Page 43 of Escaping the Bratva

V

I walk into the room that the nurse directs me to. Marcello looks pissed as he sits up in the hospital bed. I’m surprised to see him awake. He’s hooked up to a few machines that beep quietly. His leg is covered in bandages, and I’m guessing it’s broken. There’s a cut under his eye, and his dark curly hair is matted.

“Looks like you got the shit beat out of you,” I say.

He flips me the bird.

“What happened?” I ask, pulling up an empty chair to sit next to the bed.

“Was coming home from The Dream, the club off 5th Street, when two big ass trucks ran me off the road.”

I run a hand over my face. “Fuck.”

This is exactly what I feared. Brighton is closing in faster than I expected, and I still don’t have a fucking plan to get rid of him.

“We have to do something,” Marcello says, wincing as he tries to readjust.

“You’re not doing anything. This is my problem, I’ll figure it out. Is your leg broken? Ribs?”

He lets out a frustrated breath. “One leg, two ribs, and some scrapes and bruises. I’ll be out tomorrow. But don’t try to change the subject. Now that this Brighton guy has come after me, it's both of our problems.”

That’s what I’ve tried so hard to avoid. I don’t want to drag people into my shitstorm.

“Where’s Sasha?” he asks.

“Back at the house. I didn’t want to risk bringing her out in case I ran into trouble.”

“Smart move. We’re outnumbered, V. We’re going to need help. We could go to police—”

“No fucking way. They’ll find a way to turn this whole thing back on me, and I’m not going back to prison.”

“Is prison worse than death?” Marcello asks with a raised eyebrow.

I shrug. “It’s not pretty.”

A young nurse walks into the room with a smile on her bright red lips. “Hello, I’m Ashley. I’ll be taking over until around ten o’clock in the morning.” She walks over to one of the machines and bends over to read the screen. I don’t miss the way Marcello’s eyes zoom in on her ass, and I almost want to laugh. “Greig has told me about your injuries. Do you need any more pain meds right now?”

She stands back up and turns to him. He smiles at her. “What kind of pain relief do you suggest?”

I cover up my laugh with a cough.

The nurse purses her lips. “OxyContin or some really strong ibuprofen?”

“How about your phone number?” he tries again. He has some balls to be hitting on a woman while he looks like complete shit. I give him credit for that.

“Cool, no pain pills. Press the button if you change your mine.” She walks out of the room closing the door behind her.

“Smooth,” I say.

He waves me off. “I got all night. She was hot, wasn’t she?”

I barely even noticed. With Sasha back in my life, I have no desire to even look at other women because I know none of them can measure up to her. In the twelve years we’d been apart, I’d bedded my fair share of women, just to be sure, and none of them compared to her.

“I have a girl,” I say.

“You told Sasha about all this?”

I lean back in my chair. “Not in detail, but since her condo was broken into so she knows we’re not safe.”

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