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“Darya?” My voice was low as if I would spook her by being too loud.
Her eyes fluttered but began to open slowly. “Yuri?”
I sucked in a breath and stood up from where I was perched on the bed. The sound of my name on her lips ripped me back like a strong gust of wind. It was a melody I conjured in my mind while stroking myself, imagining the way her tongue glided over each syllable. The real thing was unlike anything I could have imagined.
Combined with the neediness of her voice, like she was calling out to me for help, awoke something feral inside.
She looked up and down my face, blinking heavily as if each movement stung. The pain in her weak body was evident but my cock didn’t care, the girth between my legs swelled at the sight of her in my bed, in my shirt. It was too goddamn tempting and I wasn’t enough of a gentleman to give her what she needed.
I dropped the wet towel back in the bowl and headed toward the doorway, joining Matteo in the hallway.
“He’ll be here any minute.”
I just nodded and angled my body away from my older brother.
It only took three shots of the top-shelf tequila that I found hidden in the cabinet above the fridge before the doorbell rang, the chime reverberating off the walls and shaking down my bones. I opened the door and greeted Gerardo, pleasantries falling sour on my tongue as the aging doctor stepped inside. I couldn’t even remember a time when he wasn’t the man patching us all up— every broken bone and stitch job memory as a kid was laced with the smell of his coffee breath and shameful glances. He knew enough to be killed. But just like my father, I paid him an ungodly amount to keep his mouth shut and in all these years, he hadn’t let us down.
This felt a little different. Like I was walking him in to see my dirty little secret.
“Matteo told me it was a woman?” His salt and pepper eyebrows were raised.
“Yeah,” I shrugged my shoulders to feign indifference as if worry wasn’t chewing up every part of my insides. “Don’t ask.”
Once inside my room, Gerardo turned on the lights and went right to Darya’s side. Her eyes were closed again, a slight sheen of sweat covering her forehead. I leaned against the wall opposite the bed, feeling the effects of the shots beginning to kick in. His hands worked expertly and soon the nightstand was covered with his medical supplies. My eyes darted between him and Darya and as the seconds ticked by, I wanted to scream. My hands ached to pick her up and shake her awake— anything to see her gorgeous green eyes again.
After taking her blood pressure and using a light to check her pupils, he turned to us. “She’s dehydrated. Has she been eating?”
I shook my head no, the blood draining from my face. My eyes met with Matteo’s and I could already read his thoughts— she wasn’t worth all this. His sicario impulse was kicking in hard and every muscle in his body tensed when I shook my head, giving him a silent order.Don’t fucking touch her.
“I need to start an IV and get some fluids in her.”
“Do whatever you need to.” I nodded toward her and kicked off the wall, unable to stomach watching him shove a needle into her perfect skin. As much as I wanted to run out of the room, I couldn’t. I was tethered here by the ethereal creature who laid nearly lifeless in my bed, but I damn sure wasn’t going to let my murderous brother stay here and ponder all the ways he could snuff her out.
“Out,” I ordered to him. Rage flashed across his black eyes but he took a step back, and then another, before turning and leaving me alone with the doc and the patient.
Sucking in a deep breath until I was sure my lungs would explode, I gripped the arms of the chair and dragged it to the bedside, sinking into it and watching Gerardo set up the bag of fluid. He hung it from the top of the bed frame and with a flick of his finger, the clear liquid sloshed slightly as it surged through the tubing.
After what felt like an eternity, color began to blot back into her cheeks and the concerned pout on her face evened out.
“She needs to eat when she wakes up.” Gerardo spoke low as he placed the blood pressure cuff back into his briefcase. “Take better care of her.”
Every inch of my skin prickled with shame as I thought about the untouched tray on the floor of her cell. I should have known the stubborn little thing wasn’t going to give in. I wouldn’t have either.
But I needed her alive.
Unable to verbally respond to his advice, I just nodded. I would let his comment slide— this time— only because it pertained to Darya. I did fuck up. But I didn’t plan to let it happen again.
Even though she was a prisoner, a pawn against her father for the good of my family, the business had nothing to do with her. And for as many innocents that the Zaragozas had sacrificed for the future, my blood boiled at the thought that she might be one— tossed aside and deemed unimportant like she already had been. When I saw the anguish on her face during the phone call to her piece of shit father, the slight shake of her hands when I forced her to write the letter to her mother, realization sank deep into my bones, latching on until I saw her more clearly than I thought possible. She had been dicked around her entire life. But, she was strong.
And it was time someone else had the opportunity to be her strength.
When the door clicked behind the doc, I scooted the chair further forward until my knees were mashed against the wood frame. Leaning forward, my fingers threaded through the dark hair at her scalp until the strands were fanning around her on my pillow. My lips tingled and I couldn’t stop the impulse any longer. I cut the distance between us until her vanilla scent wrapped around me and my lips brushed against the soft skin of her forehead, the light touch like electricity through me. She didn’t stir so I tucked the blanket underneath her chin and relaxed back into the chair. After fighting the drowsiness in my eyes and repositioning myself in the awkward chair, sleep finally took me under— the last thing on my mind was her.
Chapter 6
Darya
The moment I woke up, my body was keenly aware that I was no longer on the lumpy, dank mattress in my cell. Unlike the sliver of comfort it offered, whatever I was currently laying on felt like a cloud pillow enveloping my stiff body. Prying my eyes open to the smallest crack of light, a panic settled in my chest until I smelled that familiar sandalwood scent again. I was in Yuri’s room, on Yuri’s bed, in Yuri’s shirt. Dirt no longer caked my skin and the soft cotton was like a warm hug against my tired bones. The panic spread as I tried to remember what happened, how in the hell I had come to his room, and at what point I had changed shirts, but it was blank. Nothingness. I was tired and hungry, pacing around the cell replaying every interaction with him, and then there was blackness.
