I slid to my knees beside the guard and pushed a towel under his hand, then reached for the phone sticking out of his back pocket.
“Tell me how to unlock it,” I said, meaning to call for an ambulance. That was usually a no-no in the Bratva, but this looked really bad.
Kon revived enough to swipe it out of my hand, sending it skating across the floor to rest under the couch. I could stop helping the guard keep pressure on his wound or go after it.
“Don’t be so opportunistic,” he growled, then closed his eyes again.
The asshole thought I was taking this opportunity to try to get away? “I was calling for help,” I snapped.
His eyes opened again, and despite his obvious pain, he managed to look smug. “That’s why I knocked it out of your hand, Tatiana.”
“Help for you, idiot.”
“That’s not very nice.”
I should have been trying to get help for myself, or at the very least fleeing out the door during the confusion. So why wasn’t I?
Because a man was bleeding out in front of me, that was why. Asshole or not, I wasn’t the kind of person to walk away from something like that. And I still needed answers from this particular jerk, so I scurried over to grab the phone and thrust it at the guard.
“So call the private doctor, then.” The Fokins would certainly have one or a dozen of them on call at all times for situations like this.
“Already on the way,” the guard said tersely, resting back on his heels. “I think it’s slowing down.”
“Or he’s running out of blood to bleed,” I said, taking over, putting the pressure on.
Kon somehow laughed at me, even while I was trying to keep him alive, and I barely resisted the urge to dig my nails into his wound. And even with leaving at least a pint of his blood all over the floor, the stubborn man was struggling to sit up.
“I’m fine. It’s nothing. I need to get back out there.”
“Like hell you do. Do you have some kind of contingency plan for me if you die?”
He laughed again, but the sound was weak, and he’d turned white as chalk from the effort to hoist himself to his elbow. He fell back onto the floor, swearing.
“They killed my guy. That can’t stand.”
“We’re going after him, Boss,” his guard said. “We’ve got three people combing the area.”
“And what the hell are you doing here?” Kon asked, sounding shockingly menacing despite his weakened state.
“He’s trying to keep you alive,” I said, pressing harder so he’d shut up.
Didn’t work. “I’m fine,” he said. “And you’re here. Surely you wouldn’t take advantage of this situation, right?”
Now I laughed, but only because he was being ridiculous. The guard knew better than to argue further and hustled out the door, leaving me alone.
So now what? How far could I get with his men swarming the streets? Perhaps a fighting chance if they were preoccupied with finding the men who’d instigated this attack.
Kon groaned. “I barely got a shot off before the bastard ran away.” Pulling his uninjured arm up, he wiped his hand down his face, leaving a smear of blood. “Now a man is dead.”
“Shut up,” I said. “It’s part of the job.”
“So your father did teach you something. Kind of a ruthless lesson.”
“What part of shut up didn’t you understand?” I said. The guard who left was right. The bleeding did seem to be slowing down, but that might not have been good news if it meant Kon was on the verge of dying.
“On my twelfth birthday, there was an incident at our house,” I said, thinking that if I kept talking, he’d save his strength. “Two men I knew my whole life were killed, and I was inconsolable.”
“You thought it was your fault,” Kon rasped.