11. Zira
ZIRA
“Sit still.” Bradley’s deep, soft tones wash over me like a gust of warm air on a hot summer’s day.
How long has it been? I haven’t been able to keep track.
My heart continues to pound like I’m still dangling off that cliff staring up into the eyes of the man I shot, praying he doesn’t choose this moment to enact his revenge and let me go.
For some unknown reason, he saved me.
And Harris tried to kill me.
Not in a joking way that’s caused arguments in the past. He actually tried to kill me. He dragged me from that car and held a gun to my head like killing me was his ticket to survival.
I blink and tears silently roll down my cheeks.
Bradley doesn’t comment on them. He sits beside me with one leg cocked and his attention fixed on my bare ribs.
After dragging me from the cliff, shock numbed me so deeply that I can barely recall how I got here, or where here even is.
All I remember is Bradley sitting me down on the edge of a bed and ordering me to remove my shirt.
I did so without a single word of complaint, merely numbly following his instructions until the first dab of antiseptic against my gunshot wound dragged me right back to reality and suddenly, I was centered in the aftermath of a horrible night.
“It’s just a graze,” Bradley says and his head bobs in my peripheral. “It shouldn’t scar if we keep it clean and let it heal.”
A graze because fucking Harris still tried to shoot me even as Bradley shot him twice in the chest and sent him back into that dark abyss.
I hated that man and yet the length he went to actually kill me leaves me sickened.
It churns in my gut, and I hiccup as acid rises inside me.
Bradley hisses through his teeth, and the pain across my ribs throbs hotly.
“Sorry,” I try to say, but it escapes past my lips more like a strangled gasp. If Bradley hears it, he doesn’t comment, so I try again with something different. “Is he really dead?” Still weak, but at least my words are audible.
“Harris?” Bradley repeats, and I flinch.
“You know his name?”
“I do. And yes. My people are doing what they can to recover the body.”
The body.
Harris is dead.
I’ve dreamt of this moment countless times over the years, played out multiple scenarios in my head, and now that I’m faced with my desire as a reality, it doesn’t seem real.
My favorite fantasy was imagining him getting mugged and beaten up so he’d know what it was like to be violated and abandoned, and then to bleed out slowly enough in an alley that he goes crazy, but not too slowly. Didn’t want anyone to find him.
Instead, he met his fate at the base of a cliff.
“How do you know his name?”
Bradley doesn’t reply. His rough fingertips skim beneath my ribs and a shiver steals across my shoulders, then pain flares once more as he works.
The single glimpse I got of my wound before Bradley forced me to look away was an angry red line across my skin that was pouring with blood.
Blood that he assured me was making it look worse than it was.
“Was it true?” I ask hoarsely as my sluggish thoughts work backward through everything that happened up on that cliff and back on the road. “What you said on the road?”
“What did I say on the road?” Bradley asks quietly.
“You know.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
A sudden pulse of irritation warms my chest and I side-eye him. “You said stuff about the Mafia. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“It can’t be. The Mafia isn’t real.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I…” Hesitation traps my words and my mouth snaps closed. “They’re a ghost story.”
“A clever disguise,” Bradley replies. “But they are very much real and you pissed a lot of them off.”
I blink again and more tears roll silently down my cheeks. As I breathe, my chest constricts with a chill that trickles down into my stomach and settles there like a weight. “Are you going to kill me?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Okay? What kind of response is that? Another shiver rolls through my shoulders, and this time, once I start shaking, I can’t stop. Tensing my body, I clench my teeth, but it only makes the trembling worse and I’m frozen in place, fearing the next words from Bradley.
But he doesn’t speak. Instead, he moves closer until his thick thigh is pressed up alongside mine, and the side angle he’s taken on the bed with his cocked leg positions me directly between his legs.
This close, an overwhelming wave of heat radiates from his body, which only makes my shivering worse, and when I breathe in, a sweet, woodsy scent mixed with something slightly fruity fills my nose.
It would be nice if I weren’t so scared.
“Do you understand what’s happened?” Bradley asks quietly. He places one large, rough palm on my bare back, and a streak of something wet and cold glides over my wound.
“Harris died,” I murmur softly. “He died and the Mafia are real and we stole from them.”
“Correct.”
“Oh, my God,” I whisper, and my head falls into my upturned palms. I can’t contain my sobs any longer, so I let the tears fall and my whole body shakes, though not as violently as it was before Bradley touched my back.
All I wanted to do was save my brother. That’s the whole reason I’m in this fucking mess, and now Harris is dead and Peter is God knows where with the last member of our group who, for all I know, is under the same murderous orders as Harris.
Finding him feels impossible when I have no idea where to look, how to start looking, or how I’m going to deal with the fact that I’m now captive in a strange room with the man I tried to kill.
After the initial burst of tears, I wipe my eyes and lift my head. “Are you going to kill me?”
“No,” Bradley replies. His head remains down even as I look at him, and soon, he’s smoothing tape and gauze over my wound to protect it.
“You’re Mafia, though, aren’t you? That’s the only explanation for all those cars and guns and how you found me with one text.”
Bradley’s broad shoulders lift as he breathes in, then he lifts his head and meets my eye. “Technically, yes.”
“But you’re not going to kill me?”
“No, Zira. I’m not going to kill you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.” Bradley maintains eye contact as he hands me back my shirt, and not once does he try to sneak a look lower at my bra, or anywhere else, for that matter. His eyes remain on my face and his hand remains on my back until I pull my shirt back across my shoulders.
“How are you feeling?”
“How can you ask me that?” I choke out, and I shift away from him, removing myself from the cloud of welcoming warmth and sweet cologne that radiates from him.
“I nearly died. I watched Harris die, and now I’m here, wherever here is, and you tell me I stole from the Mafia.
I thought I was just— Wait, does that mean I was working for the Mafia? ”
My eyes widen and Bradley nods. “Technically, yes. You and millions of others.”
“Oh, my God, I’m a criminal.”
“You are, but not for the reasons you’re thinking.”
It’s not until I’ve settled away from him at the top of the bed that I realize his questions and comments were keeping me distracted from the pain now radiating like a hot brand against my skin. My face screws up against a wave of pain and I wrap my arms around my middle.
“Why are you doing this? Are you just keeping me here until they come to collect me?”
“I’m helping you because you got shot and you deserve treatment, Zira,” Bradley replies, and the corners of his eyes crease when he smiles. “That’s all.”
“But why?” I demand as my heart lurches. “I don’t know you. You don’t know me. You don’t owe me anything other than revenge, so why would you help me?” There has to be a catch. Everything has something attached to it and no amount of kindness or care ever comes without a price.
“You could say it’s for the same reason I let you believe that pregnant woman was my wife. I protect people when I can.”
“You let us believe?” I repeat softly, hastily wiping away a stray tear.
“Yes. Because I helped her, you thought I was linked to her, which turned her from a victim into a tool you could use against me, shifting the focus of target from her to me. You chose me that day because you wanted to use the threat against her to keep me in line, which, in my eyes, ended up keeping her and her baby safe.”
I stare at him open-mouthed. As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. As soon as I thought they were together, he became the easier target in my mind.
“So, what about me?” I whisper, tightening my arms around my body. “What am I? A victim or a tool?”
“You, Zira, are someone who is both, and if I can, I want to help you out of this. Like I said, I protect people, and if you help me recover the rest of the diamonds, I’ll protect you too.”