“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said dryly, “it was nothing personal. In combat, it’s always the last man standing. You won’t get any special consideration out there in the real world just because you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.”
“Well, I’m sorry that I didn’t arrive here as a world-class ninja,” I snarl, feeling the cut in my lip open again, blood trickling down my chin. Wiping it away, I continue, “No one here can be an expert in everything.”
Stopping suddenly, he grabs my arm to keep me from crashing into him again. “Really,” he looks me over slowly, head to toe, and clearly finds me lacking. “And what are you an expert in? Anything?”
I am very, very good with computers, but I’m not telling this arrogant dick a thing about me. “Nothing, I guess.” I snap. “Why don’t you just point me in the direction of the clinic and I’ll-”
Curling his thick fingers around my upper arm, he sighs irritably. “Keep walking. And stop talking.”
“You started it,” I mumble, instantly sorry because that sounds so stupid. What is it about this man that reduces me to the eloquence of a toddler?
The medical clinic looks reassuringly professional, though the ancient doctor looks like a stiff breeze would blow him right off the cliff and into the ocean.
Pulling down his reading glasses, he looks at me disapprovingly. “What happened here?”
“Combat practice, Dr. Giardo,” my unwilling guide says.
“Hmm,” the doctor scowls. “Very well, you can leave, Mr. Toscano.” Looking sternly at me, he points to an exam table, neatly covered in a pristine white sheet. “You. Over there.”
As he walks off, I look back to… Toscano, right? “Hey,” I call. He stops, one hand on the door. “What’s your name?”
He turns slightly, looking me over one last time. “Lucca.”
“Lucca? Nice to meet you, I’m-”
He’s already gone, the door shutting firmly behind him.
“You slept through dinner.”
Opening the eye not swollen shut, I look at Athena, who is staring down at me like I’m roadkill.
Shrugging, she says, “I’m only bringing it up because the medication you’ve got on your bedside table needs to be taken with food. Call down to the kitchen and order something, they’ll bring it up pretty quickly.”
“How do you know that?” I groan, wondering if it would just be easier to curl up in a corner and die quietly.
Giving an inelegant snort, she rattles the bottle at me. “Dr. Giardo gave you his famous “night-night” pain pills. You’ll puke them right back up on an empty stomach and believe me, you don’t want to waste these little gems.”
Trying not to whimper like a wounded animal, I sit up and reach for the Academy iPad, used for messaging throughout the college.
“I heard Lucca Toscano carried you down to the medical clinic,” Athena says casually, lounging on my bed and showing more interest than she has for the last two days.
“Carried?” I laugh, “He dragged me behind him like I was a deer he’d just shot, but whatever.”
Shrugging, she stood up, ambling into the living room. “Every girl in this college has been after Lucca. He’s a ‘thanks for a good time, see you later’ kind of guy.”
“Given that he looked at me like I was something he’d stepped in, I doubt that I’ll be following the pack on this one,” I said coldly. Athena is putting in her Air pods and no longer listening.
Stifling a gasp at the size of the bruise on my thigh, I groan quietly. How am I going to handle a month of this arrogant dick telling me how much I suck at everything?
Lucca…
“So? What does she feel like?”
Kon will not shut the fuck up. After hearing the campus gossip that I’d be training Tatiana, he’s been nonstop with the idiot questioning. “Is she soft? Silky skin? How about her breasts? Are they as perky as they look?”
“Exactly what the hell did you think I was doing with her?” I snarled, rubbing my eyes. “I scraped her off the floor after Ania Jankowski kicked the shit out of her.”
“Zimmerman paired her with Ania for her first match?” Kon flinches, “Podonok, what a fucker! He must have hated her at first sight.”
“Like I told Aslanova,” I shrug, “it was nothing personal. If anything, Jankowski was holding back. What is a soft little princess like her doing here at the Academy?”
“The Aslanov Bratva is one of the Six Families in Russia,” he said, “I don’t know any of the details on how they got her a placement here two months into the school year, but they wield a lot of power.”
I put my hands behind my head, looking up at the skylight and the pale clouds scudding over the night sky. “Tatiana’s completely unprepared for this place, she’s never going to make it.”
“Ah, you’re on a first-name basis already?” he leers, “Nice. Are you sure you’re telling me everything that happened this afternoon? Did she thank you for taking her to the infirmary? A little hand job, maybe?”
“Tu stronzo, you asshole,” I laugh, “she has a fat lip and a black eye. Not remotely sexy, unless you’re really into blood.”
“I haven’t seen her for years,” he says, pulling off his shirt, throwing it, and as always, missing the laundry basket. “I know the Aslanov Bratva does business in Moscow, but they’re mainly based in Canada. Vancouver BC, and spreading down into Seattle. Something’s definitely off about it all.”
Turning off my light, I stare up at the night sky. I’ll pull my highly illegal cell phone from its hiding place tomorrow and look up Tatiana Aslanova and see what’s happened with her family. Not because I give a shit. But if I’m forced to deal with her every day, a little history might just be useful.
Chapter Five
In which Tatiana opens her big mouth. A lot.
Tatiana…
Meals at the Academy are a special exercise in torment.
I never dealt with the awkward hesitation in the cafeteria at school, wondering where I should sit and who I should avoid, so I have no idea what to expect here. Of course, comparing the dining room at the Academy to a school cafeteria is like comparing a golf cart to a Maserati. The dining room here in the main building is more elaborate than most of the Michelin three-star restaurants I’ve visited, with a full bar - a shining mahogany monstrosity with a bartender and hundreds of bottles of liquor - on one end of the massive room and white-coated servers taking meal orders. The arched mullioned windows look out on the ancient rock remains of Black Fort.
I survived on granola bars and the Academy’s room service menu until my fifth day, when Athena casually mentioned that everyone thought I’d sustained some sort of brain damage from the infamous Jankowski beatdown.
“Suck it up,” I tell my reflection, trying to shake the tension out of my hands. “You’re twenty, not twelve.”
Still, walking into the gorgeous room at lunchtime is terrifying. The tables can seat anywhere from four students to twenty, and I can feel the stares as I glance around the room, hoping for a nice single spot somewhere.
“Tatiana!” Mariya Morozova bounces up to me with her arms wide, giving me the traditional Russian three kisses. “I just heard today that you were here at the Academy, I’m sorry, I would have come to find you sooner if I’d known.”
“It’s so good to see you,” I said fervently, returning her embrace. “Knowing you were here was one of the very few selling points for this place.”
“Here, come sit with us,” she says, pulling me over to a big table with a scatter of girls, three or four I vaguely recognize, and five guys. They’re all staring at me like I’m a particularly interesting lab experiment and I’m rethinking room service and my cozy bedroom.