Page 143 of Immaculate Corruption (Romanoff Bratva)

She sighs. “Thank God. You’re awake. I mean, I knew you’d wake up. The doctors told me you’d wake up, but still, it’s good to see you.”

Doctors?Then I notice the beeping. The distant sounds of metal carts rattling and voices.

I’m in a hospital.

I look down and groan. Arya laughs. “I knew you’d hate the gown. I told them you’d rather be naked.”

“That would be more dignified.”

“Your clothes were trashed,” she says. “They had to cut you out of them to tend to the gunshot wound and the burns.”

I move my arms and legs just to prove to myself that I can. Then her words register.

“Burns. There was a fire.”

“Yes,” she says softly.

“Did anything…?”

She shakes her head. “It’s all gone.”

I lay my head back on the pillow and try to process that.It’s all gone.The Romanoff Mansion, burned to a crisp. The site of the worst crime of my life—standing by as Ilyasov murdered our father in cold blood.

Ilyasov’s body is there now, too. It’s fitting, in a macabre way. He died in the same place our father did.

I shudder.

There was something else lost to the flames, too. I search her face for any sign that she already knows, but I get distracted. She’s beautiful. Perfect.

Her lips are pink and full, her green eyes are emeralds in sunshine, and her hair falls in loose curls down her shoulders and over the soft curves of her breasts. She looks incredible.

And I’m in a fucking hospital gown.

Something else occurs to me. “Did they get rid of my clothes?”

“No,” she says with a strange frown. “Why?”

“Bring me my pants.”

“Why?”

“Please, Arya.” It hurts to speak. But this is important. It needs to happen now.

Arya walks over to a drawer. She opens it and pulls a large plastic bag out of it. Reaching inside, she retrieves my charred pants.

“The back pocket,” I tell her.

“Thereisno back pocket anymore,” she says with a frustrated laugh. “It’s basically an ashtray.”

“Just look,” I insist. “It’s in there.”

She frowns more as she fishes around in the mess—until her hand closes around something.

She keeps her fist closed as she walks back over. Only when she’s back at my bedside does she turn her hand palm facing upwards and open her fingers.

In the middle of her palm is a ring.

It’s simple. Just an engagement band with two stones, one aquamarine, the other sapphire.

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