Page 17 of Scars He Gave Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 2)

I don’t know what’s happening. My brain has way too much to process.

Tomas Dubrovsky is here.

In my hotel suite.

On my wedding night.

Sadly, not as the groom, because that’s a wedding I would’ve wanted to go to once upon a time. He’s also holding a gun pointed at me and Alvin, but I suspect that’s because Alvin’s thrown his body on top of mine, though certainly not to protect me. I’m not so naïve as to think he’s suddenly embraced chivalry or heroism. He probably just doesn’t want another man to see the body he believes he bought and paid for.

I’m also still ciffed to the bed and naked as the day I was born.

And Tommy’s here.That seems to be the detail I’m sticking on since I can’t take my gaze away from him. He’s at the end of the bed in a suit that fits him like the very idea of a suit was dreamed up with Tommy in mind. The years have been good to him. His hair is darker. His eyes are the same arctic blue and his five o’clock shadow is gritty and hot.

But the gun and the long-lost ex-boyfriend at the end of the bed are only half of the strangeness going on in this room.

There’s also the fact that Alvin—kind Alvin, vanilla Alvin, stick-in-the-mud Alvin—is still holding some horrific purple monstrosity of a sex toy that he actually thought he was going to use on me.

Some sort of switch flipped in him as soon as he said, “I do.” He leered during the ceremony. Drank his body weight in vodka cranberries during the reception. And he’s still grunting on top of me even though Tomas Dubrovsky is long and lean and armed and dangerous.

“Get off of me,” I grit. Even though it’ll leave me on display in front of both of these men, neither of whom I particularly want to see me naked. But Alvin’s breath on my neck is hot, I’m uncomfortable, and starting to lose circulation in my left hand.

He rolls off and Tomas trains the gun on him at once. “Stand up.”

His voice is gruff. Hard. He’s still beautiful and my breath catches because I’m still caught up in remembering the boy he was. When I stare hard enough, I can still see that lanky, mischievous teenager.

I hate what he did back then. How he left me.

Not a huge fan of him to this day either, despite the unexpected rescue. Especially since, to even imagine that boy I once knew, I have to look past a whole lot of sorrow and rage.

“Unfasten her hand.”

Alvin doesn’t move at first. Tommy points with the gun. “Unfasten her. Now.”

Slowly, glaring, Alvin walks around the bed and frees me from the restraints.

The second he’s done, Tommy stalks over to the bed, picks Alvin up by the throat, and slams him into a wall.

The first pistol-whip is lightning fast, and the second follows almost immediately. Alvin slides down the wall, groaning. Blood pours from a cut in his lips and from his smashed nose. He’s not even defending himself, not that he could anymore. Because now Tomas has his ass on the ground and is beating him senseless.

And there’s screaming.

It’s me doing the screaming, I realize. I’m naked and screaming.

I spring off the bed and grab Tommy’s arm. My breath is short and sharp. Every thought I’ve ever had is scattered in the room and I close my eyes so I don’t have to see them or feel the muscles of his arm under my palm.

I cannot possibly be in a room with Tomas Dubrovsky.

I pull with every ounce of strength I have. “Tomas! Get off him! What are you doing?”

By now, Alvin’s face is a mask of blood. The wall is spattered with it on both sides of him. Certainly, someone’s going to complain about the noise and come to investigate.

Tomas jerks free and looks at his hand. The knuckles are split open, just like they used to be all the time when he got into fights back in high school.

I kneel beside Alvin. “God, Alvin. Are you …”

Okayis definitely the wrong word and ‘Are you going to live?’ might send the wrong message. I don’t know what to say, really. He certainly deserved to be picked on by someone his own size after what he tried to do to me. But this seems like several steps too far.

I feel like I’m spiraling. This is a weird, terrible dream, right? It has to be. It cannot possibly be reality.

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