Page 82 of Bratva Butcher

“There.” I pointed across the field to where Nikolai was on his knees, cradling a blonde woman in his arms.

Dimitri took off like a speeding bullet. We followed. Some dude was fighting around them, doing his best to try and protect them from Talon’s men. Mikhail ordered the men under his command to help as Dimitri crashed to his knees next to his son.

“What happened?” he asked, looking down at the blonde with concern.

Nikolai looked at his father, completely distraught, his eyes red with tears and voice cracking with panic. “S-she pushed me out of the way and took a bullet to the chest. The vest stopped it, but on her way down she hit her head on a rock, and now I can’t wake her. Help me. Please. Help me, Dad. I can’t-I can’t lose her. Please. Help me, help me, help me—” his whole body trembled as he spoke, his hands shaking the woman frantically, trying to wake her up. “Help me, help me—”

Dimitri stared at his son, his whole face crumpling with helplessness at the pain he could see Nikolai going through. “Okay, okay. Calm down, calm down,” he soothed, placing a hand on Nikolai’s shoulder. “She’ll be okay. We’ll get her help.”

“I have a team of doctors waiting onboard the submarine to deal with any injuries,” Mikhail offered.

Submarine? This guy has a submarine? Who the fuck are these people?

Dimitri nodded. “Alright, we need to get her on board. Come on, pick her up.”

I should have kept my mouth shut. It had absolutely nothing to do with me. And yet, I couldn’t help but offer my two cents after seeing that look of utter helplessness on Dimitri's face when he saw how much pain his son was in.

“Stop,” I said when they went to raise her from the ground. “You need to get the bleeding under control first. Depending on how bad the injury is, she could possibly bleed out before we get there.” Nikolai paled, his eyes shooting to the woman in alarm. “Take your shirt off. Rip it up. I need about three long strips. Leave a big enough piece intact for me to use as a bandage to apply pressure to the wound.”

Nikolai immediately did as I ordered. He handed me the tattered pieces of his shirt.

“Turn her to the side, carefully. Okay, good.” I looked at the back of her head. She had long, beautiful locks of blonde hair, making it easy to see where the bleeding was coming from. There was a nasty cut right on the back of her skull. It was deep enough to be concerning—possibly life-threatening, but I didn’t say that. I could tell just by looking at him that Nikolai was holding on by a thread. He was so scared for that woman.

I pushed the fabric onto the cut and tried to apply enough pressure to stem the bleeding. The woman groaned. Quickly, I used the long strips to tie around her head to hold the shirt in place, pressing against the wound to soak up as much blood as possible.

“Okay, that’s the best we can do here. You need to get her to the doctor as soon as possible.”

Nikolai nodded. He picked her upso, socarefully, like she was the most precious thing on Earth and cradled her close to his body, tucking her into his chest.

“You four,” Dimitri began, pointing to several of the men. “Stay with him. It’s your job to keep them safe.”

“Yes, boss,” they all parrotted back.

“Everyone, move out!”

Dimitri and Mikhail took point again, with Nikolai, the woman and me right behind them.

Getting out of the arena was the easy part. There were holes blasted into the side of the colosseum from what I guessed were pretty powerful explosives. But trying to make it through the town and down to the rendezvous point Mikhail kept referring to?

Thatwas the hard part.

It was utter mayhem. People running in all directions, screaming and crying for help. Several buildings were on fire, burning to absolute crisps with no one stopping to put them out.The whole place was going down and none of Talon’s people knew what to do about it.

I didn’t give a rat’s fucking ass about any of them. Let the whole place burn with all of them in it, for all I cared.

We kept a tight formation as we moved through the chaos surrounding us. Mikhail said the rendezvous point was along the beach line, so we headed straight for it, not letting anyone or anything in our path stop us.

Luckily, we weren’t met with much resistance. Everyone was more concerned with saving their own asses than trying to stop us at that point.

When we finally reached the beach, a dozen speedboats sat idle, some of them already being loaded with people. Out in the ocean, I could see the submarine Mikhail had briefly mentioned, the light from the moon reflecting off its surface, shining like a massive beacon of hope. Of escape.

We moved quickly, rushing down the small embankment to get to the boats. Some of Talon’s people were begging to be let on. The fire raging from building to building was slowly starting to make its way towards us, and they were all freaking out about it.

None of the armed men guarding the boats allowed them to board. They’d clearly received instructions not to let anyone else enter them, and they were prepared to follow that command to the letter, even going so far as to shoot those who tried to get on a boat anyway.

The rest of Dimitri’s children were there. Illayana, upon seeing us, rushed over quickly, going right for the unconscious woman in Nikolai’s arms.

“Tatiana! What-what the hell happened?!” she asked, voice frantic.

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