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The leader frowned and gestured one gunman aside, a lanky young man with a dark beard and almond-shaped brown eyes. “Dmitry, you said Kingsley arrived an hour ago,” he said in hushed English.
“I hacked the hotel computer myself, Yuri. Checked in at six thirty,” the young man replied.
“Where is he?” Yuri hissed.
Tess overheard their argument and remembered she’d used David’s reservation to check into the hotel. With no time to waste, she’d left her bag at the front desk, then jumped back into the chauffeured car and drove straight to the retreat building, a couple of miles down the twisty mountain road. Unnerved, she couldn’t stop her lower lip from quivering, and her palms grew damp. The realization struck her like a boulder: I am David.
Beside her, Riku stood mere inches away, and, like all the guests in the room, held his hands up, motionless. One hand still clutched his whiskey glass, and his forehead beaded with sweat.
Shock threatened to take her over, and she braced herself in defense. Weren’t assault weapons banned here? Canada was supposed to be safe. In her peripheral vision, she glimpsed Riku’s hand shaking.
Something crashed near her. The crystal tumbler in Riku’s hand shattered, sending an explosion of glass shards across the slick marble tile. Three gunshots followed, and screams burst out across the room. Her legs buckled underneath her, and she slammed onto her kneecaps and face-planted with a thud on the ground.
Ears ringing from the gunfire, she crawled onto her hands and knees to check on Riku, who had fallen. Blood oozed across the front of his crisp white shirt in a spreading red stain. “He’s been shot!” she cried.
When she bent over Riku to comfort him, her satellite phone bounced out of her pocket and landed in a puddle of blood. Something warm seeped onto her blouse, and her nose burned with the acrid smell of gunpowder.
The surrounding guests scattered away, forming an invisible perimeter to distance themselves from the bloody mess. “Sergey, chto zhe ty sdelal?” Several yards away, the leader, Yuri, yelled at the shooter, Sergey.
“Eto byl neschastnyy sluchay,” Sergey yelled back.
“Slishkom pozdno, idiot.” Beet-red splotches surfaced on Yuri’s face, and he shook his fist.
Above the room, a massive glass chandelier creaked, then dropped from the ceiling and hit several guests as it plummeted to the ground. Mayhem ensued.
Ignoring the argument and the commotion, she scanned the guests around her for any possible aid, but no one moved. “We need help over here. Now.”
Wetness brushed her torso, and seconds passed before she registered Riku’s blood covered her blouse. She choked back nausea and tried not to faint. Her hands twinged with nerves poking like sharp needles lodged in her skin. She could not, would not, let her mentor die in front of her. Patience gone, she leapt to her feet. “Goddamn it. He’s bleeding out. Help!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.
Across the room, an athletic man with short, dark blond hair stepped forward with his hands up. “I’m a doctor.” Calm, yet imbued with command, he spoke with a hint of an English accent. Dressed in a refined charcoal suit with a rich, cobalt shirt that intensified his blue eyes, he gestured at the bleeding man on the ground.
Yuri paused his verbal assault of his trigger-happy shooter and faced the doctor. Scowling, he appeared to size up the blond man, who had raised his hands in surrender. “Whatever. He won’t live.” With a shrug, he lowered his gun, waved the doctor over to the fallen, bleeding man, then returned to his gunmen.
The doctor crossed the room with silent footsteps, quick and effortless. He dodged the overturned tables and the ceiling rubble littering the ground. Peeling off his suit jacket, he tossed it down before kneeling on the bloody floor next to Riku and across from her.
“His name is Riku-san. I’m Tess. He can’t die. Please don’t let him die.” Her words tumbled out in a rush, and she leaned back to give the doctor space to examine Riku’s injuries. Agitated, her senses sharpened into hyperalert focus. Nothing else mattered now but Riku and whether this man could help.
He gave her a cursory nod and started work on Riku’s torn-up chest. His expression revealed no shock at the carnage before him, and he maintained steady eye contact with Riku. “My name is Mark. First, slow your breathing down.”
With visible effort, Riku managed to gurgle a response. “Arigato. Yes.”
“Slow breaths while I examine you.” Mark ripped open Riku’s bloody white shirt with a decisive tear and inserted his bare hands into the pool of blood. After he uncovered the ragged hole of the bullet’s entry point, he checked Riku’s pulse and frowned. “Weak and thready.”
Rolling the man to one side, he appeared to search for an exit wound on his back, but Riku’s shirt was clean. He leapt up and grabbed a pile of white napkins from the nearest bar table and packed the source of the hemorrhaging, leaning on his hands to exert steady pressure. “Keep breathing, nice and slow.”
If the terrorists planned to kill them, Tess resolved to spend her last moments comforting Riku, not cowering in fear. After Riku’s many years of mentorship, comfort fell far short of the one thing she wanted to offer him but couldn’t—survival. His blood now soaked through the knees of her pants, but she emulated Mark’s professional demeanor and spoke in a soothing tone. “Hang on, Riku. I’m right here, by your side.”
Ignoring the one gunman hovering behind them, she focused on Mark’s hands and how they worked in smooth, practiced patterns. Despite abandoning religion years ago, desperation prevailed, and she prayed this doctor could keep Riku alive long enough to get him to a hospital. At first, she took him for a Brit, but his direct formality suggested a dash of Germanic or Scandinavian roots instead. His eyes were sapphire, the deepest blue she’d ever seen, and his chiseled jaw remained tight and unmoving, set deep in concentration.
Despite the chaos, Mark didn’t appear bothered by the loaded assault weapons near him, nor did he act intimidated by their assailants. He reversed his hands to put his left hand over his right, revealing a gnarled purple scar twisting across the entire back of his hand. As he attempted to curl his left fingers around the bloody napkins, he let out an involuntary groan of pain.
The marked break in his composure caught her attention. “How can I help you?”
“I need a big plastic bag,” Without moving, Mark stayed focused on Riku’s wound, but his scarred hand trembled. He kept pressure on the wound but lowered his chin down to his chest, took a deep breath, then adjusted his right hand to stabilize his left side.
Alerted by her sudden movement, the gunmen’s weapons aimed in her direction in unison.
Her heart rattled, and she raised her hands above her head. “We need a bag. May I go to the bar to find one?”
