Chapter 8 Unsettled
Chapter eight
Unsettled
There was a stretch of silence on the phone after Evelina finished her story, the words seeming to hang in the air, before Kat finally spoke. “But, like, you’re still coming shopping this weekend, right?”
The unexpected question pulled a gasp of a laugh from Evelina’s chest. “Yes. Absolutely, yes. Retail therapy. I think I’ll take your quota, too.”
Kat matched her laugh. “No fair, you already get Grumpy’s!”
Evelina’s laugh stuck in her throat and she rolled her lips together, fighting the urge to cast a guilty look Otto’s way.
Hours had passed, the adrenaline had faded, they’d both been patched up, and he was still mad at her.
She supposed if she were responsible for the safety of someone who’d done what she had chosen to do, she might be angry, too.
But she was that someone, and she had other things to consider.
“Um, Earth to Lina? Anyone home?”
Exhaling a quieter chuckle, Evelina said, “Sorry, Kat. My head’s still a little scattered.” She rolled her neck. “Actually, I think these pain meds are starting to hit me. It might be time to sleep.”
“Well, that’s plenty reasonable. How many stitches did you say you ended up with?” Kat let out a disappointed sigh. “Not even truly pakhan yet and you’re collecting battle scars. You need to be more careful with yourself.”
Evelina smiled. “He doesn’t know it yet, but Otto just decided to like you five percent more.”
“Aw, I’m touched!” Kat giggled at herself. “Get some sleep, bish. And no more gang fights. I need you upright on Saturday.” She made an overdramatized kissing sound and disconnected.
Evelina switched her phone to sleep mode, which automatically set all sounds to mute and disabled the majority of her apps.
She’d personalized the feature to allow communication with a select number of contacts, but truthfully, Otto was the only important one.
Although she wondered if perhaps someday, she might trust Artem enough to give him the privilege. A thought for another time.
“Turnin’ in early?”
Otto’s quiet, monotone question was entirely expected, so she lifted a smile to him. “Yeah. I don’t know how you’re not beat.”
His brow dipped. “No pain meds, for starters.”
“Braggart.” She knew the clan doc had still forced an antibiotic on him, though.
Evelina pushed to her feet, her gaze dropping to the stark white bandage wrapped around her arm.
She’d simplified the outcome for Kat’s sake, and because there were going to be things moving forward that she wouldn’t be able to share with her friend.
The day’s events hadn’t just landed her with a few sutures and a story she might one day regale her grandchildren with.
She’d watched in an alarmingly detached, chemically numbed state as their doctor dug into, and carefully pried open, her wound in an effort to ensure no foreign matter had adhered beneath her skin.
Only when he was reasonably sure she’d gotten lucky had he been willing to stitch her up.
It was all to prevent infection, of course.
Otto had still been sober, his gun reloaded, and Artem standing beside him, both keeping watch to make sure the doc didn’t try anything while she was loopy.
He hadn’t, and she’d barely felt a thing, but still she’d cried.
They blamed it on the adrenaline crash. She blamed it on everything.
Not that the blame mattered. Not that the tears mattered.
It didn’t truly matter that, despite her doctor’s steady hand and swift work, she would almost certainly scar.
A battle scar earned while surviving a fight against a rival clan was a badge of honor in the bratva.
Evelina wasn’t ashamed of that. And the fact it was curved across the underside of her forearm, one of the most difficult places to hide outside of winter?
She’d be flashing her new badge from the moment it healed with her head held high.
She just really wanted to get to that healed part, because even with the pain medication, it hurt. The anesthesia or whatever she’d been given while the doc had done his thing had been exceedingly temporary. That was for the best, though she liked the lack of pain better.
Evelina shoved the thought from her head. Otto’s not even letting himself take the edge off. And she knew why. She was why.
She stepped into her en suite, pushed the door most of the way shut as she always did, and set about her nightly routine. What was left of it, at least, since she’d already bathed. She was stuck using baths until her arm could get wet again.
Otto had the bedside light on and the draperies shut by the time she finished, a wordless indicator that he’d done his final sweep of the day.
And as usual, he stood in the doorway to the adjoining sitting room, watching.
He would leave as soon as she pulled the blanket up and said goodnight, and she would be alone for six hours where she was expected to stay put—to sleep.
It had been their routine for years, if not always in this exact room.
Evelina plugged her phone in and set it down as she always did. Then she hesitated. She stared at her bed, playing it out in her mind.
Otto would mumble goodnight before quietly taking his leave, locking the door to her suite behind him.
There was one other way in and out of her room, but other than the times he made her practice emergency drills, it was never used.
The ‘secret’ passage was so damn cliché she still rolled her eyes thinking about it.
But late at night, when old nightmares inevitably woke her, knowing Otto was technically only on the other side of her oversized closet and would hear if she screamed brought her comfort.
It’s fine. The day had gone very sideways, and in the back of her mind, she knew she was on edge as much from the fact that all she’d heard from Pyotr was an insincere text expressing how glad he was that she had survived as from the shootout itself.
Pyotr was supposed to have met with his scumbag lawyer, but if he had, there wasn’t a single indicator of change in sight.
She still hadn’t gone over the contents of the drive.
She blew out a breath. Tomorrow. Something had to give, right? She was pretty sure she’d shot straight past ‘tired’ and into bone-deep exhaustion. The type that had the brain shutting down while the eyes were open and made it hard to move her body.
“Lina?”
She curled her fingers into her palms. “Sorry. You’d probably love it if I just went to bed already.” It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, even. It was what came with going to bed that she was suddenly desperate to avoid.
He didn’t immediately respond, but there was an odd weight in the air that had her thinking the silence was different from his usual non-responsiveness. Seconds passed before he quietly said, “What I’d love is if you would never do something so reckless again.”
Her head snapped up and she twisted to meet his unyielding stare. “Excuse me?”
He took a step forward, made a sound dangerously similar to an aggrieved sigh, and scrubbed a hand down his face.
“You scared the fuck outta me out there. I don’t care how many times you say it, I’ll never understand why you put yourself in the line of fire like you did.
You’re supposed to let me protect you, Lina.
I am your shield. Use me. That’s my fucking job. ”
She was all sorts of messed up if she somehow felt both elated and sick over the words pouring from his mouth.
Her feet moved forward, bringing her close enough she could reach out and touch him if she chose.
She held herself in check and settled for narrowing her eyes up at him.
“I’m so very sorry I hindered your job today, Otto.
Gosh, that was horrible of me. Would you like me to hide myself away like some whimpering damsel next time so you can bleed out for the both of us?
” The words burned off her tongue, but she couldn’t stop them.
His jaw tightened. “I’d rather there not be a next time.”
“Well, I’m going to be pakhan, so there will be.” She licked her lips. “And maybe I don’t like seeing you bleed for me. Did you think about that? Did you consider how I felt when you straight-up offered to die for me out there?”
He leaned forward. “Bleeding for you—risking my life for yours—is my fucking job,” he said again, slower and harder than before. Like he was making a point.
She drew a shaky breath. The image of his broad back turned to her, taking up most of her line of sight while her ears rang with the cacophony of reverberating gunfire, ping-ponged around in her mind.
Then the vision narrowed to the sight of blood seeping into his shirt from a fresh wound—a wound she’d later heard their doc say would have taken his whole arm if it had come from ‘those other bullets’.
She nearly opened her mouth to fire him just to make sure he never ended up in such a position again, but she was still cognizant enough to catch herself.
She didn’t actually want to fire him, and letting him go would probably plummet him to a much worse position.
So, she did the next best thing she could think of.
She curled her fingers in his clean shirt and pushed up on her toes, pressing her lips to his. She knew she’d have to lie through her teeth later to brush it off, but in the moment, she only hoped she was alert enough to retain the memory of his faintly chapped, warm lips against hers.
His hands flew to her hips, settling like heated anchors. His lips started to move, responding to the pressure of her kiss, then with a nearly inaudible groan he pulled back. He kept his hands at her hips, his grip almost too tight, holding her flat on the floor.