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Chapter 14

Tatiana

Somehow, Ivanov was first on the scene, descending on them like a mother hen. She was curious about how he knew about the explosion after only a few minutes but she was too emotional to wonder, staring as the paramedics arrived and carried Jared into the back of an ambulance. Perhaps he heard the commotion all the way from Indigos.

"Hey!" Ivanov called to them as he made his way over. "You guys okay?" he asked, looking distraught and angry at the same time, if that was possible.

She and Zeke were currently seated side by side on a gurney that was set up for them. She hadn't noticed before but a sharp piece of glass had gotten stuck on Zeke's arm from the explosion. The glass was gone now, his arm stitched and bandaged but her ankle was a little more difficult to deal with. Zeke had been let go, saying that his wound wasn't serious and because he knew the supervisor of the men who tended to them. She, on the other hand, had to go to the hospital to get her ankle checked out. Her ankle was sprained, they knew that much but they were worried that it was broken so they had to take her to the hospital in a few minutes, call her family, and cause an unnecessary uproar with her mother.

"Yeah, just a few scrapes," Zeke said, shaking out his hair that had dampened from the weather. She stared at him for a moment, enamored by the way he looked, his nose and cheeks red from the cold, hair in disarray and a few scrapes and bruises on him.

"What about you, Tatiana? You okay?" Ivanov asked, snapping her back down to earth.

She didn't know why these suddenly lustful thoughts emerged but she snapped out of it, beating down her emotions before responding. "I'm fine," she said quietly. Zeke looked at her in concern but she looked away, afraid that if she stared at him too long, her indecent thoughts might surface again.

"Jared Flynn will live. As long as we get him treatment immediately, he'll be fine," One of the young paramedics named Graham, said upon approaching them. "Luckily, it seemed like he blocked his head and most of his torso from the blast, so his arms took the brunt of the explosion. His arms will be pretty beaten up, but he'll be alright."

Tatiana breathed a sigh of relief. "That's a relief to hear. Thank you, Graham." She gave him a wide smile in gratitude. He remained standing there for a few moments, staring at her before Zeke cleared his throat loudly.

"You may leave now, Graham," Zeke stated so coldly, glancing at him before looking pointedly towards where the remaining ambulances were ready to leave.

"R-right," Graham stuttered. "But—uh, you should come with us, Ms. Belluchi. We can get you to the hospital way faster with an ambulance."

She was about to respond, saying that she didn't want to ride in the back of an ambulance when Zeke beat her to it.

"That won't be necessary," he said firmly. "I'll take her there using my car so that she is more comfortable, we'll follow behind you."

Graham pursed his lips. "Alright then," he said as he walked dejectedly away.

"Calm yourself, brother," Ivanov said, placing a hand on Zeke's shoulder. "No need to get all beasty and bite his head off for offering a pretty lady a ride." Zeke gave him a dirty look, telling him to go to hell but Ivanov only laughed, patting him on the back.

She laughed as well, amused by his reaction to the young man who was conversing with them. She wasn't sure if she was laughing from actual hilarity or from the pure shock of what she'd just been through.

As the two grown men continued to bicker and shove at each other like all brothers do, the amusement suddenly died from her eyes when she recalled how he was engaged, and all of his childish antics made in jealousy were all for naught. But she wouldn't read too much into whatever his reaction meant—he belonged to another woman, after all.

And the thought hadn't left her mind ever since.

"Tatiana?" Zeke asked, standing up and putting his coat back on from when he had to remove it for them to treat. Now, there was a fair sized gash in his designer coat.

She turned to him, snapping out of her thoughts. "Yes?"

"We should go," he said, holding out a hand that she reluctantly took, helping her stand. "I need to take you to the hospital. You should also call your family and tell them what happened."

She groaned, already imagining how her mother would flip out and get mad at her for not being careful and for not taking the extra security that she had initially wanted her to have. "I can already hear my mother's screeches of worry from all the way here, blowing things out of proportion."

Zeke smiled at her crookedly. "I know exactly what you mean. Tetya—I mean, Agnieska really had a way with words with her rapid gun fire arguments," he said with a rueful smile, lost in memory.

"I'll stay here and deal with this, find out what's going on and who's behind the explosion," Ivanov said, inspecting the carnage. Zeke nodded at him and he left, vanishing into the crowd and where police had arrived to begin their investigation.

Zeke turned back to her. "Can you walk?" he asked her, looking down at her ankle.

"I'll manage," she said as Zeke supported her weight off of her injured ankle.

They began their slow progress, walking to his car and when she accidentally leaned too much of her weight towards where her possibly broken ankle was, she hissed in pain. "Ouch." She stopped abruptly, holding onto her leg.

"Sorry," Zeke murmured quietly before leaning down and wrapping his arms behind her legs and back and lifting her up, carrying her bridal-style.

"Hey!" she exclaimed in protest. "Put me down, Zeke."

"Sorry, but we need to get you to the hospital as soon as possible,"  he said while walking towards his sleek dark grey Aston Martin Vanquish that he had driven around the city today. "We'll never reach the car in time since you insist on not being put on a gurney or being brought there via ambulance, so this is the next best thing."

"It's not—" she began to argue but Zeke cut her off.

"Don't you dare say it's not that bad." Zeke looked at her sharply. "Don't think I don't notice you flinching whenever you lean even the slightest bit on your injured ankle."

She snapped her mouth shut, knowing that he was right. She was surprised that he noticed, she hid it pretty well all things considered but he probably read her like an open book.

And so she kept silent as he carried her over quickly to his car, buckling her in before speeding through the night.

Ray

"What the hell did you do," she hissed into the line, squeezing the phone tightly in her hand in anger while the other hand held the drink that she had desperately needed when she had heard the news as she stood in front of the window, a view of the New York skyline at her feet.

"Whatever do you mean?" The person on the other line asked innocently.

"Don't you dare think me a fool, you bitch," she said scathingly. "That whole set up reeked of amateur everywhere. Even the man who was already standing next to the car is still alive."

The person on the other line quieted for a few moments before speaking. "I knew that the bomber in the station was no good," the person grumbled to themselves.

"Yeah, no shit." she spit. "What did you even think to accomplish with this scheme of yours? And you didn't even think to mention it to us."

"Yeah well that whole plan you had for France wasn't cutting it for me. I want that royal bitch dead now. Her mother can be dealt with later."

"If we didn't have our guy on the scene, the Belluchi's and Vasiliev's would've found the remains of the evidence your little stunt left," she spat angrily, her grip on the phone getting tighter. "You could've exposed us and all of our efforts would have been wasted, up in smoke."

"Lo could have taken care of the police," the person on the other line said calmly, surely, as if the fact that they failed at their bombing attempt and could have been found was not a huge deal.

"Lo is at the top of the food chain," she hissed. "Do you think that he'll come down from his high horse to rescue you, you half-wit? He wouldn't come down to save your sorry ass if the world depended on it."

After a few moments, they spoke. "Lo cares about me," the person on the other line said firmly, as if trying to convince themselves. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. You wish.

She scoffed. "You are so naïve."

"You're just saying that because Lo couldn't care less about your ass," they bit back, smugly.

"Why you little—" she paused and took a breath, trying to calm down before speaking again. "How did you even know where she was to begin with?"

"The fault may have been mine," someone said from behind her. She turned to find their guy who had been at the scene. She hung up the phone and turned her full attention to him.

"I may have accidentally let slip where French boy was going to be when he met her," he said as he sat on the plush, modern couch in the center of the room, grabbing himself a drink. "She was in the room at the time so she might've eavesdropped and heard, that's my bad."

He leaned back, stretching out on the couch before continuing. "By the time I found out what she had planned, I was too late. I saw her a few meters away next to him so luckily, she wasn't dead so it was a good sign. "But," he added. "I got there with plenty of time to spectate and remove any obvious pieces of evidence that may lead back to us."

"Good." She sighed in relief, sitting down on the couch opposite and sagging in exhaustion.

"You know they're too much of a liability," she said after a few moments, looking out towards the view. "With that dimwitted head of theirs, they might even expose us accidentally."

"I admit, they're not the smartest tool in the shed. Rather disgustingly unintelligent, in fact," he agreed. "And a horrible actress. The only reason we haven't been caught is because they love to gossip and talk with everyone regardless, so there is nothing new."

"I don't know what Evans sees in that," he added. She scoffed—indeed, "that" was the perfect way to describe the naive little thing they had in their midst.

She shrugged. "Probably didn't have a choice. Arranged marriages are like that."

"You had an arranged marriage too."

Silence, then, "Don't bring my personal life into this," she said, setting down her glass to pour another finger-full.

They sat together in silence, thinking.

"She has proved to be too much of a liability, tovarishch," he commiserated.

She nodded, picking up the glass by its stem and swirling around the contents around. "Been a pain in my ass since we met," she said.

"We'll take them out," the two agreed at the same time, raising their glasses together before downing their drinks.

Translations

Tetya - aunt (Russian)

Tovarishch - comrade

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