CHAPTER 8
WHEN BULLETS FLY
GRIMM
I couldn’t believe that I actually let her go.
I couldn’t believe that I had her in my hands and allowed her to escape.
I touched her skin, held her body in my arms, felt her pulse spike against my fingertips and fucking let her go.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
~ I told you to tie her to the bed and you didn’t listen. Reap what you fucking sow.
It was the right thing to do, but when the fuck did I start caring about doing the right thing?
~ She’s rubbing off on you. That shit’s contagious.
As I sat in my car and waited for the lights to turn on in her apartment, I had one constant thought.
Would I be able to keep my promise and become a spectator in her life if she didn’t choose me, or would I go mad and brutally murder any man who came near her?
~ I vote for the latter.
~ I’m taking you to a shrink if you don’t shut the fuck up.
I was quite sure that I wouldn’t be able to keep the promise of watching her marry another man. What the fuck was I thinking when I told her that? Only over my dead, buried or cremated body would she have been someone else’s. In reality, the choice was rather simple; it was either me, or no one, but she was smart enough to know that.
Marry someone else, my ass.
For the first time in years, I left her building before the lights went out, because I knew it in my bones that if I caught even a glimpse of her, I wouldn’t be able to refrain from storming into her apartment, putting her over my shoulder and taking her back to my place by force, or taking her right on her bed, if I were to get too impatient.
See? I was being nice.
I was thinking about someone else for a change, also for the first time.
It felt horrible, not to mention boring, to go against my instincts. Fuck, it felt like a crime against what made me function.
Why did I care so much about her feelings when I could have easily stitched them back together after hurting them?
~ Do you think she’ll be hit by a strong case of Stockholm Syndrome and fall madly in love with you? Wake the fuck up, this isn’t a movie.
I wanted to set myself on fire.
~ Let’s… not.
Everything that happened to me kept me floating in a sea of confusion, because when I was with her, I felt like a different person. I wanted her to like me, to see that I could be kind, and nice, and loving. I didn’t want her to see the ugly monster or the vicious killer.
~ Who are you calling ugly, you simp?
But as soon as I was no longer with her, I was overcome by thoughts of chaos.
I was driving through town with no destination in mind, listening to her current favorite song, when my phone rang and interrupted the melody.
I gritted my teeth, mumbling a curse as I answered it without looking at the caller.
“What?”
I didn’t recognize my tone, I wasn’t my usual calm and collected self, and a certain blonde was to blame for all the shit I was about to hurl at the person on the other end of the line.
“The laundromat is under attack,” my father’s voice sobered me up real quick, like a bucket of ice water.
Now, the laundromat wasn’t actually a laundromat with washing machines and dryers, but a nice big warehouse where Klaus ran his business. From the outside, it looked like any other storage facility, while inside it was complete with an armory, medical, a studio apartment where my brother brought his somewhat strange, completely crazy conquests with questionable tastes, a garage, rooms for the guards, and a huge basement where he incinerated the cadavers, which doubled as a torture chamber for those unlucky few who didn’t get the bullet before the question.
It was just outside the city limits and so remote that you couldn’t just stumble across it, which made me wonder who the fuck found it and why did they attack it.
“I’ll be there in five,” I said, suddenly turning left into oncoming traffic to overtake the car in front of me.
Just what I needed after being shot in a park and leaving the only good thing in my life. A carnage fest.
~ Sounds like fun to me.
“Grimm,” my father’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
“What?”
“Did you, by any chance, kill a man called Justin Fowler?”
~ You have got to be shitting me.
“What does that piece of human scum have to do with anything?”
“He owed the Italians a considerable amount of money,” he explained, sounding rather annoyed with the situation, seemingly unfazed by the fact that Klaus was perhaps knee-deep in shit.
“So?” I gritted my teeth as I parked my car.
“So, they want their money, son,” he explained casually.
“How much?” I got out of the car and opened the trunk.
Shots rang out in the night, making my skin crawl.
“Ten million. Euro, not dollars,” my father replied, and I felt dizzy.
“I’ll pay.” I put the phone on speaker and strapped a holster to my thigh, then shoved three blades in place.
Why did I choose to drive the only car that didn’t have any guns in it?
~ Because you didn’t want her to see them?
“Oh?” He seemed surprised. “Then I’d like to meet her.”
I cursed, then hung up and slammed the trunk shut before walking closer to the building, adrenaline spiking within me as I approached the door. I didn’t like bringing knives to a gun party, but unfortunately, I had no other choice.
A sudden silence fell over the space as I stopped next to the side entrance of the warehouse.
~ Try not to get us killed today, ok?
I opened the door and walked inside, the coppery smell of blood lingering in the air. A lot of it, so much that I could taste it on my tongue. I walked through the narrow corridor that led to the garage and stopped at the ajar door to peer through the gap as I pulled a knife out of the holster.
~ Shit!
I expected a considerable number of members of the Italian mafia to be present, but I didn’t expect their fucking soon-to-be leader to be present.
Damiano Volta, in the flesh.
I would have been honored if the bastard wasn’t standing next to Klaus, who was now tied to a chair, a knife buried in his stomach, the bodies of his cleaners scattered lifelessly across the concrete floor.
The Italian wanker came with an army, and Klaus’ men weren’t trained enough for this kind of battle, mostly because the laundromat wasn’t a place our enemies usually attacked, but Damiano knew my weakness.
One of them, at least.
My little brother.
I bit the inside of my cheek and cursed internally, mostly because Damiano and I functioned on the same kind of drug, namely mayhem, and I stood no chance without reinforcements.
A truce with his family was the reason I was away from my Snezhinka for a month, and now he was basically pissing all over it. And for what? Ten million? The motherfucker wiped his ass with that sum.
Alas, if I had to die tonight, at least I’d held her once.
~ You’re not dying, you moron.
I casually entered the room, wondering where the hell were the reinforcements my father sent. His eyes set on me, a surprised grin on his face, while a dozen guns pointed at me at once.
“Grimm, piacere di rivederti,” he laughed, stepping away from my brother.
“Cut the shit,” I said, drawing my knife as I walked towards him.
A warning shot was fired, making me stop in my tracks.
“Very well,” his face turned serious. “I hear you’ve been busy killing people who owed me.”
“He fucked with what’s mine,” I gritted my teeth.
“I understand, but see, you fucked with what’s mine when you killed him.”
“I’ll give you the amount he owed, plus another million for the inconvenience.”
He grinned as my eyes fell on Klaus, who was losing more blood by the second and appeared to be unconscious, but at least the knife was still in the wound.
“Oh, Dio, she must be something special if she made the Ripper so… docile,” he chuckled.
~ Docile? Did he just call me docile?
“How do you know it’s a she?” I rolled my eyes, and he grinned as he lazily stepped closer to me.
“A woman is the only thing that can make men like us kneel, Grimm,” he chuckled.
~ Slice his throat.
I refrained from punching the side of my head as I faked a yawn, not wanting Volta to know about Arella’s existence.
“Do we have a deal or not, Volta?” I asked calmly, already imagining all the torture I was going to inflict on the reinforcements that seemed to have stopped for a smoke on the way.
~ Why aren’t we torturing this guy? He called me docile.
~ Shut it.
“Deal,” he waved his men off, seemingly bored with the whole situation. “I must say, I didn’t expect you to be so reasonable.”
I rolled my eyes as he held out his hand, but I shook it out of necessity.
“Eleven million in cash,” he said as he took out a notepad and wrote something down. “Drop it off at this address by Friday morning.”
“Fine,” I gritted my teeth, my eyes fixed on my brother.
“He’ll survive,” he rolled his eyes. “I was careful not to touch any vital organs, since I didn’t want to ruin the truce our families worked so hard for,” he turned to leave, and I walked towards Klaus.
“Ripper…”
~ Oh, for fuck’s sake, what now?
“What?” I half-turned my head towards him.
“Don’t cross me, because next time I’ll pay a visit to that pretty doctor of yours,” a sadistic smile spread across his lips. “She seems…” he paused and licked his lips, “… utterly delicious.”
~ Fucking fuck me with a ten-foot pole.
~
Aren’t you a little dramatic?
Why did he know about her?
I was already planning to kill him when Arella’s face blossomed before my eyes. Why was it that her face made me wish I was a boring accountant without any enemies?
I untied Klaus and wondered if I should just swallow my tongue as I checked his vital signs. His pulse was still strong, his breathing shallow, but the bastard was alive.
“Damiano,” I called out his name.
He stopped in the doorway, turning his head just slightly.
“Yes?”
“Threaten her again, and what I did to Justin will seem merciful compared to what I’m going to do to you,” I spoke through my teeth. “And trust me when I say that no truce will stop me from gutting you alive.”
“I would expect nothing less, amico.”
Amico, my ass.
I looked at Klaus, having no fucking clue what to do. I couldn’t carry him to the infirmary because even if I got him there without making it worse, I still had no idea how to help him. I couldn’t call an ambulance to the warehouse either, as the rules forbade it.
Panic overcame me as I ran my fingers through my hair and pulled at it.
“Think, think, think.”
Pain shot up in my shoulder as I felt the stitching rip.
~ Just get over yourself and call her.
I didn’t want to do it, but I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called her, hoping she would answer, and more than that, hoping she would come.
Another thing I never felt before and did not care about: hope.
~ Ring, ring, and fucking ring.
“Come on, baby, pick up…”
My father’s men burst through the door, guns drawn and ready to fire, and while I wanted to kill them all, I threw a knife at the first one who came through the door, their commander, and the blade hit him between the eyes.
His body fell to the floor with a loud thud.
The phone kept ringing.
“
Vy idioty
[3]
!” I yelled at them, ready to throw another knife.
“Hello?” her innocent, sleepy voice stopped the massacre I was about to take part in.
“
Snezhinka
,” I gasped.
“Grimm?” she sounded confused, “Why are you calling me so late?”
“I need you.”
I waved the men off as I took Klaus’ vitals again.
“You said I needed time to think,” she giggled.
“My brother’s been stabbed,” I blurted out.
“Where are you?” She seemed fully awake now, and I heard her bed squeak as she probably stood up.
“No, no, you can’t come here, just tell me what to do over the phone,” I said as I put her on speakerphone.
“Tell me what’s going on,” she demanded, “is he breathing?”
“Yes.”
“Is he conscious?”
“No,” I looked back at Klaus as I heard a door closing on the phone.
“Is the knife still in the wound?”
“Yes, but he’s bleeding. He’s sitting on a chair; I didn’t know if I could move him.”
“Sitting on a…” she paused.
“Yes, I don’t know what to do, he’s losing blood.”
I didn’t recognize my voice, since I’d never felt so powerless in my entire life.
“Grimm,” her soft tone broke through my ear. “Listen to me, try to lay him down on his back and lift his feet, then put pressure on the wound around the knife, but don’t remove it.”
I put the phone on the floor and did as she said. I carefully laid him on his back and lifted his legs onto a wooden box, then applied pressure to the wound.
“Boss, what can we do?” one of the men asked, but when he saw my face and the look in my eyes, he backed off.
“What’s his body temperature?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Is his skin hot or cold?”
“Normal, I guess, I don’t know. A little cold, maybe.”
“You need to call an ambulance, Grimm,” her voice kept snapping me out of my murderous state.
“I can’t do that.”
“
Mierda
[4]
,” she cursed. “Grimm, if you want him to survive this, you need to give me the address.”
Surprisingly, I didn’t know she spoke Spanish, and although the way she said it made it seem like it was her native tongue, I couldn’t linger that much on the things I didn’t know about her, because I was focused on keeping my brother alive.
“It’s not safe,” I rasped through clenched teeth, unsure of whether or not I could stand seeing her surrounded by all the carnage that had taken place in the warehouse.
“I’ll bring a knife,” she said calmly, and I could almost feel the eyeroll. “You said you wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I trust you to keep your promise. Now give me the fucking address.”
Her voice sent a shiver down my spine, so clinical and demanding, as if she wasn’t asking, but ordering, and I reluctantly sent her my live location, then returned my hand to Klaus’ abdomen, pressing on the wound.
“I’ll be there soon,” she said softly, then she hung up.
“Don’t you dare die, motherfucker,” I whispered over my brother’s face. “You’re the good one out of the two of us, you’re the one who should die of old age.”
I couldn’t tell you how long I sat there, waiting, with his blood running down my palms, but when she arrived, my hands were numb from the constant pressure I applied.
She entered like a storm, dressed in my T-shirt, a pair of pink, fluffy slippers, and her hair tied in a messy bun on top of her head. Her eyes didn’t even wander around as she seemed intent on reaching me, but she was suddenly stopped by Boris, who wrapped his hand around her throat.
I saw red.
A lot of red. A sea of blood worth of red.
I was already on the verge of breaking, but seeing that threw me into the void and turned me feral. If my hands weren’t already busy, the motherfucker would have already been a piece of bleeding meat on the floor.
~ Soon.
“
Uberi svoi gryaznye ruki ot neye
[5]
,” I shouted, and he removed his hand immediately.
Arella gave the man a dirty look, then continued on her way until she reached us. She fell to her knees next to Klaus, and she didn’t even look at me as she checked his pulse, listened to his breathing, then turned on the flashlight on her phone and carefully opened each of his eyes, brushing the light across his pupils.
“We have a medical room here,” I blurted out.
She looked at me briefly, then turned towards Boris.
“Hey, big guy,” she shouted, “how about you make yourself useful and help Grimm carry him to the infirmary?”
I grinned. I liked it a little bit too much when she entered this state and fearlessly bossed people around, and I couldn’t wait for her to do it with me.
~ You’re going to regret this.
“Grimm,” she raised her eyes to me. “We need to get him there, which means you need to take your hands off and help carry him,” she spoke softly, almost as if she understood my pain.
No, not almost. She definitely did.
“He’ll be alright, I promise.”
I nodded frantically, and she muttered something in Spanish that I couldn’t hear properly.
When I removed my hands from around the blade, more blood poured out, and I was ready to lose it.
Boris and I picked him up and made our way to the infirmary, her footsteps following close behind.
I didn’t want to know what she was thinking when we sat him on the bed, since the infirmary was small and probably not what she was used to. The equipment was rather old, most of it stolen over the years. The walls were covered in white tile, and there was one small bed, a few cabinets that carried all the utensils, a sink with a mirror above, and some chairs.
“Okay, I can work with this,” she said as she looked around for a moment, searching for the things she needed.
Arella went through the drawers and pulled out everything she needed, sterilized the utensils, then went to the sink and began to wash her hands up to her elbows, as she’d done earlier at my place.
“Do you have any blood here?” she asked as she pulled on a pair of rubber gloves.
“No, but I have the same blood type as him. You can take it from me.”
“You have also lost quite a bit of blood tonight,” she bit her lip, moving closer to examine the wound.
She kept her hands up as she lightly bumped her knee into my leg.
“It’s ok, Grimm. You can let go now.”
Her voice was so soft, so kind, ridden with so much empathy that I felt as though I was about to explode with awe, and I swallowed audibly before finally stepping back.
Arella started working so fast that I could barely keep up with her movements. She cut his shirt in half to reveal the damage, then pushed her fingers down around the wound, slowly palpating. She bit her lip and closed her eyes for a moment, seemingly uttering a silent prayer, then she wrapped her fingers around the handle and steadily removed the knife, throwing it on a tray next to her.
She cursed in Spanish — again — when blood gushed out and splattered over her T-shirt and legs. More cursing, this time in English, and I couldn’t believe my ears as I watched how she tried to stop the bleeding.
“Come on,” she spoke through her teeth, then released a breath of relief.
He still bled, but not as abundantly, and she began to stitch him up, her hands moving with ease, steady, unhurried. When the wound was closed, she tied a wide rubber band around Klaus’ bicep, then found a vein and plunged a needle attached to a tube in it.
“Does he have any diseases?” she asked as she rolled up the sleeve of her T-shirt to her shoulder.
“What?”
“Diseases. Something that can be transmitted through blood, like HIV.”
“No, he’s healthy. What are you doing?” I asked as she tightened a band over her own bicep.
“He needs blood, and I’m a universal donor,” she explained without looking at me, slapping her arm.
I almost saw stars when I realized her intention.
Before I could stop her, she pushed the other needle into her vein and hissed at the pain as my heart hammered in my chest. Her blood flowed through the tube straight into my brother’s veins, and I was awestruck.
She didn’t know him. She didn’t know me. I could have been lying about him being healthy, but she trusted me and risked her safety to save his life. Just like that, donating blood to a total stranger, without even batting an eye.
~ She’s a goddess. I’m officially her number one fan.
~ Fuck off, she’s mine.
~ Technically, she’s ours.
A low growl escaped my lips without me realizing it, and I shook my head a little to get him to shut up. Arella’s brows drew together as she watched me, but she didn’t say anything about my reaction.
She was panting, probably because she was tired, her night having been so long it should have exhausted her, but she was awake, her eyelids lazily moving with each blink as she sat down in the chair next to the bed and rested her arm next to Klaus’.
Such a mesmerizing painting.
Arella with messy hair, covered in blood and wearing my T-shirt, was undoubtedly the most incredible thing I ever had the privilege of witnessing.
I leaned against the door as I watched her, and raised my hand up to my shoulder, then gritted my teeth as I felt the damp fabric of my T-shirt.
She looked at me with a frown, then smiled knowingly and shook her head.
“You tore your stitches, didn’t you?”
“I’m fine,” I told her as I took off my T-shirt and went to the mirror to look at the damage.
A few minutes passed as I cleaned the wound on my own and threaded the needle to stitch myself back up, but her hand on my back stopped me. Her skin was a little cold, but her touch burned me.
The needle in her arm was gone, a small band aid covering the mark.
“We have got to stop meeting like this,” she repeated my words, and I laughed.
Genuinely.
I turned to look at her, noticing the deep circles, and the reddish webs staining the whites of her beautiful eyes, but even though her body was begging her to get some rest, she still wanted to help me, because that’s who she was as a person. A helper. A healer. A fucking saint.
She led me back to the chair where she’d sat earlier, then took the needle from me and proceeded to patch me up again, focused on her task. Seemingly unscathed by my staring at her face as the needle pierced my skin repeatedly. I was so entranced by the expression on her face that I didn’t even feel the pain anymore.
After she was done, she used a sterilized cloth to wipe away the blood on my skin and applied a clean bandage over the wound.
As she wasn’t paying attention to my face, focused on making sure the stitches were completely covered, I grabbed her thighs and pulled her onto my lap.
She gasped as I guided her legs around my torso, and her eyes widened in the most adorable way as she held onto my arms to steady herself, then our gazes met, and I was gone.
“I lied,” I said as I pulled her closer, pressing her chest against me, “I can’t let you go.
I saw the intention of a smile on her face before I crushed my lips to hers.