Page 159 of Cruel Demands

It is excessive. It is also the only reason Taylor is here. I stop speaking. Taylor stands near the side of the stage with a folder against her chest. My mother is beside her, dressed in dark blue and watching me with the expression of a mother who believes she personally invented whatever competence her son displays.

One of the physicians drops beside the fallen man. Someone calls for a crash cart.

My government detail immediately closes around the stage. “Governor, stay where you are.”

I barely hear him. Because across the room, between two bodies shifting out of the doctors’ way, I see a face that should not be here.

Viktor Orlov.

For months, men have searched apartments, warehouses, hotels, properties held under other names, border crossings, businesses, relatives, mistresses, drivers, every person who has ever owed him money and every person to whom he has ever owed a favor.

Nothing. He disappeared so completely that some of my men began to believe he had left Russia. And he is thirty meters from me.

For one second, he looks directly at me. Then someone moves between us. My blood turns cold. Orlov has remained hidden for months because he knows what happens if I find him. He would not expose himself at a public government event merely to watch me cut a ribbon.

I look at Taylor. Two men in hospital security jackets are moving toward her and my mother.

“Arkady.”

“I see it.” His voice changes.

So does the room. The emergency lights activate. Red flashes along the walls. An alarm begins screaming overhead, followed by a distorted announcement warning of a possible gas leak and ordering evacuation from the public hall.

People surge toward the main entrance. My protective detail moves toward me.

The two men near Taylor do the opposite. They guide her and my mother toward the private treatment wing. Taylor resists. Even from the stage, I recognize the set of her shoulders. One of the men grips her arm. The world narrows.

I look back toward Orlov. He’s already moving. Not toward an exit. Toward the private wing.

“Taylor!” She turns at the sound of her name.

The man holding her jerks her backward. I step down from the platform.

A government security officer blocks me. “Sir, we need to move you through the eastern exit.”

“Move,” I growl.

“The area may be compromised,” he argues.

“It is.” I shove past him.

Behind me, Arkady is shouting into his radio.

By the time I reach the place where Taylor stood, the private-wing doors are closing. Everything inside me becomes still as panic swallows me whole.

I hit the doors hard enough that one rebounds from the wall. Beyond them, the corridor splits beneath pulsing red lights. There is no sign of Taylor. No sign of my mother. No sign of Orlov.

“Find them,” I tell Arkady, who is already beside me. I point toward one of his men. “Get an administrator.” He grabs a hospital administrator by the elbow and pulls him toward us. “How many exits are there from this wing?” I ask him.

The man stares at the gun now visible beneath Arkady’s jacket before looking at me. “There are two public corridors, the service elevators, and access to the ambulance level, but⁠—”

“Seal all of them.”

“We cannot shut down an active treatment wing.”

“Then clear it.”

He stares at me. Behind us, my men stop pretending. One removes his hospital credential and draws his weapon. Another crosses the room toward the service stairwell. Sergei takes control of the public entrance while the government officers turn toward him in confusion.