Page 116 of Wicked Refusal

But the other part of me disagrees.

Save her,screams the man.

I drop my stance and rush to Mia.

I grab her around the chest and push her to the ground. She cries out in pain, but I can’t think about that right now. Her comfort is second to her life.

I press her head in the crook of my neck and wait.

No gunshot rings out this time.

A trap,I realize.It was a fucking trap.

The second I’m up again, he’s already in the stairwell.

I’m about to go after him when?—

“Argh!” Mia starts writhing on the ground, clutching her belly.

Duty wars inside me. My duty to my Bratva, to my revenge—to my dead family. And to myotherfamily, too.

“Yulian!” Maksim shouts. “He’s getting away!”

He’s trying to follow Desya, but the crowd, which parted in terror for him, isn’t doing Maksim the same favor.

On the ground, a dark pool spreads under Mia’s dress. That’s what shocks me into action.

I put my gun down and lift Mia into my arms. “Let’s go.”

“Please,” she whispers incoherently. “Don’t let our baby die.”

She clings to me with all she’s got. My woman—the mother of my child.

“I won’t let anything happen to you.” It’s a promise. A vow. “Toeitherof you.”

And this time, no one is going to stop me from keeping it.

40

MIA

When I was seven, I fell from a tree.

It was an old beech tree in my backyard. Back then, I was always climbing, scraping myself with bark and wrapping my tiny body around the tallest branches I could reach.

One day, my foot slipped.

I wasn’ttoohigh-up, thank goodness. Otherwise, I doubt I’d have lived to tell the tale. But the branch I was using for support wasn’t sturdy enough to hold me up.

One second, I was playing with the leaves.

The next, I was on the ground, screaming in pain.

I broke my arm that day. Dad rushed me to the ER. Luckily, the break was clean—nothing unusual for a kid to get. I got wrapped up in a cast, took something for the pain, and was discharged within the day.

On my way out, a kind nurse gave me a lollipop.

I decided then and there that I wanted to be a healer. That I wanted to be the one wearing scrubs, on the other side of the pain, with the power to make it all better.