Chapter 43: The Night Watch
The first thing Mila registered was the cold.
Not the cold of the room—the suite was warm, almost stiflingly so, with the fireplace crackling in its marble hearth—but the cold radiating from her own skin. She was shivering, her teeth chattering despite the heat pressing against her face. And there was wetness. A spreading, terrible wetness around her thighs, soaking through the silk of the borrowed nightgown, a sensation she recognized with a deep, primal horror.
She tried to move, to sit up, to call out, but her body wouldn't obey. The room swam around her, the chandelier spinning into a starburst of blinding light. Her ribs screamed as she tried to draw breath, a jagged, grinding pain that stole the air from her lungs and left her gasping like a landed fish.
The door. The door was so far away. She'd locked it, she remembered, dragged the armchair against it—an absurd, futile gesture, but she'd been so terrified. Not of them. They'd been nothing but gentle, nothing but kind. That was what was so frightening. The kindness. The patience. The waiting.
The same way the first one had been kind.
She clawed at the sheets, her fingers finding purchase on the damp silk, and pulled. The motion jarred her ribs again and a sob tore from her throat, painful and thin. She tasted blood. She didn't know where it was coming from.
The darkness was closing in, soft and tempting. She could just close her eyes, she thought. Just lie here. Let it happen. But then they would find her in the morning, and they would be—
A crash from the other side of the door, the splintering of wood. Voices, low and urgent. Then the armchair was shoved aside, scraped across the marble floor, and the door swung open, flooding the room with light.
"Mila!"
Alexsi's voice, raw and desperate. She'd never heard him raise his voice before, not like that. He'd always been so measured, so controlled. But now he was shouting her name, crossing the room in three long strides, his boots leaving wet marks on the carpet.
Andrey was behind him, his enormous frame filling the doorway, his face pale beneath its stubble. He was saying something, but the words were muffled, distant, like she was hearing them through water.
Then Alexsi was beside her, his hands hovering over her, not touching, afraid to touch. His jaw was tight, his eyes darting over her body, taking in the blood, the sweat, the trembling.
"What happened?" His voice was a command, but it cracked at the edges. "Mila, look at me. What happened?"
She couldn't speak. The words were there, lodged in her throat like stones. She'd read the insert, all of it, slowly, carefully, until she'd memorized every syllable. She knew what she was doing. She knew the risks.
She just hadn't known it would hurt like this.
"Fuck," Andrey breathed, dropping to his knees beside the bed. "The sheets—Alexsi, she's bleeding out."
"Get a towel," Alexsi snapped, but he was already reaching for her, his arms sliding beneath her shoulders, lifting her slightly. The motion sent a fresh wave of agony through her ribs and she cried out, a small, animal sound she couldn't suppress.
"Shh, shh." His voice was softer now, the command bleeding into something gentler. "I have you. I've got you. Just breathe."
She couldn't breathe. Every inhalation was a knife twisting between her ribs. The pain was so bright, so white, that it left her dizzy and nauseated. She could feel the blood still coming, a slow, steady tide soaking into the mattress.
"I can't—" she started, but the words dissolved into a ragged cough.
"It's okay," Alexsi said, but his hands were shaking. He pressed a towel against her, trying to stem the flow. "It's okay, you're going to be okay."
She shook her head. She didn't know how to tell him that she'd done this to herself. That she'd known what she was doing. That she was sorry, so sorry, but she'd been so afraid—
"Mila." Andrey's face appeared above her, his brow furrowed. He'd stripped off his shirt, and he was using it, pressing it against her thighs with a gentle firmness that somehow didn't hurt. "What did you take? We need to know. Please."
"A pill," she whispered. The words came out slurred, her tongue thick and clumsy. "Just a pill."
"What kind of pill?" Alexsi's voice was strained. He'd gone still, very still, the way a predator does when it's tracking prey. "Where did you get it?"
"She snuck out," Andrey said. His voice wasn't accusing, just stating a fact. "That night, when I fell asleep. She was gone for an hour. I thought she just wanted air.""I did want air," Mila said. The tears were coming now, hot and useless, streaming down her cheeks. "I just—I couldn't—"
The tears were coming now, hot and useless, streaming down her cheeks. "I just—I couldn't—"
"Stop," Alexsi said, not harshly, but with a gentleness that somehow cut through the chaos. "Stop trying to explain. You don't owe us an explanation."
Andrey was already moving, his massive body shifting across the room with a swiftness that belied his size. He dropped to his knees, lifting the edge of the bloody sheets, peering beneath the bed. He emerged a moment later, a crumpled foil packet in his hand, the packaging slick with something dark.
"What the hell is this?" He turned it over, squinting at the foreign script. "This isn't Russian. This is—" He looked closer. "Turkish?"
Alexsi's eyes flicked to the packet, then back to Mila's face. She was paler now, her lips going gray at the edges. A cold, calculating part of his brain—the part that had kept him alive through two wars—was tallying her symptoms. Blood loss. Shock. Possible perforation.
"Give me your phone," he said to Andrey. "Google it."
Andrey pulled out his phone, one-handed, still holding pressure on the towel between Mila's thighs. His thick fingers, so good at crushing things, were impossibly delicate as he typed. The phone's screen lit his face in the dim room. He stared at it, long and hard.
"Misoprostol," he said finally. "It's a medication. For—" He stopped, looked up at her. A world of understanding passed between the two men.
"Abortion pills," Alexsi said. Not a question.
Mila's eyes had gone glassy. She wasn't crying anymore. She was just staring at the wall, somewhere between them, breathing in shallow, ragged gasps.
"What the fuck, Mila?" Andrey's voice cracked. He wasn't angry. That was the terrible thing. It wasn't anger in his eyes—it was a profound, aching sorrow. "Why didn't you say something? Why didn't you come to us?"
"Because I was afraid you'd stop me," she whispered. The words were barely audible, pulled from some deep, dark place. "And I couldn't have his baby. I just couldn't."
Alexsi closed his eyes. He could feel his own heart beating, a furious, helpless rhythm. Relief and grief tangled in his chest, and beneath them both was a rage so pure it nearly staggered him. Not at her—never at her. At everything that had led to this. At himself, for not knowing. For not offering her the choice himself.
"You should've come to me," he said. His voice was hoarse. "I should have offered you that option from the very fucking start. I was so focused on getting you safe that I didn't let myself think about what you'd already been through."
Mila turned her head, meeting his eyes for the first time. Something flickered there. A softening. A recognition.
"If you'd asked me," he continued, "I would have said yes. I would have found a way. I wasn't going to force you to carry anything you didn't want."
"But now I'm bleeding too much," she said. It wasn't a question. Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact, as if she were talking about someone else's body, someone else's tragedy.
"Yeah, you're bleeding a lot," Andrey said grimly. He lifted the towel, looked at it, pressed it back down. "And I don't know how to make it stop."
Alexsi's brain kicked into command mode. "We need an ultrasound. We need to make sure the tissue is fully expelled. Otherwise she'll hemorrhage out."
"Here? You want to do an ultrasound in a hotel room?" Andrey's voice was raw. "We don't have an ultrasound machine, Lex. We're not in a hospital."
"Then we find one." Alexsi's jaw set. "There are private clinics in this city that ask no questions. We get her stable first, then we move."
Mila's hand shot out, grabbing Alexsi's wrist with a grip that was shockingly strong for a woman bleeding out in front of them. Her dark eyes were suddenly focused, burning with an intensity that made him pause.
"There's a video," she said.
Alexsi went very still.
"What video?" Andrey asked, but Alexsi already knew. He could see it in her face, a mask of horror that had nothing to do with the blood soaking the sheets.
"Of what he did to me." Her voice was steady now, too steady. "He filmed it. They—they all filmed it. It's out there somewhere. On the internet. On the dark web. I don't know where. But it exists."
Andrey's face went white. Then red.
"Who?" The word came out through gritted teeth. "Who filmed it?"
"I don't know. I didn't see them. I was—" She swallowed, a hard, convulsive motion. "I was on my back. Looking at the ceiling. Counting cracks in the plaster."
Alexsi felt his hands clench into fists at his sides. His nails bit into his palms. He could feel his jaw working, grinding, the muscle jumping beneath his skin.
"If someone tries to show you," Mila said, her voice cracking for the first time, "don't watch it. Please. It's so bad. I know you want to understand, I know you want to see what I survived—I know what kind of men you are. But don't. It's not worth it. It's not—"
"Shh." Alexsi's voice caught. He moved to her side, sitting on the edge of the bed, his hand finding hers. "We won't watch it. I promise. We don't need to see it to believe you."
Andrey turned away, his shoulders shaking. He wasn't crying—Alexsi didn't think he knew how to anymore. But there was a tremor in those massive shoulders, a tremor that spoke to a violence held in check.
"All of you," Mila whispered. "The men who did this. They're from your father's regiment."
Alexsi's blood ran cold.
"My father's regiment is my father's," he said quietly. "Not mine. Not the men I command."
"But they were wearing your insignia."
Something snapped inside him. He could feel it, a bright, clean break, like a bone shattering under pressure. He kept his face neutral, kept his voice level, but inside he was already cataloguing names, faces. He would find them. He would make them pay.
"I believe you," he said. "And I'll find them. But first, we have to keep you alive."
"Amen to that," Andrey muttered, pushing himself to his feet. His hands were crimson, the towel soaked through. "We need to get these sheets off her. The bleeding's slowing but she's losing too much."
Alexsi nodded. He gently released Mila's hand and stood. "Andrey, I need to know who has cleaner blood. You or me."
Andrey frowned. "What do you mean?"
"For a direct transfusion. We're not getting to a hospital in time. You know it and I know it. We need to do this here."
"Mila's blood type?"
"O negative."
"I'm O negative," Andrey said, almost relieved "You're A positive. That's incompatible, right?"
"Yeah." Alexsi exhaled. "It's you."
Andrey didn't hesitate. He'd already pulled off his shirt, exposing a torso that was a roadmap of old scars and newer bruises. He grabbed a clean towel from the bathroom and pressed it against the crook of his arm, flexing his fist to make the vein rise.
"Let's do this," he said. "Before I start thinking about it."
Alexsi found the medical kit in his duffel bag. It was basic—field gear, designed for battlefield wounds, not for saving a fragile woman in a luxurious hotel room. But it had alcohol wipes, IV tubing, a butterfly needle, and bags of saline that they could repurpose for the donation.
"Set up over there," he said, jerking his head toward the vanity mirror. "That's the cleanest surface we've got."
Andrey moved without comment. He cleared the marble countertop, laying out the kit with a soldier's efficiency. Mila had closed her eyes, her breathing shallow but steady. Alexsi carefully lifted her, pulling the bloody sheets away from her body, and carried her to the edge of the vanity.
"This is going to hurt," he said quietly.
"Everything already hurts," she whispered.
He braced her ribs with his hands, feeling the cracked bones shift beneath her skin. She winced, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. He held her steady, his thumbs pressing along the line of her diaphragm, taking the pressure off the fractures as she moved.
Andrey found a vein in her arm. His hands, so huge they looked like they couldn't possibly perform this kind of delicate work, were steady and sure. He taped the needle in place, attached the tubing, then turned to Alexsi.
"Okay. I'm going to bleed into the bag.
Andrey's voice was steady, but the vein in his neck was pulsing hard. He had the IV bag positioned on a brass hook above the vanity, the tubing coiled like a pale snake waiting to strike. Alexsi watched his friend's jaw tighten, watched the massive man roll his shoulders once, twice, then press the butterfly needle into the crook of his own arm with a grunt.
"I'm going to bleed into the bag," Andrey repeated, more to himself than anyone else. "Then we're going to hook you up, Mila, and you're going to feel like a new woman."
"Fucking liar," Mila whispered, but there was a ghost of something in her voice—almost a laugh, almost a sob, some sound she'd forgotten she knew how to make.
Andrey's mouth quirked. "Yeah, I am. But the alternative is you dying on this marble floor, and I didn't drag your skinny ass up three flights of stairs just to watch that happen."
The blood started to flow, dark and thick, filling the bag with a slow rhythmic drip. Alexsi counted the seconds in his head, watching the level rise. He'd done this before, in the field, with men who'd lost limbs to shrapnel and mortar fire. But those men had been soldiers, hardened by years of war. Mila was something else entirely—a woman who looked like a strong wind might snap her in two.
"Where'd you learn to do this?" Mila asked. Her voice was fading, going thin at the edges. "You two—you're not doctors."
"Field medicine," Alexsi said. He was kneeling beside her now, his hand on her wrist, counting her pulse. It was fast and thready, like a bird's heart. "You learn a lot when you're the one responsible for keeping men alive."
"Men who look like they could crush a skull with their bare hands?"
Andrey let out a short bark of laughter. "I can crush a skull, sweetheart. But I'm also really good at knitting. My grandmother taught me."
Mila blinked. The statement was so absurd, so out of place in this gilded horror show of a room, that she almost forgot where she was. "Knitting?"
"Grey, ugly, functional scarves. I made Alexsi one for his birthday. He's never worn it."
"It's itchy," Alexsi said, and there was warmth in his voice now, the faintest glimmer of something normal. "But I kept it."
Mila watched them, these two impossible men, and felt something shift in her chest. Not the fractured ribs—those still screamed with every breath. Something deeper. Something that had been locked away for so long she'd forgotten it existed.
"You're both insane," she said.
"Absolutely," Andrey agreed. "But we're also the only people in Moscow who give a shit whether you live or die. So you're stuck with us."
The bag was nearly full now, dark and heavy against the gold hook. Andrey pulled the needle out of his arm and pressed a cotton ball against the puncture wound, flexing his fist to stop the bleeding. Alexsi took the bag, checked the seal, and attached it to the line running into Mila's arm.
"This is going to feel cold," he warned.
She barely felt it. The cold was nothing compared to everything else—the deep, hollow ache in her belly, the burning in her ribs, the numbness spreading through her limbs. She watched her own blood mix with Andrey's, watched the unfamiliar life-force travel up the tube and into her body, and she thought about how strange it was to be saved by a man she'd known for less than a week.
"Your body might reject this," Alexsi said quietly. "We're a match, but it's not perfect. If you feel hot, or your chest tightens—"
"Then I'll die warm," Mila finished. "Or something. I don't care anymore."
"You should care." His voice was hard now, a command snapping through the softness. "You didn't survive everything you survived just to give up in a hotel room."
Mila's eyes snapped to his. There was something fierce in them, something that burned through the fog of pain and exhaustion.
"Who said I was giving up?"
"You did." Andrey's voice was gentler, but no less firm. "Just now. When you said you didn't care. That's giving up, sweetheart."
She opened her mouth to argue, but the words wouldn't come. Because he was right. She'd been giving up for weeks, hadn't she? Ever since she'd woken up in that room with the cracked plaster ceiling and the smell of cheap vodka and the weight of a man on top of her that she couldn't fight off. She'd been giving up in increments, piece by piece, until there was almost nothing left.
But now her blood was mixing with a stranger's blood, and her veins were filling with warmth that wasn't her own, and somehow that felt like a beginning.
"I'm not giving up," she said, and there was steel in her voice for the first time in what felt like forever. "I'm just tired."
"Then sleep," Alexsi said. He was watching her with those dark, unreadable eyes. "We'll keep watch."
"You haven't slept in—"
"Doesn't matter."
Andrey had already collapsed into the armchair by the window, his massive body folded into the delicate frame like a bear in a child's toy. His eyes were closed, but his breathing was alert, listening. Alexsi settled onto the floor beside Mila's makeshift bed, his back against the marble vanity, his hand resting on the edge of the mattress.
"Come here," he said. It wasn't a command. It was an offering.
Mila hesitated. She'd learned not to trust men's hands reaching toward her, even when they moved slowly, even when their voices were soft. But his hand was just lying there, palm up, waiting. Not grasping.
She took it.
Her fingers were cold and thin between his. He didn't squeeze, didn't pull. He just held her, his thumb tracing a slow circle on the inside of her wrist.