Chapter 39 Katya
Ashot pierces the air one second, the next, something heavy thuds against the hardwood floor. But I don’t turn around, instead, my stare clings to Ilya’s.
“Glad to see you’re still mine,” he whispers in my ear before he’s shoved to the ground, replaced by Enzo’s palms bracketing my face, frantically surveying my body.
“Lucy! What the fuck, baby!”
“Enzo,” I whisper, wondering if I’m two seconds away from being discovered. But then the blood dripping from my arm catches his attention and he steps into me, fingers putting pressure on the seeping wound.
“You’ve been shot.” He stares at me dumbfounded and I realize I should probably be acting a bit more distressed, but the reality is, I’m used to this level of pain. As my adrenaline comes down, I realize even further how royally I fucked up.
“It’s—It’s the adrenaline. I don’t even feel it,” I stutter out as Rafael walks up, holstering his Glock as the entire room stands frozen, everyone ready to draw their own weapons.
They were supposed to check their weapons at the door but every one of these lying, thieving fuckfaces has some kind of gun or blade still strapped to their person.
I would.
I do.
“Ilya, please find your father and leave.” His commanding stare roams the crowd. “Everyone, leave immediately. The event is over.”
Wide-eyed guests glance around, a nervous energy thrumming through the air, unsure who to trust or what to do. Dante, however, is nowhere to be found, probably off fucking his way through the house.
“Now!” Rafael’s voice booms through the room and men and women scatter, including Ilya. My brother winks, a knowing smirk pulls up his lips as he watches Enzo check me for other wounds.
“Let’s get you to your office. We need to check the wound.” I follow Rafael but not for long because Enzo scoops me up in his arms. The guests begin to funnel out of the manor, guided by Quintin and a few other men of Rafael’s I recognize.
“It’s my shoulder, not my leg,” I remind the brute, but he simply grunts.
The subtle sound of their dress shoes against the floor is all I hear as I’m carried up the stairs and plopped on the cold metal table as Enzo rips the sleeve of my dress, exposing the two-inch graze wound.
“Hold still,” Rafael says before he pours antiseptic over the area. It doesn’t sting but it’s cold as hell and I hiss in response. “Just a graze,” Raf tells his brother like I’m not even there. “Just a few stitches should do.”
Rafael meticulously sets up a suture kit and prepares the wound with iodine. “What happened?” he asks, and I shift my sights to Enzo.
“Don’t look at me. I’m also wondering what the fuck that was.”
“I saw the man pull a gun and I reacted. I don’t know what came over me,” I lie as I keep my stare on the thread pulling through my flesh.
“Do you make a habit of jumping in front of bullets?” Enzo snarks, muscles tense as he stands a bit taller, practically trembling with rage.
“Maybe being in your presence has made me a bit suicidal.”
Yeah, Katya, poke the fucking bear…
He steps toward me, as if he were ready to fight, pointing his finger in my face. “Not funny. I should put a fucking blade in your other shoulder, pin you to the fucking bed so you can’t be so fucking stupid again.”
“Enough!” Rafael snaps.
Enzo whips his head to Raf. “It’s not nearly enough! She could have died, and for that fuckface?!”
“Enzo. I said enough,” Rafael growls, silencing his brother for now.
As Raf meticulously stitches my arm, Enzo broods in the corner, arms crossed as he glares daggers at me. I focus on the pull of the thread through my tissue, the pain grounding my restless mind.
“It was reckless, Lucy,” Raf says, glancing up at me for a moment before returning to his work.
“I know.” My voice is soft and submissive in the presence of Rafael’s worry and anger.
Enzo storms forward, raising his hand and flailing it between us. “Litighi con me ma sei praticamente in grembo a lui?!”
“I’m not purring in his lap, zasranets!”
Enzo runs his fingers through his hair, pacing before me like a pissed off mother hen. I probably shouldn’t have called him a bastard, but my intrusive thoughts and bratty mouth get the best of me at the worst times.
Rafael better step in before I leap from this table and put a knife in the asshole’s kneecap with the sole purpose of making him stop pacing, but Rafael is no help. He simply glares at his brother then at me before snipping the final piece of thread. “Voi due siete fuoco e benzina.”
My tongue runs over my teeth as I look away from both of them. But Raf is right, Enzo and I are fire and gasoline, we burn too fucking hot sometimes, but I can’t help being addicted to the pain.
The next thing I know, Raf tapes on some gauze while his infuriating brother pouts in the corner.
I know I should give in, if only a little.
His reactions stem from a place of concern, like his brother’s.
Except where Rafael is gentle with me in moments like this, Enzo’s emotions burn right through me, and I can’t help but respond the way I do.
Rafael cleans up then comes back with a pill. “Take this for the pain.”
“It’s a graze wound, Raf. No more than a scratch. I’ll be fine.” What I don’t say is I need my wits about me tonight.
Raf simply nods before putting the pill back into the bottle. “Fine.” He nods, beckoning Enzo over. “Take her to bed.”
Enzo scoops me off the table and I open my mouth to protest but his piercing stare pleads with me to allow him to do this. I close it and lean against his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
But he remains silent. Stubborn ass.
When we get to Raf’s room, Enzo begins to strip me, but I slap him away. I can’t risk him seeing my back. “Donna testarda, let me take care of you.”
“I need to pee, and I learned how to wipe my own ass when I was five or do you need a demonstration of my abilities?” I quirk my brow and Enzo backs off.
“Fine. But then your ass gets in that bed.” The infuriating man makes an aggressive finger pointing motion at me then the bed and I curb my urge to break his finger. “And you don’t leave until morning. Understood?”
I nod as I first go to Rafael’s closet, pulling down a cotton tee before walking to the bathroom.
His bathroom’s as sterile as my procedure room. Not a single product lines the counter tops, everything tucked away in drawers or cabinets. The walls are lined in a deep green ceramic tile reminding me of a forest and the waterfall shower could make me orgasm on the spot.
When I’ve struggled out of my dress, I slip on his shirt. I soak in the delicate yet smoky scent that is the quiet, careful, yet demanding and powerful Rafael Alessi.
I hide my blades in the lowest cabinet, behind some towels to retrieve later.
When I exit the bathroom, Enzo lounges back against Rafael’s headboard, stripped down to his slacks and his abdominal muscles flex as he sits up.
“You’re sleeping in here too?”
“I told you; I’m not leaving you.”
The door clicks, the locking mechanism releasing and Rafael walks in, his own tie loosened around his neck, hair slightly disheveled, as if he had been running his fingers through it.
“Everyone is out; grounds are secure. We will attempt to identify the shooter in the morning. Dante has been updated and is with Nova.”
I can’t imagine the stress he’s under, playing two sides against his own father while simultaneously trying to save and protect the women his father’s actively trying to exploit.
But apparently, there’s a side to Rafael I was blind to. The side who would force a woman into a marriage she doesn’t want to simply produce an heir.
I know how important heirs are in our world, and at the end of the day, he’s still a mafioso.
Rafael’s like an iceberg, cold and intimidating with a world of unknowns hiding beneath his breathtaking surface. Call me the fucking Titanic…
When he approaches me, blocking his bathroom doorway, I step to the side to let him through. But he stops in front of me, holding out my glasses. “You shouldn’t sleep in contacts. Here.”
“Thank you.”
“Lucy.” Rafael’s voice pulls me from my thoughts as I stare down at my glasses.
“Right.” I step back into the bathroom and close the door behind me, then I wait a minute and place the glasses on my face.
I don’t recognize the woman in the reflection. She’s a foreign sight. But then again, have I ever known the woman who stares back? When have I ever felt like myself?
When you’re with them.
My stomach rolls with what I must do tonight, what I must reveal. Memories of the night I killed Victoria, only a couple doors down, float to the surface. She’d be disgusted with me.
Maybe, I can get them to listen. To see the truth, but even as my heart tries to plead with my mind, I know Enzo will not see what I wish he would. He will only see Katya as the woman who killed his mother.
But if I pin him long enough to hear me… Could there be a chance? I can’t go through with tonight, with ending their lives, if I don’t try.
When I open the door, Rafael steps through, his body brushing my own, but he doesn’t step all the way through. Instead, he stops in front of me and pushes me into the doorframe with his massive body.
His fingers grip my chin gently as he lifts my face toward his. His deep brown irises are identical in color to Enzo’s but with more gold and are aged, housing a maturity spanning far greater than his twenty-one years.
“Do not pull a stunt like that again,” he commands. “You are not a hero, La Mia Bellissima Cerva, you’re ours.”
And there’s the problem. I am theirs, but they are not mine.