“It was barbaric,” she spits. “This whole thing is insane.”
“You can always pull out,” I tease, just to see her nose scrunch.
Her chin tips up again. “A Vasov never concedes.”
I think about how her father’s skullconcededto Camille’s attack, the one that ended him, but keep my mouth shut.
Unfastening my jacket, I hook it on the back of the door, leaving it for the staff to clean and press.
“Oh, Maxim.” She moans, hands clutching her face as she stares at what she can see of my shirt from behind the vest. “I can’t believe I did that to you!”
“Pchelka,listen to me—you caused me no pain.”
“That’s worse. How didn’t that hurt? Look at you. Your whole shirt’s—Blyad.Is there any peroxide in the bathroom cabinet?”
“I’m a mobster,zaya. What do you think?”
Her eyes narrow. “Then pass it to me. Gauze too.”
“A queen in her bath,” I taunt, but I pass her both the bottle of peroxide and a stack of sealed gauze.
She pats the tub. “Sit.”
I toe out of my shoes then sit on the edge of the bath. But I go one further and twist so that I’m facing her. One foot goes in the water, and the other stays flat on the floor.
“Isn’t that uncomfortable?”
With a shrug, I unfasten my vest next and toss that aside, then work off the top few buttons of my shirt and grab the back of the collar to tug it overhead. The patch of wet blood clings to my skin, staining it red. It lands with a soggy splat on the tile.
When she releases a shuddery breath, I tut. “Katyonok,it’s fine?—”
“Why do you insist on calling me sweet animal names?”
“Would you prefer I call you ‘sloth?’”
She splashes her hand against the water’s surface. “You’re so annoying.”
I don’t bother hiding my amusement as she upends too much peroxide onto some gauze and gingerly pats at my chest.
I work my neck from side to side, satisfied when it cracks. It’s been a long day and I’m tired. My eyes shutter as her fingers flutter over the wound.
“You’re not even cringing. It must sting.”
My eyes pop open at the accusation. “One time, I got shot—” I tilt my bicep so she can see the scar. “—right here. It went straight through so Misha—you know him,da?”
“You used to bicker on the phone with him all the time.”
“Yes. He’s my brother. So anyway, he got it into his head that the only way to treat it was to pack peroxide-laced gauze into the wound.”
“Tell me you’re joking.”
“No. We had to hide it from Nikolai—he’s older than us—because he told us not to play with guns and the first thing we did when we found one on the street was play with it.” I grimace. “Nowthatstung like a motherfucker. I howled so loud that Misha started a rumor there was a wolf roaming the streets.”
“People believed him?”
“I don’t know.” I snicker. “Whenever he changed the dressing, I howled again so it rammed the idea home.”
“It got infected?”
