me. His hands move to Naomi without asking permission. He peels back my pressure and replaces it with gauze.
“Do not let her fade,” I grind out.
Viktor wheezes a laugh, clutching his stomach. He tries to level his gun. His hand shakes too much to aim. He pivots toward the west wing, toward the exit he knows will put him on the service drive. He lurches one step, then two, leaving a crooked trail of red.
Lex cuts him off at the corridor mouth. He levels his weapon on Viktor’s chest but doesn’t fire. He tilts his head, that slight soldier’s bow that reads like a verdict. This is not his kill.
Timur tightens the bandage at Naomi’s side until she gasps and claws for air. I cradle her head and press my mouth to her temple. “Breathe with me,” I coax, counting the seconds aloud. “In. Out.” My voice steadies because she needs it to. “In. Out.”
The gun skids on the marble near Viktor’s foot. He glances back at me, his lips peeling to show a mouthful of pink teeth. Even bleeding out, he performs. He lives for stages and audiences. He gives me that spoiled grin he wore as a boy when he stole things that never belonged to him.
“You should have let me win,” he croaks.
