Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“Do you feel dizzy or confused?” he asked.
“No. I just have a headache,” I said, flinching away from the flashlight.
“Sensitivity to light?”
“Not until you shined that in my eyes.”
He tucked the flashlight away. “You probably don’t have a concussion, but I’ll give you some pain killers.
Your shoulder’s going to hurt like hell in about an hour when the local anesthetic wears off.
Other than that, you need to rest and take it easy for a few days.
Change your bandage every day and keep the wound dry.
I’ll follow up to remove the stitches in ten days. ”
I waved him off. It wasn’t the first time I’d had to be stitched up. I could handle the aftercare. But I noticed that Sarah was giving him her full attention, as if she was making an effort to memorize everything he said.
Something warm and unexpected spread in the center of my chest. Between the concern she showed and the way she was nodding along while the doctor prattled on about signs of infection and what issues could crop up to indicate that my head was worse than it appeared, I was beyond touched. Sarah cared. She was worried about me.
The only person who ever worried about me in my life was my mother, and she’d been gone for thirteen long years. I’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone make a fuss over me.
When the doctor left, Sarah went straight to the kitchen to grab a glass of water and gave me two of the pills the doctor had left for me. She propped up pillows behind me on the bed and helped me sit up.
“The pills say you should take them with food, so I’m going to find something in the kitchen to give you.”
I opened my mouth to tell her not to bother. I had a strong stomach, and a couple of mild pain relievers weren’t going to bother me much, but she was already bustling out of the room.
And maybe I didn’t want to stop her. Not because I was hungry, but because it felt damn good to have someone take care of me like this.
“Is Nik with Alexis?” I asked Lev. One of the phone calls I’d made on the way here was to Nikolay, ordering him to watch over Alexis and Sarah’s mom while she was brought here. I wanted my most trusted man making sure that little girl was okay.
“Yeah,” Lex said. “And the grandma looked pretty confused when we dropped her off. I think Sarah’s going to have fill the old woman in on what’s going on, especially if you’re going to have a bodyguard on the little girl at all times until this shit with the Italians blows over.”
I couldn’t imagine ever removing the protective detail on Alexis. If the Italians weren’t the threat, there could be someone else. The danger never ended in this world, especially for an innocent child associated with the likes of me.
But that didn’t matter.
I wasn’t going to let anyone touch her. I’d destroy anyone who tried.
“I’m going to head out,” Maxim said. “I’ll report back to you as soon as I know anything.”
I nodded, and he left.
“I’m going to stay in the other bedroom,” Lev said. “And I’ve got two guys keep an eye on things outside.”
He shut the door behind him, leaving me alone with Sarah.
Without a word, she went into the attached bathroom.
I could hear water running for a moment, and when she came back, she was holding a wet washcloth.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she slowly and carefully started to clean the blood from my head.
The silence of the moment felt intimate instead of heavy. I could sense that she was still worried, but the softness in her eyes and the gentle way she touched me overrode that. When she was done cleaning me up, she started to stand, but I reached out and grabbed her wrist.
“Thank you for coming.”
She swallowed hard. “This attack. Was it the people trying to get you convicted? The ones who ordered me to lie on the stand?”
“I’m sure it is. The Italian mafia wants to get me out of the way so they can take over my territory. They’ll do whatever they have to do to make that happen.”
“Even kill you.”
It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.
“But they’ve underestimated me. And I’m pretty sure they underestimated you too.” I ran my thumb over her knuckles. “So why didn’t you lie on the stand?”
Sarah’s smile reached her eyes. “I trust you to keep me safe.”
The statement was simple and straightforward, but it meant more to me than I could explain.
“Lie with me,” I said.
Sarah hesitated. “I should really check on Alexis.”
“Nikolay is watching over her. I promise, she’s okay.”
She bit her lip, and for a moment, I thought she was going to deny me, but she pulled back the blanket and slid into the bed beside me. It was only twin-sized, so there wasn’t much room, but I didn’t mind. I tucked her under my arm and inhaled her sweet scent.
I wasn’t sure if it was the shock of being hit by a car and shot or how touched I felt at her show of genuine concern, but I suddenly wanted to share something with her. Something real about me that I usually kept locked up tight.
“You’re a good mom,” I said. “Alexis is lucky that way. I had a good mom, too. But my dad… he was a cold son of a bitch.”
Sarah looked up at me with a small frown on her face. “Did he hurt you?”
My throat felt tight. I tried not to think about the shit my old man put me through. It was better left in the past. Talking about it was even harder.
But I felt like I needed to share a part of myself with Sarah. She put her trust in me today, and I owed her the same.
“Yes,” I said, running my fingers through her silky hair. “Physically and emotionally. The man didn’t have a paternal instinct in his body, no desire to be a good father.”
“But he had two children?”
“That was about fulfilling his duty. He needed at least one son to take over as Pakhan someday. But we live a dangerous life, so I believe he had a second child just in case something ever happened to me.”
“Like a spare tire in the trunk of a car?”
I chuckled dryly. “Pretty much. He certainly didn’t think of us as people. The only thing that mattered to him was whether or not we were useful to him. And even then, it didn’t keep him from turning me into his personal punching bag.”
Sarah winced, and I felt the need to comfort her, despite this being my own dark story.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she relaxed against me again.
Her head returned to my shoulder, and she traced random patterns on the skin of my chest with her fingertips.
The light touch made tension drain out of my body, and I let out a long breath.
“When you say you were useful to him, what does that mean?”
Her voice was tentative, as if she already knew the answer wasn’t a good one.
I thought about trying to avoid the question, but I still felt like she deserved to know the ugly truth. I hadn’t been completely honest with her yet.
“My father thought I needed to learn the harsh realities of mafia life at a young age. He started taking me along when he had business to handle. I’m not talking about just giving orders and making tough decisions.
The first time he took me with him to deal with a problem, I watched him beat a man half to death. I was eight.”
Sarah gasped. Lifting her head again, she let me see her outrage. “Eight years old? What the hell was wrong with him?”
“I’m guessing he was a narcissist. Maybe a psychopath.
Of course, I didn’t have any concept of that at the time.
All I knew was that my dad was a cruel bastard.
He was violent at home and in his work. And the man might not have loved his wife or sons, but he did love hurting people.
That’s what I remember the most about him from those early days. He enjoyed what he was doing.”
“I’m so sorry you went through that.”
There was more to the story, so much fucked up shit that I’d never talked about with anyone.
The first time I saw a man killed, I was twelve years old.
Hearing my father order his crying mistress to end her pregnancy when I was fifteen.
Shielding Maxim from my father’s fists as much as possible my entire life.
But the pain pills I took had kicked in, and I was suddenly fighting to stay awake. The words got trapped in my throat as my eyelids grew heavy. My hand stilled with my fingers tangled in her hair, and my breathing grew deep and even.
Sarah leaned over to turn off the lamp on the nightstand beside us, plunging us into darkness.
As she curled up next to me, I felt my mind drifting away, and despite everything that happened today, I couldn’t bring myself to worry about anything.
It wasn’t just the drugs. It was Sarah. Something about having her in my arms made me feel at peace in a way I’d longed for my entire life.
“Are you still awake?” she asked softly. “I-I need to tell you something.”
I tried to respond, to let her know that she could tell me anything. But I was barely conscious; my mind was slipping into blackness. Just before I was completely under, I heard her speak again.
“Please don’t hate me for keeping this secret…”
There was no chance to even consider what that meant because sleep took me away.