Page 33 of Brooklyn Bratva

“Fine.” I needed her to do what she could, and if she needed me to agree to that, then for now I would. And when it came to it, I’d have to find another way.

I watched her face as she peeled back the wadded towel and I saw the focus in her eyes intensify as she inspected the puncture wound. Her hands pressed around the perimeter, fingers stretching the skin and I steeled myself not to flinch as she pulled the sides of the wound apart. I could see she was going to make a great doctor one day. Despite her concern for me, she was unflappable.

“I’m not poking around in there too much. I don’t want to nick anything. But I think the bleeding’s okay. Do you have anything I can suture it with? I need bandages too. And I need to sterilize everything.”

Relief that I wasn’t going to have to fight her rolled in, and I let myself sag back into the couch.

“In the bathroom cabinet. There’s a suture kit, and the first aid stuff. I got vodka and I got boiling water. That’s it.”

Only when she’d left the room did I let my eyes scrunch closed, and I took a deep swig from the bottle.

It had been a long time since I’d been shot, and before now most of my injuries had been in the official line of duty, so getting hospital treatment hadn’t been a problem.

Back in Moscow, I knew the Bratva had doctors who didn’t ask questions, and no doubt they’d have someone lined up that I could go and see once I got a hold of them. But that wasn’t going to be tonight.

No one summoned Yakov without notice and expected to be granted an audience. There was no such thing as an SOS. I was out here on my own because I could handle myself. There never was a safety net.

Besides, I already knew I wanted to have Ruslan neutralized before I asked Yakov for anything. In this business, there was no room for dead weight and if I started looking like I wasn’t carrying mine then it was all over. Getting shot looked like a failure. I needed to turn it around.

Back from the bathroom, Becca dumped bandages and the suture kit down on the coffee table. Funny. I’d got the damn thing more to ward off disaster than because I’d thought I’d ever really need it. Tonight I was glad I was superstitious.

Becca went off to the kitchen and I heard her light the stove and boil water, and then there was the sound of her opening every cupboard in the place, and looking in the fridge. I grimaced, knowing she wasn’t going to find all that much. I didn’t have time for cooking and I didn’t have people over. From the emptiness of my cupboard’s she’d be figuring that out right about now.

When she came back, the tweezers and a pair of nail scissors were in a bowl of steaming water. Her hands were pink from scrubbing and I could still smell the soap on her. She set a bottle of water down on the table too.

“This isn’t going to be pleasant.”

“I know.”

CHAPTER 16

Becca

The wound was oozing slowly, more like the blood was leaking from surrounding capillaries than anything larger. I hoped I was right about that. Ivan wasn’t stupid, and no cop in this city didn’t have medical insurance, which meant there was a good reason he didn’t want to go to the hospital. When this was all over, I was going to find out exactly what that reason was, but for now, I had to focus.

The rate of blood flow seemed to be slowing up, and as scary as all the discarded towels, soaked in crimson looked, I remembered going through an entire toilet roll trying to stop a nosebleed as a kid. The color always made the volume look more than it was. He probably hadn’t even lost as much as he would have if he’d gone to a blood drive.

If he’d nicked a major vein or an artery, I’d know about it. At least that’s what I was telling myself. Now wasn’t the time for self doubt.

Tweezers in hand, I forced myself not to close my eyes at the slightly queasy feeling as I experimentally delved into the wound. I took a deep breath, trying to blank out the way my stomach turned over at the depth of the puncture wound. I’d never make it as a doctor if I couldn’t deal with this.

Ivan didn’t make a sound, but he’d gone very, very still and his breathing was overly controlled.

Right at the bottom of the wound, I could feel something hard scrape against the end of the tweezers. I tried to make a grab for it, twisting them around, but I felt the metal blades snap together. Ivan winced and I froze, closing my eyes a beat, to calm myself before I tried again. I twisted the tweezers, trying to widen the arms. My hands were getting tired, holding so steady and in my frustration at trying to grip onto the slug, I made a clumsy jab.

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