Blood dots his collar and his knuckles are cracked. Dried mud clings to his pants. Sweat slicks his golden hair back.
Mikhail is disheveled and panting and gorgeous and—
“Here,” I blurt, blinking like he might disappear between one shutter of my eyelids and the next. “You’re here.”
A strangled yell echoes down the hallway behind him followed by a single shot. Then the house goes quiet. Mikhail glances down the hallway once before he extends his hand towards me. “Are you ready?”
Nothing about this is funny, but a laugh chokes out of me. “‘Am I ready’? Am I—What are you doing here, Mikhail?”
Is he working with Trofim? If this is yet another betrayal, I don’t think my heart can take it. On some level, I expected it from my father. But not from Mikhail. I won’t survive it.
“I’d think th
