Page 22 of Worshipped by the BRATVA Grump

“Perhaps not,” she says with a raised brow and no-nonsense look on her face. “But I need to dress that leg so you don’t bleed all over my ER. So you do as I tell you and I’ll let you stay close by to her, or argue with me and I’ll have you removed from the premises.”

I consider her for a moment. I don’t doubt she rules this place with an iron fist. She looks like she could take at least me and one of my cousins on both at the same time.

I sit my ass down in the chair she is pointing to, and she opens up a packet of gauze with tubes of saline water.

“Please can you hurry,” I say as I watch the doctors do their examinations on Daisy.

“Quicker you shut up, quicker I’ll be done.”

She is quick. Within ten minutes she has patched up the cut on my forehead, thrown a wad of damp gauze at me so I can wash the blood from my eyes and started stitching my leg.

She is half way done when Daisy comes around. I hear one doctor say she needs a head scan, then Daisy shouts my name and I stand up so quickly that I knock the nurses tray of bloodstained bandages and tools over. The nurse glares at me, knots the string she has been stitching me up with and tells me she has never had such an insolent patient.

“I’m here,” I say to Daisy. “We were in a car accident.”

“The shop,” she says. “I need to get to the shop.”

I laugh, but I think it’s from relief. “No, baby, you stay here, Natan is at the café, I’ll see if Delilah or Sammie can deal with the shop stuff today.

Daisy’s eyes fill with tears.

“Are you in pain?” I ask, shouting behind me for the nurse, who appears with a syringe of something.

“No, it’s just shock I think,” Daisy says as the first tear runs down her cheek.

I lean over her, careful not to touch the wound on her head which has stopped bleeding at least.

The syringe I thought was for Daisy get delivered into my leg and I glance down to find the battleaxe nurse preparing a new packet of tools to finish the job.

“Your boss is here,” she said. “Gave me permission to knock you out if I need to. Do I need to?” she demands.

I pull the chair closer to Daisy’s bed and sit on it.

“They are going to take you for a scan to make sure your head is okay,” I tell Daisy. “Is there anyone you need me to call?”

Daisy closes her eyes tight. “No,” she says. “I only have an aunt and we aren’t close.”

Guilt floods me. I should know this stuff. I’ve known her long enough now to know she only has an aunt and the reason why, and yet I don’t know anything about her. Not really. Just like she said.

She squeezes my hand, as if reading my mind and trying to alleviate the shame I feel.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I should know this stuff.”

“No, it’s stuff you’d learn over time, we haven’t really spent much time together yet.”

But that’s not true. Not really. We’ve spent ample time together since she agreed to take on the shop, we’ve just spent it in bed.

Daisy

The doctors put me in a machine shaped like a donut and a short while later tell me everything is fine but I’ll have concussion for a while. My head is stitched and covered with a white dressing, and then I’m released with strict instructions to come straight back to hospital if I get dizzy or sick in the next twenty-four hours.

Mechislav doesn’t leave my side.

By the time he gets me back to his place, I’m tired and hungry and feel like I could sleep for a year.

Every so often, Mechislav disappears into the hallway with his phone, speaking in English for the most part, but swapping to Russian for some of it. But one phrase I hear clearly.

Take him out.