Page 132 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

“I got shot.”

She gasps. “What do you mean?”

“What part of ‘I got shot’ is confusing?”

“Don’t roll your eyes at me! We haven’t been shot at in a few minutes, so excuse me for being confused.”

I poke at the hole and wince again. “I didn’t even feel it until now.”

“Adrenaline,” she says, turning on the roof light and grabbing my wrist. “Let me see.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m a doctor,” she says sternly. “I’ll decide that.”

“You’re a vet.”

When she looks up at me, there’s annoyance in her eyes, but something else, too. “According to you, there’s not much difference.”

The memory of the night we first met fills the car like a third passenger, obvious and hard to ignore.

I was shot and I came to her clinic looking for a doctor. She told me she was a vet and I told her there wasn’t much difference. She patched me up and then we made Lukas.

Or at least, I thought we did.

Now, I don’t know what to fucking believe.

But this time won’t be like that. Things are far too different now. Too much has happened.

There’s no going back.

“I can’t see anything in this light,” she says, frustrated. “We need to get to a place with running water and a first aid kid and some actual lights. And preferably privacy. The exit sign listed a few hotels. We can rent a place. Hide out for the night.”

“Fine,” I growl. Now that I’ve noticed the injury, it’s all catching up to me. I’m getting dizzy from the blood loss.

“Do you need me to drive?”

“I’ve gotten us this far. I think I can manage the next few minutes.”

We head back to the main road. There’s no sign of anyone following us. No sign of anything out of the ordinary at all.

Still, I’m relieved when we find a motel on a side road where we can park behind the building. The more we can stay invisible, the better.

Arya rents the room since she isn’t covered in blood, so she’s the one to unlock it and let me in. She holds the door for me. I have to brush past her to get in, my injured arm swiping across her chest accidentally.

Then she closes the door and we’re locked in together once again.

With all of our lies swirling in the air between us.

47

Arya

“Sit at the table and take off your shirt. I want to be able to see your whole arm.”

I’m in doctor mode now. Somewhere in the back of my brain, a part of me is screaming at the idea of being alone with a shirtless Dima. It’s caused trouble before, obviously.

But mostly, I’m worried about his wound. Infection is deadly.

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