Less than an hour sounded better when Anton said it than it felt living through it. The traffic thinned by degrees, and by the time he pulled the car outside the building, the city had gone quiet around it. Most of the lights inside were off.
“I’ll be back,” I told Anton and stepped out.
The guard near the entrance straightened as I approached. Recognition moved across his face, and he stepped aside. I moved through the lobby and into the private elevator.
Dmitri’s office was exactly as I left it. My phone sat on the desk where I had abandoned it. I grabbed it and turned back toward the door.
The elevator panel showed it was sitting at the penthouse floor when I pressed the button. It only meant someone had used it after me. After a few seconds, the numbers descended, and the elevator stopped where I was. I stepped in, still processing that someone was in the penthouse.
I turned it over, telling myself it was none of my concern, that I needed to go home because Grandma was waiting. My hand moved to the panel to press the lobby button, but I paused when I noticed a red smear on the metal.
I leaned closer. The elevator was clean when I rode it up. I pressed the tip of my finger to it, and the chills moved through me when I noticed it was blood.Fresh blood.
Panic settled over me, and I straightened, letting possibilitiesarrange themselves, each one worse than the last. I could not walk away without knowing. My finger pressed the penthouse button before I finished deciding what to do.
I stood watching the numbers and told myself this was probably nothing. If it were Dmitri, I would come with a reasonable explanation for why I was here, but I had to know if he was hurt.
The doors opened onto a hallway that stretched ahead. I walked to the door and stopped, noticing blood across the brass as well.
I pressed the bell and stepped back. The seconds stretched longer, and I grew impatient and rang the bell again. I tapped my foot against the floor. Someone was inside and was choosing not to answer.
Lifting my hand to ring a third time, I heard the lock beep and the door click open.
Dmitri filled the doorway, one hand braced against the frame and the other holding a bottle of alcohol loosely at his side. Blood striped his knuckles and ran across the back of his hand. His shirt hung open at the shoulder, the fabric soaked through and clinging to a wound beneath, making my stomach drop.
A gasp left my lips, and I stepped back. “Wh…what happened?”
He looked at me with exhausted eyes. “So the smell of perfume in the elevator was truly yours,” he said casually.
I opened my mouth and closed it again. He was bleeding through his shirt, and his opening line was about my perfume?
“You’re bleeding,” I pointed out.
A faint smirk moved across his mouth. “I am aware.” His eyes narrowed. “What I’m not aware of is what my wife is doing here at this hour.”
I stepped past him without answering. The first aid kit was upstairs. I remembered that much from the night he used it on me. I moved toward the stairs with a purpose. He could ask hisquestions when he wasn’t bleeding through his clothes.
I pushed open the bathroom door and froze. The sink was a mess, blood streaked the porcelain, and a bloody, soaked towel lay on it. My hand rose to my mouth, the panic turning to fear. On the edge of the sink, I caught a bullet covered in blood as well.
My knees softened beneath me. I reached for the doorframe and held it.
“I—oh God,” I whispered, the words barely finding their way out.
Ambulance. I needed to call an ambulance or the police. My fingers hovered over the phone screen, trembling. One of those was the correct solution.
“Don’t be dramatic,” Dmitri said, and I turned to him. He stood behind me, watching me with a mild expression as if he found my distress interesting.
“I should call an ambulance,” I breathed. “Or the police. I should…” My voice fractured somewhere in the middle, and I looked at the phone again, fingers brushing the screen. “This is bad.”
He took the phone from my hand and threw it across the room. It clattered on the floor, and before I could understand what was happening here, Dmitri’s hand closed around my waist. He pulled me toward him with an energy that had no business existing in a man currently losing blood.
“Dmitri, you were shot, you are…” I looked at his shoulder and looked away again, hissing. “God, are you okay?”
“No.”
“Then I should call an ambulance.” I gestured at the phone on the floor and at the sink. “What do I do? Tell me what to do, or I will lose my mind.”
His mouth curved. “I owe you a kiss.”