Page 26 of Dirty Roxie
“Good.” She sighs heavily. “Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
She grabs the bottom of her dress and rips a section off, wrapping it around my waist twice before tying it tightly.
A grunt escapes me before I can stop it.
“Suck it up, buttercup.” She pats me on the chest and pushes to her feet, reaching out a hand to help me up. I wave her off and stand on my own using the ground, then the hedge branches, for support.
I shrug off my jacket slowly and hand it to her. “Here, put this on so you aren’t baring your ass to the entire party.”
“Thank you.” She smiles up at me as she puts it on. Then tucks herself into my side, wrapping an arm around my back to help me out of the maze. We make our way slowly around the edge of the party to the exit. Security is on the scene and seems to have taken control of most of it.
Where were they when we were in the maze?
We make it out without notice and highjack someone else’s golf cart and drive ourselves back to the hotel. But it isn’t until we are back in the room before I’m able to breathe easily again.
* * *
I wince, hissing, as Roxie presses the two sides of the wound together, sticking the needle through the skin like she’s jabbing a voodoo doll and not stitching together a bullet injury.
“Don’t be a baby,” she says. “It’s practically a flesh wound.” Then hands me the bottle of twenty-five-year-old single malt Macallan we had in the suite. I take a large swig to dull the pain, downing it like it’s a two-dollar beer and not a thirty-five-hundred-dollar bottle of scotch.
“I’m not being a baby. They shot me. And it requires stitches. Which you are doing with zero anesthetic, I might add.” I’ve dropped the American accent and am back to my Russian one, which thickens when I drink. Or am in pain.
“You didn’t see Mack whining when he was shot at Andrei’s.”
“He got stitches at a hospital,” I grunt. “With actual drugs to numb the pain.”
“Actual drugs to the numb the pain,” she mimics, then leans in to tape together the split on my cheekbone. Her face so close to mine, I can count the freckles on her nose. Her gaze moves from my cheekbone to my eyes. The vibrant green made even more so by the makeup smudged around them.
She’s still wearing my jacket but has taken off the wig. Her red hair tumbles around her shoulders, only partially hiding her swollen cheekbone and split temple. Her lip is also busted open, and that’s just what I can see of her.
I rise to my feet, swaying. She grabs my hips to steady me. I use the movement to push her toward the chair, forcing her to sit.
“Your turn.” My voice gruff and a little shaky.
“I’m fine, give me a—”
“Sit. Stay.”
“Should I bark now?” She winces, trying to raise her brow. I push her hair from her face to dab at the cuts with alcohol swabs. She flinches with each touch.
“I’m sorry, I’m trying to be gentle,” I whisper.
“You’re good,” she says, her voice just as low.
I take care of her temple with a butterfly bandage, barely applying enough pressure to get it to stay. I feel sick at the thought of her hurt. It may as well have been at my hands. I did nothing to protect her.
“I did this to you,” I rasp. “I’m so sorry.”
“Really, your fist did this? Did I miss that part of the evening?”
“I didn’t protect you. It was my—”
“Don’t even start with that sexist bullshit about how you should have protected me,” she scolds.
“It’s not sexist.”
