Fuck, this wasn’t good. I had been injured before, but this was going to be on a different level.
“Gavril!” Naomi called out as she tugged on Jon’s shoulders, the dead man now nothing but, well, dead weight on top of me. “Hang on!”
Using what little strength I had left, I helped her push him off me, satisfied when I saw the glazed look in his eyes. He was dead.
The fucker was dead.
“Gavril!” Naomi gasped as she hurried to my side, true terror on her face. “Gavril, oh God!”
“You shot him,” I said as her hands ran over my body frantically. I could already feel myself starting to weaken, my movements feeling sluggish, but damn, I was proud of her.
“You are bleeding,” she said instead as her hands found the wound in my stomach. “Gavril.”
I coughed, the pain wreaking havoc on my body. I could taste blood in my mouth, and I didn’t know if the fucker had cut something deep inside or if it was from the punches we had traded.
Either way, I was fucking screwed. “Damn, that hurt.”
“What can I do?” she asked, her hands now coated with my blood. “Gavril, tell me what to do!”
There were a thousand things that I needed to tell her to do, but none of the words seemed to want to form on my tongue. “I’m fine,” I forced out, pressing my hand to my stomach harder despite the pain I was causing myself. I didn’t want her to worry about this, about me, and though it looked pretty fucking bad, she was my main concern. “Are you okay? What did he do to you?”
She shook her head, tears dripping onto my shirt. “I’m fine. He didn’t.” She didn’t have to say anything more, and a wealth of relief coursed through me. I hadn’t been too late after all.
The bodies littering the driveway had been enough indication that the fucker was in my house. I hadn’t even stopped when I had seen Ivan’s prone body and Vera’s, tucking the anger and rage deep down until I could ensure that my wife was safe.
Now Naomi was safe, safe from that fucker ever doing anything to her again.
That was all I needed to know. Even if I died on this bedroom floor, I could be assured that Jon Hampton wasn’t going to terrorize her ever again.
“Gavril!” Naomi’s sharp voice brought me back to the present, and I realized that the edges of my gaze were blurrier than normal.
Fuck. I groaned, and Naomi pressed her hand to mine. “Gavril, please tell me what to do,” she begged, her voice starting to grow faint.
Or maybe my hearing was. Yeah, that was probably it. I was fucking dying. A bubble of laughter threatened to overcome me as I thought about all the fucking things I had done wrong in my life, the regret that others had said came with the promise of a close death. There was so much I wanted to tell the woman crying over me, so much I wanted to apologize for.
This was my punishment for everything I had done. I had found fucking happiness, but now it was going to be ripped right out of my hands.