12. Demin
DEMIN
Ileave Isabela toweling off in the bedroom and go to my office to hear what the night cost me. The wound in my side pulls with every step. I should never have exerted myself that much, but damn, that woman when she touched me. I just lost all control.
The house is quiet now, the early light just starting to fill the windows.
Everyone is worn down from the long night and my second string is standing guard, though I heard a few shouts from Octavio a moment ago.
He doesn't seem happy to be here. He seems to understand what's really happening… Good. He'll adjust faster.
The doctor's waiting when I come in, hovering with an update on our guest the chemist. But his eyes glue to my side the instant I shut the door. Mishka leans against a wall with his eyes shut, but they snap open when I speak.
"How is our guest?" I say, lowering myself into the chair behind the desk. "He's making a bit of noise." Mishka pushes off the wall and rubs his eyes, but Dr. Weber speaks first.
"Stable." He crosses his arms over his chest and scowls at my side harder. "Severely dehydrated, malnourished, and there are old fractures in his ribs that healed wrong, but nothing that's going to kill him. He'll mend with rest."
"Good."
"He won't let me near him, though." Klaus Weber has been our family doctor since we set up shop here in Berlin.
Trustworthy, but opinionated. "He won't take fluids, he won't eat, he won't let me touch the ribs.
He keeps saying one thing, over and over, in Spanish and bad English both.
He wants his daughter. Until he sees her, he says, he eats nothing and he lets no one put a needle in him. "
Stubborn old man. The whole goddamn family is that way.
No wonder Isabela is so feisty. I run a hand down my face and feel the exhaustion sitting behind my eyes.
I want to climb into bed and let my eyes shut, but I have to know what happened tonight and whether anyone was injured.
I didn't get a full report yet, but I need one.
"He'll see her," I say. "Tell him she's safe, she's in the house, and he'll see her after he's slept.
If he wants to starve himself before then, that's his choice, but tell him he's being a fool.
" Mishka's eyes look so heavy he could drop at any second, but he nods at me and I see his phone slip out of his pocket as he starts texting—probably Bart or Mikhail, who've been put in charge of watching the old man.
"He's frightened," the doctor says, "more than he should be.
Whatever Solano did to him down there, it traumatized him.
" Dr. Weber shakes his head, fidgeting with his stethoscope as he continues to glance from my face to my side.
I look down to see what he's so fascinated with and notice I'm still bleeding, enough to stain the shirt.
"It usually does." I look back up at him with my own scowl. That damn bullet could've killed me. Isabela is lucky I have this damn fascination with her. "But I need that man healthy, Doctor. He's no use to me dead."
"I'll do what I can." Then Weber changes the subject, saying, "You're bleeding through your shirt."
"It's fine…"
"It is not fine. Sit still." He's already pulling open his bag, and there's no point arguing with him about it.
He's keeping us alive, so I let him peel the shirt back and bandage the wound properly with gauze and tape.
He works deftly, proving he's done this more than once.
"This needed stitches three hours ago. You're lucky it's closing on its own.
Keep it dry, keep it clean, and stop walking around like you weren't shot. "
His deep, furrowed brow creases but his hands keep working. "Why didn't you come to me?"
"I had other things on my mind," I grumble, wincing as he presses the bandage in place harder.
Other things included finding out exactly what reaction Isabela was going to have to my saving her life, which was quite obvious.
She knew it and she thanked me, but I never dreamed she would be so forward.
That was the best orgasm I've had in years. And she felt incredible.
"Well, next time you get 'other things' on your mind, remember not to exert yourself." He lifts an eyebrow at me, as if he knows exactly what I was doing. "And remember if you do and it starts bleeding again, you need to call me right away so I can stitch it properly."
"Are we finished?" I'm the fucking boss around here. People don't give me orders. Dr. Weber is the one man on this planet I may eventually listen to if I think his advice is warranted. But I will damn well fuck who I want when I want, and if that means exertion, I'm going to enjoy myself.
"We're finished." He packs his bag, shaking his head, and leaves me alone.
When he's gone, Mishka sinks into the chair across from me just as the door swings open and Bart walks in. Tonight was intense, and after nearly taking a fatal shot, I want to know what went wrong. No way we had that much resistance unless we were set up.
"Talk to me," I say. "Were we followed back to the strip?" Bart struts over and sits down next to Mishka, and he looks just as tired, though his hands are stained with someone's blood. Hopefully not his.
"No," Bart sighs. "I had eyes on the road behind us the whole way and put two men on a loop around the airfield before we boarded. Nobody trailed that convoy out of the city."
"Then explain something to me." I lean forward, resting my elbows on the desk. "The second team came out of that south building ready and waiting, like they had timed to the moment perfectly. They knew we were coming. But I don't understand…"
Mishka's eyes flick away anxiously. He knows what it means and he knows how I'm going to react. "Mikhail says they called us 'The Russians' when they were shouting… Which means they knew who we were too. But no one even spoke Russian."
"We were covered head to foot," Bart adds, shaking his head. These two are as baffled as I am. "No fucking way they saw our ink or knew who we were… I swear, Boss, we didn't fuck this up. Someone tipped them off."
It explains why there was beefed-up security. And it explains why they were ready. We have a fucking mole somewhere… But who? It isn't like I advertised to everyone days in advance, and only a handful of people knew we were going in.
"So they didn't just know a raid was coming," I say slowly. "They knew who was raiding."
"That's a different problem," Mishka says quietly.
"It's a worse problem." I sit back and cover my mouth with a palm.
A leak about the timing of a job is the kind of thing a careless soldier does with a loose mouth in the wrong bar.
But somebody telling Solano's people it would be the Roshin Bratva coming through that fence, by name, that's not carelessness.
"Who'd we use on the ground for the approach? The locals Mikhail hired for the perimeter, did any of them get a face, a name, anything?" This is going to go sideways for us. I can just feel it coming. And Sebastian is going to have my neck. I promised him no complications at all.
"They got nothing but a wall to watch," Mishka says. "Mikhail kept them blind on purpose."
"Then it isn't them." I pinch the bridge of my nose.
The list of people who knew it would be us is short.
That makes it cleaner and uglier at the same time.
If I have a mole in my inner circle, it means I'm at risk.
No one can know that I know. "Keep this between the three of us for now.
Not Mikhail, not anyone. If somebody on the inside sold us, the worst thing we can do is let them know we're looking. "
"Shit, Boss…" Bart sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. "You can’t think Mikhail or Draven did this…" There are only a few more names which Bart doesn't bother naming because there's no way in hell my men would betray me. I don't doubt any of them for a second.
"No, I don't… But I can't take chances." My head is throbbing now as a tension headache winds its way up my neck to my brain.
I'd trust these two with my life, but I'm taking a risk speaking to even them about it.
"Go get rest… In four hours, relieve Mikhail with the old man.
Try to force him to at least drink water. "
"Yeah, Boss…" Bart and Mishka stand and walk to the door, but Mishka turns back to study me.
"Your side?" he says.
"It’s fine. Go sleep," I grumble, sick of all these idiots trying to coddle me over a fucking flesh wound. There are far worse things at stake than whether I get an ugly scar. I've had worse wounds than this. It'll heal.
When they're gone, I flick the lights off, though the sun rising outside is illuminating things already, and head to my room. I expect Isabela to be sleeping soundly after all that stress, but she lies in bed naked, waiting for me.
"My father," she says immediately. "Is he—"
"Stable." I sit on the edge of the bed to ease the strain off my side. "Dehydrated, banged up, old injuries that healed badly, but nothing that won't mend. He's refusing food and treatment until he sees you. The doctor's working on him."
Her face crumples with relief and worry both at once, and she presses a hand to her mouth. "I have to go to him. If he's refusing care, he'll listen to me, I can—"
"You'll see him tomorrow."
"He needs me now."
"He needs to sleep, and so do you, and so do I." I lean down and pull my boots off slowly. Every movement hurts my damn side so badly. "You're not going down there in your state. You'll see him after we've all rested."
Isabela offers a defiant expression and slinks toward the edge of the bed as I pull my shirt off. The strain makes me wince, but I don't miss the glower on her face.
"Then I'll sleep in my own room," she says. "The one you locked me in. At least let me—"
"You're sleeping here," I growl, unbuckling my pants. "From now on, this is where you sleep."
She turns to look at me, her whole body going stiff as she pulls the sheet up around her body like I haven't just devoured every bit of her flesh. It's attractive, though, only seeing parts of her, especially with that look of shock and embarrassment she's got.
"Here," she repeats. "In your bed?"
"Yes."
"No." She's up off the mattress and on her feet in an instant, reaching for the towel she left draped over the chair across the room "Absolutely not. I'm not—you can't just decide that. I'm not some—"
"Whore?" I snip, cutting her off. She turns on me, glaring, but I continue. "You'll sleep. I'll sleep. That's all that's happening in this room tonight, because I'm in no condition for anything else and you know it." But my God, if she wanted to ride me, I'd let her. She's perfect.
"Then why does it matter where I sleep?"
My dick could tell her why it matters so much, but then I'd be breaking doctor's orders. I tug the slacks down as I turn back to her, letting them and my boxers fall to the ground. I want to feel her skin against mine, even if she won't consent to anything more.
"Because I said so," I tell her instead. "Get in the bed."
"No."
"Isabela."
"You don't own me." Her chin comes up, her hands curling into fists on the towel which strategically covers her. "I'm not your—"
"My what." I tilt my head, watching her search for the word. "Say it. Finish the sentence and tell me what you think I want from you, since you're so certain you've got me figured out."
"I don't know what you want." Her voice trembles, anger and exhaustion mixing in.
"I don't fucking know!" Her body is tense as I walk toward her, but she blubbers on.
"Look, things are fucked up. I should not have touched you or let you touch me.
" Her hand runs through her still-damp hair.
"And we should not have had sex. I was overwhelmed because you saved me and then we have this chemistry and… "
Her eyes sweep up to where I glower down at her, so close I could snatch her up if she tried to run. I've run out of patience for the long way around. "Get in the fucking bed," I growl.
"No…" she snips, looking away.
She comes off the floor with a sharp sound of protest, twisting against me, her hands shoving at my chest as I pick her up and haul her back to the mattress. "Put me down—Demin, I swear—"
"You'll hurt yourself fighting me, and you'll hurt me, and I'm already bleeding, so can you calm the fuck down?" I carry her to the bed and set her down, keeping a hand on her so she can't bolt. "Lie down."
I'm too fucking tired for this nonsense. I just want rest.
"Let go of me."
"Lie down, and I'll let go."
She fights me for a while longer, landing a few hits that I'll feel in the morning.
But I take them and hold on without hurting her until the fight starts to drain out of her.
Her struggles slow. Her breathing turns ragged, then evens.
At some point, the anger in her gives way to bone-deep exhaustion, the simple, animal need of a body that's been awake too long.
I pull her in where she feels good against my chest, and she lets me breathe her in.
It's been a long time since I held a woman while I slept.
I haven't missed it until just this moment, and I decide I never want to go without it again just as easily as I decided the moment I slid into her that she belongs to me.
"This isn't me agreeing to anything," she mumbles into my chest. The anger is still there woven through her tone, but she's not raising her voice.
"I know."
"I still hate you."
"I know that too."
She's asleep before she can argue the point, not yet seeing what I already do.
She thinks this is a fight she's going to win, that I'll come to my senses, hand her father back, send the two of them off to some quiet life, and forget I ever pulled her out of a crate.
She's wrong. Whatever started on that plane has already decided itself in me, settled in deep in my gut until it has started driving me and my choices.
She belongs to me. She just doesn't know it yet.
And I've never in my life walked away from something that's mine.