Chapter 2 - Trifon
Dark, ugly blood soaks through Valentin’s shirt, and all I can hear is the rush of panic in my ears as I speed into the hospital’s emergency porch.
“Stay with me, brat,” I mutter.
“Trifon, just get help. I’ll be fine out here.” The bastard smirks, even half-conscious. Typical. Second-in-command of my empire, shot during a fight with the Zakharov scum, and still trying to prove he’s indestructible—even as his head lolls back against the seat, skin pale as fuck.
Three hours ago, Valentin and I were celebrating the signing of a new casino venture. Good vodka. Good food. Then the call came in—some of our men spotted the Zakharovs near our arms warehouse on the docks.
I should’ve sent more men. Instead, I thought Valentin and I could handle it with four others. Routine check, I told myself. We’d catch those bastards red-handed, send them back with their tails between their legs.
“It’s probably nothing,” I told him. “They wouldn’t dare.”
They dared.
It was an ambush. Six of Zakharov’s men hid inside our warehouse. They opened fire the second we stepped through the door. One of our men—dead. Two more wounded. And Valentin—shot in the gut as he dragged the others to safety.
The Zakharov family will pay for this. Every last one of them.
The tires screech as I slam the brakes right outside the ER doors. His blood’s everywhere now—soaking his shirt, the seats, dripping between my fingers where I’ve been pressing down uselessly to slow the bleeding.
He grips my hand weakly. “Go. I don’t want you to carry me in. Let the nurses do it, eh? That’s what they’re paid for,” he jokes. Even now, he jokes. But I know what this is. He’s too proud, my younger brother. Doesn’t want me to see him weak.
I hate to leave him alone, but my brother is stubborn, even as his life is leaking out of him.
“I’ll be fine,” he insists. “Go.”
I swing the door open so hard it nearly dents the ambulance beside me, but I’m on my feet.
“You can’t park here! It’s against the rules,” a security guard yells out from across the parking lot.
“Shut the fuck up,” I shout back. “My brother’s bleeding out.”
The guy stutters, stops dead, eyes wide as he takes in the blood on my hands, the tattoos snaking down my arms, the fury carved into every inch of my face.
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
I run through the ER doors, needing to find someone in charge.
“My brother’s hurt,” I yell. “I need the best surgeon on your team.”
No one. Literally no one walks up to me.
The first thing I see? A clipboard-pushing little nurse gawking at the tattoos running down my arms. The second? Some pencil-neck doctor behind the counter is giving me a once-over like I crawled out of the gutter.
“Hey!” I bark at the doctor. “My brother’s been shot. I need your best doctor. Now.”
The nurse freezes. The doctor doesn’t even move. He just raises his eyebrows and looks me over like I’m filth beneath his shoe. Ivy League type. Probably thinks I’m some thug who stumbled into their shiny hospital with no insurance and a bleeding mess on my hands.
“Sir,” the doctor starts, voice all patient in a way that grates at my nerves, “if you could just calm down—”
“I am calm.” It’s a lie, barely holding. “And I said, get me the best.”
“We’ll need intake forms—”
“Forms?” I snarl. “You think I give a fuck about forms? My brother’s bleeding out.”
The doctor’s mouth tightens. “I’m the attending tonight. You can trust me—”
Seriously? The guy looks like he’s in his thirties. More than a decade younger than me. This is Valentin we’re talking about. “I wouldn’t even trust you to put a needle in me. Find me someone better!”
I see a couple of heads turn. The nurses begin to whisper, and the doctor?
He looks visibly annoyed. But I don’t care.
Whether he likes me or not is none of my damn concern, and I know what he thinks of me.
The usual ripple of fear I bring with me everywhere follows.
I see it in their eyes—the tattoos, the scars, the blood on my hands.
If they think I’m trouble, they don’t even know the half of it yet.
“Get me your superior,” I snap.
“Sir, the chief of surgery isn’t available—”
“You’re wasting my time.”
My pulse hammers behind my eyes, rage and adrenaline tangling like barbed wire. I’m one second from snapping this little bastard’s neck when another voice cuts through the static.
“Excuse me.”
I turn, half-expecting another useless staff member—and stop cold. This new doctor, whoever she is, green-eyed, blonde, and fresh, looks even younger than this Dr. Chen I’ve been talking to. In another time, another place, she would have caught my attention within seconds.
But with Valentin’s life on the line, I’m not taking any chances.
I’m about to tell her my demands when she introduces herself.
“I’m Dr. Fyodorov,” she says, cool and clipped, like she’s talking to some asshole off the street. “What happened to your brother?”
I drink her in for half a second too long—the exhaustion sharpening her edges, the freckles across her nose, that stubborn crease between her brows—and fuck me, even running on empty, she’s beautiful.
“Gunshot wound. Lower abdomen. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
She glances at the idiot attending, then back at me with defiant eyes. Unimpressed by me, even though every other soul in this room just backed down.
“Let’s get him inside right now. We’ll stabilize him and assess the damage, then call in the surgical team.”
I open my mouth to argue, but she’s faster. She lets me know, without mincing words, that arguing is a waste of time.
Unless I want him bleeding out in the car, I'd better let them do their job.
And just like that, the fog clears. For a second, I actually hear her—the calm in her words, the authority that doesn’t waver, not even when facing me.
She’s the first person tonight to get through to me.
My pulse roars, but it’s not panic anymore—it’s focus. She’s right. My brother’s life is at risk while I stand here, yelling like a lunatic.
Think, Trifon.
I promised my father, standing over his deathbed, that I’d protect them. All of them. Valentin and my other brothers. The girls. Every stubborn, reckless Yuri that carries our name. My old man made me swear it with his dying breath.
It’s the weight of the entire empire pressing down on my spine that nearly let it drown me in rage tonight.
But this woman pulls me back from the edge with nothing but logic and that stubborn glare.
“If your brother loses any more blood,” she continues, cool as ice, “things can get complicated. Let’s handle this first. You want to yell? You can do that later.”
A flicker of reluctant respect burns low in my gut. I hate it—but I hate the idea of losing Valentin more.
“If anything happens to him...”
“Nothing’s going to happen to him that we can prevent,” she says firmly. “Now, let’s move.”
I force a sharp nod.
The other irritating doctor takes over. I still can’t believe he’s her superior. In what world does that make sense? That man lacked zero fucking people skills.
I watch as she follows his instructions, carefully double-checks the gurney before leading the team out. At the doors, she turns back, just once, and when she meets my eyes, I see her avert her gaze, as though she fears I might burn her.
I watch as they bring Valentin in, wheel him in through the trauma bay, through doors I’m not allowed past. I stand outside, checking my watch every few minutes.
Precious minutes of not knowing if my brother lives or dies while these incompetent doctors take their sweet time.
Just then, my phone rings. I don’t want to waste time answering it. My head hurts, but when I see it’s my youngest brother Miron, I pick up.
“Any news?”
“Any news?” he asks the moment I answer.
“Nothing yet,” I say with frustration. “They’re still working on him.”
“The men are ready to go hunt down those swines,” he tells me. “Just say the word.”
“Not yet, Miron. Wait until we know about Valentin, and no one’s attacking the Zakharovs unless I lead the charge.”
“Fine,” my trigger-hungry brother sounds utterly heartbroken.
I end the call and continue pacing. Five more minutes pass. Then ten. My patience wears thinner with each second.
What the hell are the doctors doing? Why the fuck is it taking so long?
I have half the mind to go in there and sock that Dr. Chen in the fucking eye.
I would have beaten him unconscious if not for the doctor who intervened.
The woman. Dr. Fyodorov, she said. She took control, cut through the bullshit, and got Valentin the help he needed.
I pray she’s the one overlooking whatever is going on in there.
Now I’m stuck waiting, with nothing but my rage for company.
Another fifteen minutes pass by. “Excuse me, Sir?”
I turn to find a nurse standing a safe distance away. Like I might bite if she steps any closer.
“Your brother is stable,” she says, eyes flickering to my bloodstained hands and then quickly away.
“The bullet was a through-and-through. Missed major organs. He’s been stitched up and given a blood transfusion and some IV.
He’ll need to be on antibiotics and come in for some follow-up, but there is no need for surgery. ”
The relief floods through me so strong, I almost fall to my knees. Valentin is okay, thank god. Now, I can think.
“Thank you,” I say, gruffly, before turning away.
I push out through the ER doors into the cool night and pull out my phone, dialing Leonid first, then Iosif and Miron, before putting them on conference.
“Valentin’s stable,” I tell them. “Bullet missed his organs. He’s patched up.”
“Oh, thank god,” Leonid breathes in relief as my other brothers also give their wishes.
“Get over here,” I tell them. “Leonid and Iosif. Miron, make sure the house is ready for him.”
“But brother, what about the Zakharovs?” Leonid asks.
“I’ll handle it. You three better not get involved.”
It’s my job to protect them. The Zakharovs will get their revenge, but how and when that happens will be on my hands.
“Yes, Brother,” says Miron.
“Prep the crew, Miron. I’m ready for payback. Leonid, Iosif? I want you here in fifteen minutes for Valentin.”
I end the call, still thinking of all the painful, slow ways I’m going to make the Zakharovs bleed, when movement catches my eye.
I turn—and there she is.
The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
How the hell did I miss her through the haze of panic earlier? Maybe it was the blood, the adrenaline, the fact that my brother was bleeding out in my car—but now? With the night air cool against my skin and my mind finally clear, I see her.
Dr. Fyodorov.
She’s standing near the edge of the parking lot, one hand wrapped around a steaming coffee cup, the other tucked into the pocket of her scrubs.
The streetlights cast a soft glow over her—hair like spun gold pulled into a messy knot, tendrils slipping loose around her face.
Freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose like constellations, lips pink from biting the inside of them.
But it’s her eyes that hit me hardest—sharp, curious, so goddamn green they glow like a feline’s in the wild.
She’s watching me.
My eyes drag over her, slower this time. The curve of her waist under those baggy scrubs, the tired sag of her shoulders.
Even wrecked from a long shift, she’s gorgeous.
And trouble.
I clench my fists before I do something stupid, like ask for her number, but the image burns itself into my head anyway.
Yeah. Trouble.
But I’m already hooked.