“I didn’t just help out,” Ania said. “I saved your asses.” She strode out from behind them, the rifle pointed down, although she held it as if she knew what she was doing. She’d already demonstrated that she did know how to use it. Expertly.
“You want to tell us what you’re doing here?” Mitya asked.
She tossed a first aid kit onto the ground beside him, laid the rifle close to his hand and crouched down to run her hands over his body. “I was listening to the two of you go at each other earlier and it occurred to me you weren’t out to kill me, in spite of Jewel’s worries. Your leopard is an asshole, Mitya. He should be reassuring her, not trying to dominate her.”
A groan escaped when her hand slid over the gash in his side. She let up immediately and dug her flashlight into the ground beside him, spotlighting where the bullet had clipped him. He didn’t bother to look. He’d experienced enough wounds to know it wasn’t nearly as bad as it felt.
“Ania, you were safe with a security team around you. Why in the world would you come after us?”
“I’m not the stay-at-home type, Mitya. You may think we’re compatible, but I wasn’t raised to stay in the kitchen, and it isn’t my dream. I heard what you both had to say and thought a lot about it. You took on a very difficult task when most wouldn’t have.”
She looked beautiful kneeling there in the dirt beside him, her gaze sliding away from his as she absolved him of guilt. His heart beat overtime. The knots in his gut began to unravel.
“Not that I believe Sevastyan when he says he wouldn’t have done it. You have honor, and my father saw that in you and trusted you. I should have remembered that he was always a great judge of character. I’m very sorry for my outburst. I think I had a breakdown or something, but it wasn’t right that I blamed either of you.” Her gaze dropped from Mitya’s to touch on Sevastyan. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
“No one is going to blame you for what you said or did when your father was attacked and then was dying,” Mitya said immediately, sending his cousin a quick look.
He didn’t need to. Sevastyan had his back to Ania, zipping up his jeans. “Little sister, I only wish I could have said or done something to help you. I’m not good yet with relationships, but I’m trying to learn.”
Her hands were on Mitya, gentle as she cleaned his wounds, but she still wasn’t really looking at him, and he needed her to. There was no doubt that she was emotionally fragile at the moment and, like Sevastyan, he didn’t have a clue about real relationships, but he wanted to learn. For her.
He couldn’t help putting his hand in her hair, tangling his fingers in the silky strands. “I’m so sorry, Ania. Your father was a good man.”
She nodded. “Yes, he was.” She didn’t pull away from him, and he took that as another good sign. Just the fact that she’d saved them from the sniper and hadn’t shot them herself, he figured they were lucky.
“Was it painless?”
There was a choking sound, and Mitya threw a helpless look at Sevastyan. He was leery of talking about Antosha’s death when she’d just had a very emotional breakdown.
“Quick and painless, kotyonok. He deserved an honorable death and he got it. I made certain of that. His leopard was treated with all due respect.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t look up but spent a lot of time washing the wound.
“How the hell did you follow us without us knowing?” Sevastyan demanded, changing the subject. “You didn’t shift.” He swung around to face her, his hands on his hips.
She shrugged. “I climbed down from the roof, stole a car—”
“Ania.” Mitya’s heart jumped. “You could have been taken or killed.”
She rolled her eyes as she cleaned the wound and took a good look to make certain the bullet had just shaved off a great deal of skin and muscle but hit nothing vital. “Like anyone could keep up with me if they chased me. I took a little-known road that isn’t paved and is barely there, that I’ve been using since I was a kid, and came around the back of the house.”
“That was dangerous,” Mitya said, still looking up at the sky. Little beads of sweat dotted his body, but he didn’t move away from her hands as she worked, or make another sound of distress, although he wanted to, not because of the wound but because she terrified him with her courage.
“Not really. I knew you’d send someone to take out whoever was the guard in the back. Once I found him, I just went up to the roof and waited. If you didn’t need me, I’d slip back into your house. My father taught me a lot about tactics and he said always have a backup. It just seemed like if they did that, and you were questioning a prisoner, they could have someone ready to kill them and you.”