Page 19 of The Bratva's Hunted Bride
“Hold still,” I tell him, crouching down to start wiping blood from the wound. “Does it sting?”
I glance up to catch his response and find him looking right at me, our faces close. His grey eyes are softer than I’ve ever seen them, and I can’t look away.
Chapter 9 - Timofey
I thought I was in for a fight. Talia is never afraid to let me know exactly how she feels, and I can’t deny there’s a part of me that loves to provoke her, bringing out that spitfire side of her that’s lurking just beneath the surface.
Taking her back here to the hideout was the only choice I had in the moment, but I know how it looks. This place is remote. Leaving Miami must’ve freaked her out, pulling her farther and farther away from her family and the only security she knows. I wouldn’t blame her for reaming me out.
But tonight, I’m exhausted. The shit at the warehouse on top of tracking down Talia one after the other has me feeling like a truck ran me over. Seeing those men touch her took about ten years off my life. My only regret is that I didn’t have more time to spend giving them what they deserved. They got off too easily. I should’ve carved them from scalp to ankle for their audacity. No one touches Talia except for me.
Her hair falls in front of her face as she leans over to wipe the congealing blood from the cut on my arm, and I can smell her sweet shampoo, like a cupcake, each time she moves her head. I can’t take my eyes off of her. This is the closest she’s been to me on her own free will. That has to mean something, right? Maybe this idiotic plan of mine wasn’t so idiotic after all.
But what the hell happened tonight? I can guess how she got out of the mansion, and I’ll have to get her to detail that particular escapade later, but who were those men? The thought of them staking out my place just to grab her has me uneasy.
I don’t like not knowing who the players are, and right now, there are too many of them. Are they connected to the men at the warehouse tonight, or are they something else entirely?The Popov family has its own enemies, and Talia may have a target on her back simply for being one of them.
“Stop moving.” She grabs my upper arm with one hand to hold me steady. “Okay, I think that’s as clean as it’s going to get. Unless you want to go to the hospital? Because I’m pretty sure what it actually needs is stitches. I’m not a doctor, but it looks pretty gross.”
I’d take another hundred of these wounds if it meant having Talia holding on to me. “No hospital. There’d be too many questions.”
“You guys don’t have some shady doctor on staff?”
I like her questions. It almost seems like she’s interested in getting to know me. That’s got to be a good sign. She’s not recoiling when she touches me, and the look in her eyes isn’t that one I’ve gotten so used to seeing—burning hatred. Maybe I should’ve taken a stab wound. Would that get her even closer? I mark it down as an option for next time.
“Some of the bigger families do, but we’re not on that level,” I say, holding myself as still as I can. “Not yet, anyway.”
She turns away for a moment to grab a roll of gauze from the first aid kit before turning back, darting another glance at me. “And that’s something you want? For your family, the Abashin family, to be big enough to need something like that?”
It almost sounds like she’s trying to get to know me. Or maybe she’s just prying where she can, trying to gather information to bring back to her family after her next escape attempt. She’s not an idiot, far from it, and I’d be one to think that she’s been won over just from my rescue tonight, but is she capable of that sort of manipulation? Everything I’ve read about her, which is admittedly rather limited, implies she’s not part ofthe Popov family’s underworld dealings, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t do what she can to help them.
Keeping that in mind, I reply, “Every family wants to grow. To succeed and expand. It’s the nature of the game.”
“Move over,” she says, sitting down on the arm of the couch. My arm is cradled in her lap, resting on her muscular thighs, and I can feel her bare, smooth skin against my forearm. Yeah, I’d like to sign up to be stabbed in a few other places right now. “A game, is that what it is? People die in this game. People get hurt.”
I start to shrug but then remember her instructions to be still. We’re face to face now, and if I weren’t leaning back against the couch, our foreheads would be touching. She’s small enough to perch on the arm of the sofa, but her lower leg trails down on top of my thigh, and the pressure there is oh so sweet.
She lifts my arm, bracing my elbow between her legs so she can steady it while she applies the bandages. “Is that worth it? All that risk and danger for some money? There are other ways to make a fortune. Kinder ways.”
Her lips purse in concentration, and the sight is enough to distract from the pain of her pressing the torn halves of my skin together. Blood oozes from the wound under the pressure, and she makes a frustrated noise in her throat.
“Dammit, I’m sorry,” she says, reaching behind her to grab another wipe from the first aid kit. “I’m not any good at this.”
I want to tell her that I’d let her grab one of those knives from the kitchen and slit me open just to have her here, doing this again, but I don’t think it’d land how I want it to. “You’re doing just fine. You’re not squeamish about blood?”
She shakes her head, and I get another whiff of that cupcake smell. “No. I did a few dissections in college.” She hesitates for a second, a nervous smile tugging up the corners of her lips. “Actually, it was one of my favorite parts of class. Something about opening them up and seeing how everything works. God, that sounds creepy, doesn’t it?”
Fuck no. It sounds hot.Don’t say that. “Not at all. Unless every doctor in the world is creepy. Were you in med school?”
She finishes wrapping my arm in white gauze and secures it with medical tape. There’s a pale blush of pink seeping through already, and I’m looking forward to the time when we have to rewrap it again. Anything to keep her this close to me. She doesn’t immediately pull away, still holding my arm as she looks lost in thought.
“No, I never got that far,” she says, sounding sad, that trace of a smile gone from her face. “I majored in Biology, but my brothers… they didn’t want me working in a hospital. Too many people going in and out. Too many risks.” She puts air quotes around the last word.
I’m sitting still as a statue in case a movement from me reminds her of how close we are. Her fingers tighten around my forearm, and a pained expression crosses her face.
“Thought I could maybe get into something with wildlife instead,” she says, drumming her fingers on my wrist. “Like a vet that helps the animals that wash up on the beach, you know? But they said no.”
She’s opening up to me, and I want to soak in every word. I want to memorize Talia, every flicker of expression, every shift in her body weight, every story she has to tell. I could obsess over this girl for the rest of my life and never have enough.
