2. Celia
Chapter 2
Celia
The Box is a bratva medical facility hidden inside of a warehouse on the west side of the city. Not everyone born into the bratva knows about it, but those who actively contribute to the bratva’s inner workings—gambling rings, protection fee collection, gun running—always have a reason to pay the sitting medic a visit. Although I’ve heard stories from my brother, I’ve never been there before now.
I never imagined I’d have a reason to pay The Box a visit.
Then again, I’ve never had three mafia boyfriends before.
A medical team rushes to meet us with a gurney the moment we pull up to the curb. As the boys help their brother out of Rage’s SUV, I continue holding Ruin’s hand, determined not to let go. He squeezes my fingers like a lifeline, his eyes searching for mine every second we’re in transport.
One of the medics tries to brush past me. “I’m sorry, ma’am, you’re going to have to let go.”
My heart hammers loudly in my ears. “I’m only letting go if he does.” I loosen my grip, but Ruin’s remains strong, pulling me even closer. The entire team rushes through an open dock door and I have to jog to keep up. Despite the building’s exterior, the inside is pristine. Concrete floors are professionally treated and spotlessly cleaned, with a straight path leading through rows of partitions separating the cavernous room into smaller pods. Each pod is filled with bright overhead lighting running across the tops of the partitions and with rolling medical equipment and carts. The team ignores all of them and rolls Ruin to one of the larger pods in the back, where a doctor in a surgical gown awaits. Despite the paper mask covering his face and the cap tied around his head, I recognize him immediately.
“Dr. Sakovia.” I breathe a sigh of relief. Thank God he’s already here. Alongside him is a team of five dressed similarly to him, including the sterile gloves on their hands.
“Put him on the table,” Wren instructs. My hand slips free from his while they transfer him, and I’m unable to maneuver back by his side once they start taking his vitals and hooking him up to machines. They peer inside his throat, slip two IVs into his forearms, and begin triage and treatment.
Gently, Rage touches my lower back once the medics begin debriding the burnt flesh from Ruin’s body. “You won’t want to see this,” he murmurs, tugging on my arm. “C’mon, let’s get some air.”
“I’m staying.”
Ruin’s eyes finally close as the adrenaline fades and whatever drugs they’ve given him kick in.
Rage and I stare at Ruin together. “He’s in good hands,” he murmurs, squeezing my hip. Then he coughs, a wet sound that sends icy panic down my spine.
“Serena, see that both Rebel and Rage are treated for smoke inhalation and other injuries,” Dr. Sakovia interrupts, glancing up at us. “You may stay, Miss Monrovia, if you do not interfere. There’s a chair over there.” He nods toward a metal folding chair sitting against one of the partitions. “But the moment you do, you will be escorted out of the building.”
“I’ll be fine.” I touch Rage’s cheek to reassure him. “Go get checked out.”
One of the medics, who I assume is Serena, leads Rage out of the room and across the hall where Rebel is already being assessed. He’s sitting on a patient cot, staring into the distance with a blank expression. Another shiver wracks my body, and I wrap my arms around my middle. I glance back at Ruin one more time before deciding that Rebel needs some attention, too. Slowly, I cross the short hallway and step into his room.
“Hey,” I breathe, slipping into the space between his thighs. “You okay?” Rubbing my hands up the outside of his thighs, I feel the remnants of debris on the coarse denim and pull my hands back to find black and gray ash dusting my hands.
Rebel’s gaze focuses, landing on my hands instead of my face. His lips pinch into a frown while he tries to brush them off, and then he sighs and pulls them around his neck. Leaning into my body, he exhales into the curve of my neck and wraps his arms around my waist. “Yeah, baby, I’ll be okay.”
“Both of you need to remove your clothes,” Serena instructs. “Miss Monrovia, please sit over there while they change.” She nods towards a matching folding chair to the one in Ruin’s room. After a moment, she adds, “Do you also need treatment?” Her eyes are glued to my wrists, and it takes me a moment to remember that I’d been handcuffed. She’s likely seeing the bruises.
“She stayed outside,” Rebel rumbles, kissing my cheek. “Which I hope she isn’t mad at me for.”
Shaking my head, I tell him, “it seems silly to be mad about that right now.” I step back to allow Rebel to undress, but he snags my fingers and wraps them around the hem of his shirt.
“Help me?”
Carefully, I peel off Rebel’s clothes. There’s nothing sexy about it—but my stomach churns as I catch fresh burns on his neck, back, and shoulders. Some of his hair has been singed off, and the laces on his Converse have melted. Rebel uses scissors to cut them off, and only once they’re in the discard pile do I see that the soles are also melted.
How hot was it inside the building?
Once both men have stripped down, Serena hands them gowns and sets them up with oxygen masks, instructing them not to speak while it’s being administered. Both men ignore the straps for their heads and hold the masks up to their faces, all three of us staring across the hallway to where Ruin is being treated. Eventually, one of the medics closes the curtain and blocks him from view.
Rage grumbles, clearly disliking it.
“He’ll be fine,” Rebel insists, lacing our fingers together. “Wanna sit up here with me, baby?”
I shake my head. “No, I’m okay.” The last thing I want to do is sit down. Energy pulses through my body, making it hard to stand still. Not only are my men injured, but Sara is still out there. “Maybe we should call the police.”
“They’ll already be processing the scene.” Rage rubs the back of his neck. “We’ll have to see who’s on bratva payroll to keep things quiet.”
“No, I mean to find Sara.” I try to rub off some of the soot from Rebel’s hands onto my pajamas. “I have insurance for the boutique.” Thinking about the headache that awaits for that debacle makes me uneasy, but so does everything right now. In order of priority, fixing my business now seems firmly planted at the bottom of the list. Looking around the room, I frown. “Where’s Thanatos?”
Rage removes his oxygen mask to answer. “Likely cleaning up our mess.”
“As usual,” Rebel snickers. “He’s good at it, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“When we were kids, he used to come to our conferences at school. You know, the ones when you get into trouble. Our dad couldn’t be bothered to care, and our mom wasn’t always reliable, so Thanatos handled everything.”
I look between the brothers, puzzled. “I thought he wasn’t that much older than you.” Surely, they didn’t allow a teenager to attend meetings for their parents.
Rebel clicks his tongue. “Haven’t you seen those grays? He’s always looked older than he is. When he was fifteen, he could grow a full beard. He’d pretend to be our dad in all the meetings.”
“There were a lot of meetings,” Rage muses, “because someone sold cigarettes in the bathrooms.”
With a grin, Rebel winks. “What can I say? I’ve always been popular.”
Heavy footsteps sound down the concrete hallway, and Thanatos appears. He looks between us and the curtained room, his expression unreadable. “How is Ruin’s condition?”
I grip Rebel’s hand tighter while Rage slips an arm around my waist. Standing between the two of them gives me strength that I’m not sure I deserve. I’m not the one who walked inside of a burning building and made it out alive. “They didn’t say,” I answer, pinching my bottom lip between my teeth. “But they sure didn’t want me in there.”
Thanatos runs a hand through his salt and pepper hair. “That’s typical for doctors.” He paces the floor in a tight line and repeatedly flips a pocket on his tool belt open and closed with every other step. “I talked to Ezra. He isn’t thrilled about the fire, but he’s even less thrilled about our father. It’s easy enough to blame faulty wiring for an old building going up in flames, so we’re covered on that front, but someone called in another fire across town, and they found a body this time.” He takes a breath and looks at me. “It’s female. No ID yet.”
My blood runs cold. Sara. What if it’s her?
“Oh, God,” I moan, nausea creeping in. “Did she—did she burn alive?” I take a quick breath. If Sara dies, I’ll already blame myself, but if she dies horrifically, I’ll never be able to look myself in the eye again.
“We don’t know that it’s Sara,” Thanatos says slowly.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I snap, glaring up at him.
The three brothers share a moment between themselves before Rebel finally says, “well, yeah.”
“None of this is your fault.” Rage rubs soothing circles into my lower back. “It’s our problem, so we’re going to fix it.”
I shake my head. “It’s our problem.” Meeting each of their eyes one after the other, I make sure they’re listening. “We all need to work together on this. No more late night excursions with only two of you at a time. All five of us need to be tracking him down as a team, or we’ll never catch him. It’s like he’s slipping through the sewers or something.” I crinkle my nose, definitely not liking the sound of that. “But if I’m with you, maybe he’ll get closer.”
Rage grinds his teeth. “ No. You aren’t taking a single step outside. You’re going straight home.”
“Back to the cage?” I pull away from him and turn to glare at his stubborn self. “I heard you on the phone, Rage. You wanted me locked up again. Fuck that. ” Rebel reaches for me, but I smack his hands away. “And you , handcuffing me to the car! I swear to God, it’s like the two of you think I’m made of glass.” Walking over to Thanatos, I grab his arm and pull him into the conversation. “I’ve been doing well with my training, and if you’re so nervous about it, I can stick with Than the entire time. He’ll watch over me to make sure I’m safe while you two search another part of the city. And Ruin—” I pause, unsure how he will fit into the picture while injured. Sighing, I shut my eyes. “He needs time to heal.”
Thanatos clears his throat but doesn’t pull his arm free from mine. “Even injured, Ruin is fantastic with surprise attacks. We need him on standby for when we catch Dad. He can come in for the kill.”
“ I’m gonna kill him,” Rebel protests. “He tried to blow Ruin up! Again! He came after my girl!” His eyes lock onto me. “There’s no way in hell that I’m not gutting the bastard.”
“We can all claim our pound of flesh,” Rage rumbles, “but Celia is not getting involved.”
“Like hell I’m not! I want my pound, too!” I smack Thanatos’s chest. “I’m bulletproof with Thanatos beside me. Besides, I need to make sure Sara is okay. We need to put her under witness protection, or something, while we get rid of your father. Maybe she can stay at the Baranova estate with Valentina for a while.”
If Sara is still alive.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “So first things first, we find Sara, get her somewhere safe, work as a team to find your dad, and then we kill him. Together. ”
Rebel’s eyes glitter with excitement. He drops his oxygen mask behind his back and ignores Serena’s frown of disapproval. “You’re so hot when you’re fired up, baby. Come get a kiss.”
Rage grabs his shoulder to keep him from getting up. “Sit down. We’re not going anywhere until we learn more about Ruin’s condition.” His eyebrows pinch together as he looks across the room to the curtain separating us from his youngest brother. “This should be a family decision since it involves all of us. He needs to be a part of this.”
All four of us turn to look at the curtain. We can hear the medical team working just beyond, steadfast and determined to treat Ruin’s injuries. I have no idea of the extent of his injuries, but one slow survey of the room quickly proves that it’s not just Ruin I have to worry about, it’s all of the brothers. They may seem okay on the surface, but not all wounds are visible to the naked eye.
Some run deep, aching in the marrow of our memories and clawing at our souls. When I look at each man in the room, I can catch glimpses of that pain in the tight set of their shoulders, the dull haze clouding their once-bright eyes, the shake of their shallow breaths. They may want to charge ahead to rip their father’s life up from the root and throw it into the fire, but they’ll be running from one problem directly into the next. Because as much as my men may never want to admit it, they aren’t invulnerable.
They’re human.
Seeing the damage their father can still wreck on their lives might be a reminder they never wanted… and one I never knew they needed.