“That’s okay.” I sat next to him on the bed and held his bloody hand. “You were too busy getting beat up.”
“And by the looks of it.” Sergio tore the rest of Nikolai’s shirt with his hands. “Shot at.”
“What!” I shrieked, grasping Nik’s hand with more intensity than necessary.
“I’m fine,” he assured me. “It went clean through.”
“What the hell?” Sergio leaned down to examine the wound I guessed, then cursed again. “How did a simple bullet wound tear?”
“They beat the shit out of me and I tried to fight back. How else do you think it tore open?”
Sergio ignored him and placed the box on the floor, opened it, and pulled out a syringe.
My eyes widened, maybe too much because Sergio smirked in my direction. “Don’t worry I’m not killing him, just giving him a nice dose of morphine that should make him dream of unicorns and shit.”
“I don’t need morphine,” Nik grumbled as sweat started pouring down his temples.
I nodded to Sergio. “Give it to him.”
“Maya I don’t need—” He hissed as Sergio jabbed a needle into the inside of Nik’s elbow. “I hate drugs.”
“Always good when a doctor that invented his own special drugs actually hates them. That way you won’t ever become an addict,” Sergio said helpfully. “Now, you were only shot once, but I’m thinking…” His hands moved to Nik’s chest and ran down. “Two broken ribs?”
Nik was silent and then, “One black eye, three broken ribs on my right side, possible internal bleeding, a pissed off kidney, and a giant gaping wound where I got shot. That’s it. See?” He tried to get up, but fell back onto the bed and wheezed out. “I’m fine.”
“Doctors are always the worst patients.” Sergio grabbed another needle and jabbed it into Nik’s neck, within seconds he was slumping back and then sleeping.
“What did you give him?” I asked in a panicked voice. I was surrounded by Italian mafia, and as much as I wanted to trust them, because Nik did, because my sister had, I was still apprehensive. There were seven of them, seven huge terrifying men in my apartment. What if they decided we weren’t worth it? It’s not like I wasn’t aware of what Nikolai did now, or what my father had done to them, to Andi.
“Hey,” Sergio drew my attention back to him. “Why don’t you help me wash off the blood so I can see where he needs to stitch?”
“He?”
“I highly doubt a surgeon as talented as Nikolai is going to want someone who dropped out of his fourth year of med school sewing him up. Besides, I’m hoping it doesn’t look as bad once we get him cleaned up.”
I nodded my head and went to the bathroom to grab a warm wet cloth, then made my way back into the bedroom and started softly wiping away the blood on Nikolai’s side.
We worked in silence. I washed blood and Sergio did small sutures over a few cuts while simultaneously examining the bruising already forming across Nikolai’s body.
After a few minutes of companionable silence. Sergio spoke. “She would have loved you.”
My eyes filled with tears. “Do you think… it’s possible to miss someone you never really knew?”
Sergio’s hands froze. “Yes. I do. I think it’s possible to miss someone simply from hearing memories from other people, knowing what that person was like, seeing someone talk about them as their faces light up with pleasure or excitement almost like the person is still breathing—living.” He cleared his throat and started working again. “It’s okay to feel loss, even though you weren’t a part of her life.” His eyes met mine. “I know if the situation were reversed, she’d feel the same way about you. She’d mourn you—because blood is blood, Maya. And we’re all human… very breakable, most of us already broken, and she knew that better than anyone I’d ever met. She looked at the world like it deserves to be looked at.”
“How?”
“With respect… with beauty.”
A single tear ran down my face. I tried to wipe it away but Sergio grabbed my hand. “It’s harder for those left behind then it is for those who leave. Just know… she laughed a lot, and drove me insane.”
I licked my dry lips, a smile forming across them. “This world needs more laughter.”
“It really does.” He agreed as we both stared at Nikolai. “And he’s going to need you…”
“He has me.”
“Does he?” Sergio’s eyes narrowed. “He’s a killer.”
“So are you.”
“The very hands he uses to give life—he takes. You’ll have to turn a blind eye… because it will always be in his blood.”
“What will?”
Sergio shrugged. “Once you are in this life, you don’t walk away, even when you want to. It follows you, tempts you, beckons you, promises you the world. He will always be mafia. So, I’d leave now if it’s too much. I can make you disappear, and because of Andi, I’m going to give you that option.” He stood. “You’d be in Canada by midnight, or Mexico if that’s your preference, a house by the ocean, a new identity, passport, a new life, just say the word.”
“But Nikolai—”
“He stays. This offer is for you. Not for him.”
Panicked, I stared at Nikolai and stood, it was what he’d wanted for me, for us, to disappear, for me to be safe, but I didn’t want safe if it meant I was away from him.
“My father, he will keep coming after Nik? After me?”
Sergio didn’t answer.
“What would Andi do?”
Again no answer, he simply stared, his crystal blue eyes blazing holes through me.
I swallowed, straightening my shoulders and whispered, “If he stays. I stay.”
“Thank God.” Nikolai said in a hoarse voice. “And Sergio, leave before I kick your ass.”
“Hah,” Sergio pulled out a needle and thread. “In your position you’re more likely to fall on your ass and look stupid in front of the girl you love.” He handed the needle to Nikolai. “I’ll let you do the honors.”
“Thanks.” He grumbled, “And Sergio?”
Sergio turned.
“Stab me with a needle again and I’m ripping out your throat while you’re awake.”
“Huh.” Sergio nodded approvingly. “Propranolol, didn’t know you were a fan.”
“Out.” Nikolai made a weird growling noise.
Sergio shut the door and yelled back. “You’re welcome!”
We do not care what we have, but we cry when it is lost. –Russian Proverb
I COULD AT LEAST BE THANKFUL that Sergio hadn’t used a full dose to knock me out, only enough to make the last ten minutes seem fuzzy. It had just felt better to close my eyes and relax back against the mattress as the drugs filtered through my system, the morphine, burned along my veins. I’d always had a terrible reaction to any opiates. They typically made me sick, which was a blessing, considering I had easy access to them at all times and thought myself a chemist when it came to making my JR serum.
I wasn’t shocked he had offered her sanctuary.
What shocked me was that she declined his offer and stayed.
A smart woman would run far away, take the second chance at a fresh start and never look behind her.
There was literally nothing but horror in her past, and I couldn’t imagine the future would be roses and fairy tales either, not if she stayed with me. There would never be a time in her life that she wouldn’t be reminded of her past, of our past, and I had to wonder if it would continually impact our present, filtering into our future.
With a sigh, I sat up as much as I could. “Maya, would you please grab a hand mirror from the bathroom?”
Frowning, she gave a simple nod went to the bathroom then returned with the mirror.
“Excellent. Can you please point it at my side, angle it down, a little farther.” Her hands were shaking. I didn’t blame her. I was a mess. “Thank you.”
We didn’t speak while I nimbly and quickly sewed up my wound in perfect sutures that would leave a slight white mark as if I’d been scratched.
Maya swayed on her feet.
“Maya?” I reached for her with my free hand, I just needed to cut the thread. “Are you going to pass out?”