Page 56 of Disgraced (Russian Sinners 3)

“There are people that have it much worse.” Her reply was simple but it struck deep. She had been kidnapped as a child, saw her mother tortured, and then endured kidnapping again. The latter, I could have prevented, yet she refused to feel weak or sorry for herself. I should get a clue from her; maybe I still have shit ton to learn. “So do you have a girlfriend?”

I chuckled. “Why? You want to be my girlfriend?”

She turned her head at Dimitry and Nikolai. “Can we turn on the lights back here?” Nikolai’s eyes were on me. He always acted as a protector, a big brother. Dimitry eliminated threats, but Nikolai was always a big teddy bear scary brother.

“I got this,” Anastasia murmured to Nikolai with a smile, then she turned back to me. My eyelids felt heavy, and I was so tired. I just needed to rest for a little bit.

“Sergei, seriously?” Anastasia’s voice sounded a bit undignified. “You are going to ask me if I want to be your girlfriend and then you are going to fall asleep on me?” I forced my eyes open. “Way to make a girl feel special,” she scolded gently.

I chuckled. She was definitely the most entertaining doctor that ever treated me. “You are Dimitry’s girl,” I muttered.Just like Scarlett is my girl.

She kept her focus on cleaning my wound and then applied the pressure of the patch against my bullet hole.

“I must have missed that memo,” she teased but her eyes were seriously studying me. I could see she took her responsibility seriously. “When did it come out?” she asked.

For a second, I wasn’t sure what she was talking about but then remembered.Dimitry’s girl memo.

“Not sure.”

“So do you all live in Moscow or somewhere else in Russia?” she asked.

“Dimitry and Nikolai now live permanently in the States,” I replied weakly. “I go back and forth.”

“So how come you stayed in Russia?”

“For the same reason you tried to learn Italian,” I told her. We heard her conversation with Sonia earlier in the day when she admitted to learning Italian because she had a crush on a boy. “A woman in my case though.”

“Excuse me?” She didn’t stop working on me through our conversation.

“We came into the kitchen and listened to your conversation with Sonia,” I mumbled. “But just a little bit of it.”

“I see.”

Fuck, I hoped we got out of this alive. I wanted to see Scarlett again, hold her, kiss her till she couldn’t think of anyone or anything else. We would have children, spend days lazy in our backyard or somewhere on the beach, we’d grow old together. Why was that too much to ask for out of life?

“It’s her loss, you know,” Anastasia whispered softly. For a second, I thought she was talking about Scarlett but then realized she was referring to the woman I stayed behind for. Fucking Irina. “My mom used to say,” she continued to clean me up while gently feeling around my shoulder with her cool fingers, “that things in life end up exactly as they should. We might not see it that very moment but eventually we’ll realize it.”

“Smart woman,” I murmured. I could hear sadness in her voice. It gutted me to think my father killed her mother. I shouldn’t accept her kindness nor her healing skills.

“The smartest,” she confirmed. “There it is!”

“Who? Your mom?” I looked at her confused, my mind hazy. It was hard to focus on her words.

“No, silly. The bullet.” She placed her lips onto my forehead and I had to admit it felt good. She certainly had a tender touch and great bedside manners. Unlike any other doctor that treated me before for bullet wounds.

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

In a bizarre way, her caring for me almost felt like a mother’s touch I never experienced. Or maybe I just couldn’t remember it. Yeah, I must be delirious with fever if I was comparing Anastasia Manciatti to my mother.

She chuckled. “I didn’t have a spare hand. I wanted to see if you are running a fever.”

“You had to bust my bubble.”

“Nikolai, give him two acetaminophens with some water please.”

I took both from my brother. And there he was again, watching me like a worried big brother. He would rather take the bullet than see either Dimitry or I go through it. Even after all these years, I tried to figure out if it made him weak or strong… definitely overprotective.

“Could we stop for five minutes so I could get the bullet out?” Anastasia asked my brothers.

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