Page 43 of Marked (Russian Sinners 1)

“I don’t know. You are not really her type.” I pushed on the area and when Sergei didn’t wince, I went to work.

“Am I your type?” he asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Why don’t you tell me something you enjoy doing?” I asked, diverting the topic so he could talk and I can concentrate.

“I enjoy beautiful women and would like to know why I’m not your type.”

“You talk too much,” I told him and heard a chuckle in the front seat; although I couldn’t tell if it was Dimitry or Nikolai, or both.

“I could talk less.”

Finally, I straightened up and met his gaze. “Okay, Sergei. No more questions. You will recite the alphabet. Please.”

He gave me an impish smile and I shook my head. I was able to tune out his alphabet and everyone around me as I carefully pushed the forceps into the muscle, grabbing and removing the bullet. Then immediately placed the patch over it, holding it in place to stop the bleeding.

“Better?” Sergei asked with a smile, although his face was pale.

“What blood type are you, Sergei?”

“O negative.” I nodded, taking a mental note of that. I didn’t like how pale he looked.

“Nikolai, feel his forehead.”

“You don’t want to kiss me?” How was it possible that he was pale as death and he was still joking around?

“I can’t quite tell.”

I leaned over and placed my lips on Sergei’s forehead. It was warm but not as hot as it was earlier.

“Give him two ibuprofens.” I told Nikolai, then I turned my eyes to Dimitry who was still driving. “How much longer to our destination?”

“Twenty minutes.”

Okay, we could do this. Twenty minutes, that was nothing. Four songs.

“What’s your happiest memory from childhood?” Sergei’s question startled me and I looked back at him. What an odd question. Nobody had ever asked me that.

I thought back to my childhood. My first dance recital, my first horseback riding lesson, riding my bike… There were so many happy memories, until that dreadful event. A choking lump formed in my throat but I wouldn’t go there now.

I met his eyes and remembered how these three men had been in orphanage since they were two. They had it worse. I cleared my throat to ease the choke in my throat.

“I danced from… well, from the moment I could walk. At least my mom used to say that.” I smiled remembering how she teased me that I would dance myself down the aisle one day. “I was in ballet from the age of four. When I was nine, my parents and grandfather took me to St. Petersburg to seeThe Nutcracker.” I could still hear the music and feel the vibrations on the floor as the music played loudly while the ballet dancers twirled gracefully on the stage. “I can still smell the stage and hear the chatter of the dancers. I made my mom take me to the bathroom multiple times during the show, just so I could sneak a glimpse of the beautiful ballerinas. Of course, my mom figured out why I kept insisting on going to the bathroom. When it was really time to go to the bathroom, she refused thinking it was another stunt from me. By the time I finally convinced her I had to go for real, I almost peed myself.”

All three men chuckled. “Why is that your favorite memory?” Sergei asked weakly. “It is almost an embarrassing memory.”

“It was the last time we were all together,” I told him softly. “We stayed there for a week and could see the Winter Palace from our hotel. I pretended to be the princess, driving my grandfather crazy. My dad didn’t work the entire week, my mom’s phone was turned off for the duration of the trip, and my grandfather didn’t turn on the news once.” I stared into the pitch black outside of the car but the memory of that trip flashed in the dark like an old technicolor movie. I could still hear the laughter as we sat on the balcony of our hotel suite, eating breakfast and chatting along with the view of the Palace and the river stretching in front of us as far as we could see. I could still smell the river, the light breeze carrying the musky scent tainted with wet grass. Olivia and Oliver usually went on vacations with us but that particular time, their parents had some plans and they had to stay behind. “A few weeks later my mother died.”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Sergei put his palm over my free hand.

“Don’t be.” It was a good memory, and I kept all memories locked up for too long. “And don’t move your arm, otherwise I’ll have to tie you down.”

“I might like that,” Sergei retorted.

I shook my head in disbelief at this man. Maybe joking and flirting was his defense mechanism. Mine was shutting down, so who was I to judge at his way of coping.

---