Page 42 of Marked (Russian Sinners 1)

Our eyes met and there was so much sadness in them. That woman must have hurt him bad.

“It’s her loss, you know,” I told him softly. It seemed I had more in common with this man than I thought.

“My mom used to say,” I continued to clean him up while gently feeling around his shoulder for any additional damage, “that things in life end up exactly as they should. We might not see it that very moment but eventually we’ll realize it.”

God, I missed her. Fifteen years and that wound still hasn’t healed.

“Smart woman,” Sergei murmured.

“The smartest,” I told him. “There it is!”

“Who? Your mom?” Sergei looked confused.

The bullet was in his shoulder. I grabbed the small pair of forceps to remove it. Given the line of work these men seemed to be in, I wasn’t all that surprised to find them in the medical kit.

“No, silly. The bullet.” I placed my lips onto his forehead to feel his temperature.

“I like the way you smell. Like fresh lilies in the spring. You can kiss me anytime.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I didn’t have a spare hand. I wanted to see if you are running a fever.”

“You had to bust my bubble.”

The guy was burning up and still had energy for flirting. “Nikolai, give him two acetaminophens with some water please.”

Sergei took both without a complaint. I looked at the two men in the front seat. “Could we stop for five minutes so I could get the bullet out?’

“No,” Sergei answered.

“But-” I didn’t even get to finish, Sergei stopped me.

“No. They could catch up to us in five minutes.”

I glanced at the men in the front seat. Without them saying anything, I knew they felt the same as Sergei. It was peculiar how in sync I was with their thoughts.

“I don’t want to make his shoulder worse. If you so much as go over the bump, I could gouge his muscle and hurt him more. And I can’t even put him under.”

I could see that neither Dimitry nor Nikolai liked that option either.

“Anastasia,” Dimitry’s grey eyes met mine in the mirror. “I read your file. You are brilliant. You have done this before.”

“Yes, on a surgical table. Not in a moving car.” I told him desperately. “And combat wounds are not what I specialized in.”

“Princess,” Sergei interrupted. “If anyone can do it, it is you.”

I didn’t like this at all. “Sergei, if you die on me,” I muttered to him. “I swear, I will kill you all over again.”

He laughed and immediately winced.

“Okay,” I started. “I will need you to talk to me the entire time. I’ll numb the area as much as I can with the medicine we have but you’ll still feel it.”

“Okay.” Shit, if I was in his place, I would be crying. He was resigned to his fate, and at the very moment, he reminded me of Scarlett. “I should hook you up with Scarlett,” the statement came out of nowhere.

“Who’s Scarlett?” he asked me as I numbed the area around the bullet. “Is she the one that got you in trouble with old British men?”

“How long were you guys eavesdropping?” Although I didn’t care about that right now. “No, that was Olivia,” I answered his question. “You wouldn’t be good for Olivia.”

“Why not?” At least Sergei was talking, although it would be easier for me if we could do this in silence. But I knew, it was my only way of monitoring his state.

---