Page 24 of Born into Mayhem
“I’m not going to apologize for that.”
I grin and start working on the injections. “I would never ask you to. You were right. I forgot the rules, and you taught me a valuable lesson that day.”
“What lesson was that?” She tries to keep her tone even and carefree, but I know every shot is causing her intense pain.
I give her another shot and say, “To never underestimate you.”
“Maybe you should,” she mutters.
“Why do you say that?” After the last shot, I set the needle aside, waiting for it to take effect before I start stitching her up. When she doesn’t say anything, I hook a finger under her chin and tilt her face up to meet mine. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her look so uncertain. It’s not like her to doubt herself. Even during her first lesson, she went at it full force, not scared of anything and wanting to learn everything I could teach her.
“What happened tonight, Mia?” I try again.
She pokes along her wound and says, “I’m numb. You can start sewing me back together again.”
“Hang on,” I say, getting up and leaving her in the bathroom. I’m not about to stay hunched over and uncomfortable while I do this, so I grab a towel and spread it out on my bed so she won’t get blood all over the sheets. Without bothering to explain myself, I pick her up again and then lay her down on my bed so her arm is resting on the toweland close to the edge. I can’t resist running my eyes over her, confirming what I already knew. Mia looks damn good half-naked and in my bed.
Ignoring the thought, I get the supplies I need and then pull a chair up so I can sit down and do this without having to hunch over. When I’m ready, I say, “Start talking, Mia. Tell me what happened while I put you back together again.”
She doesn’t like to be told what to do, so I’m not surprised when she makes me wait until I start on the third stitch before she opens her mouth to talk. She tells me about Sasha’s surprise, about her fight with Greg, and then her voice falters the tiniest bit before she shakes her head and says, “I couldn’t do it. I failed. All I did was prove that I don’t have what it takes to be a part of the Bratva.”
I tie off the stitch I’ve been working on and get started on the next while I ask, “Because you couldn’t kill a man in cold blood your very first time?”
“Sasha wouldn’t have had a problem with it,” she says. “I bet he didn’t hesitate the first time he killed someone.”
“You and I both know Sasha isn’t normal. The men in your family have been raised differently. Your dad and uncles didn’t just hand their sons a knife and tell them to stab someone to death. They were slowly brought into it. They witnessed things before they ever took part in it. It was the same way with my family. Sasha meant well, but he threw you into the deep end before you were ready. You didn’t fail at anything tonight.”
“But he was an asshole,” she insists. “He tried to roofie some poor girl.”
“He did,” I agree, “and he died for it, but you weren’t there. You didn’t see it happen, and he wasn’t trying to hurt anyone you love. If Greg had been attacking your sister, I know exactly what you would’ve done.”
“Maybe I would’ve failed then, too.”
I hear the fear and doubt in her voice, and I know she’s questioning everything about herself right now, but she’s wrong. I know Mia, and Iknow she’d do anything for her family. She may be having a moment of insecurity and doubt, but I’m not.
Pulling the last stitch through, I tie it off, but before I do anything else, I surprise her by kissing the back of her hand. “You would have killed him without even having to think about it. Don’t doubt yourself,streghetta mia. I know I’m not.”
“This is humiliating. I shouldn’t have told you any of this. Sasha should’ve just come back and gotten me, and then I could’ve kept all this from you.”
“I would’ve realized you were hurt and asked you about it.”
“That’s because you’re overbearing and always in my business,” she says, making me laugh.
“Evidently not. I had no idea you were hiding a couple of nipple piercings for six months.”
She gives a small shrug, and I catch a quick glimpse of the mischievous grin that always threatens to do me in. “That’s not the only thing I’m hiding.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, my interest immediately piqued.
“Finish my arm, Dario,” she says. “Wouldn’t want it to get infected.”
I grab the tube of ointment and slather it on her cut before wrapping it in gauze. With her wound taken care of, I run my eyes over her, stopping when I land between her legs. Memories of her rubbing her thighs together and coming in my chair and the way she hadn’t been able to stop herself while riding on the back of my bike run through my mind. Mix that with her week of missed training, the soreness I’d seen, her insistence we wait another two weeks, and it starts making a whole hell of a lot more sense.
Standing up, I look down at her half-naked body, noticing the way her nipple piercings are straining against the fabric of her bra as she becomes aroused again.
“My god,streghetta mia, the things I want to do to you.” Her thighs start to move at my words, so I reach down and grip one, letting my fingers dig in hard enough to stop her. “Don’t test me. Iwarned you, Mia, and I wasn’t fucking around. The next time I see you come, it’s going to be when I’m buried as deeply inside you as I can get.”
She tries to wiggle, and I watch as a slight flush covers her chest and rises up her neck. Keeping her eyes on mine, she runs her fingers over one of her tits, brushing them along the piercing before giving it a soft tug through the thin fabric that’s not doing shit to hide the show from me. The whimper she gives is downright sinful, and my cock is so hard I can barely think.
