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All the men are either dead or incapacitated, and the driver is badly beaten but able to stand on his own. I give the leader a kick in the head for good measure, but then I’m overtaken by the impulse to keep kicking him.
This impulse takes over me, and I kick his head over and over to ensure that he never, ever wakes up to terrorize Mika. The crack in his skull widens, and grey matter begins to ooze out as his blood flow begins to diminish. The entire essence of this man is spilled over the concrete of a parking garage at a mall. I pray to whoever can hear me that my death is more dignified.
“What happened?” I ask the driver as he glances around nervously.
“I don’t know, I have no idea, but it was definitely the Italians,” he stammers as he points to the place that they emerged from.
My breathing is labored as my heart begins to slow down. “Hold on a second. I need to go get Mika,” I say, running down the ramp back to the place where I left her.
She’s still in the same exact position, shaking and crying as I help her up. I hold her close, feeling the tremors of terror that she so desperately is trying to conceal. I’ve never seen her more vulnerable, not even when she was naked.
Feeling her pressed up against me confirms feelings that I wouldn’t dare explore on my own. Her breasts feel so soft against my chest, and I feel that same terrible lust that is working to ruin me day by day.
She looks up at me, her face hot and wet with tears. “You saved my life. Dominik, you saved my fucking life,” she says, her voice wavering.
Before I can reply, she stands on her toes and wraps her arms around my neck. She brings her lips to mine, kissing me with a depth and passion that I could never replicate with anyone else. I feel her tongue slip between my lips, and I know for a fact that I belong to her now.
We don’t have time to talk at all. We need to make sure that the driver isn’t fatally injured in any way, but we also need to report back to Remi that the Italians are tracking us. If they were able to figure out that Remi’s daughter was at a random mall in the middle of the city, there’s no telling what else they know.
“We need to go now,” I say, cutting her off. Her face falls a bit with disappointment, as if she was going to say something important or profound. Whatever it is, it’s immaterial in this very moment. We’re being tracked and could get ambushed again at any moment.
I pick her up, scooping her into my arms like a baby to carry her to the car. She’s shaking uncontrollably now, and I realize that she’s in no condition to run away from anyone at all. If we were attacked again, I would be her only defense.
Once again, I’m confronted with intense feelings of protection towards her. They come in waves, and they’re emphasized whenever she shifts her weight or grabs onto my coat. The weight of her body in my arms feels so natural.
We return to the car, and I help the driver into the back seat so that I can drive him to a hospital for his injuries. I need to trust Mika not to pull any stupid bullshit while we’re driving, and I’m hoping with every fiber of my being that she won’t. After everything we just experienced, I want to trust that she’ll do the right thing. Just this once, that’s all I ask.
“Mika, do you see any stab wounds on him?” I ask as I fish through his jacket pocket for the keys to the car.
“Um, I’m not sure, there’s a lot of blood from his nose,” she replies, already beginning to freak out to the point if being useless.
“Take off his jacket and look. If you see any, I need you to take the jacket and press it against the wound. I know it’ll keep bleeding, but it’s all we’ve got.”
I can’t see her face, but based on the way her voice sounded when she answered my question, she’s never been in a situation anything like this before. She might be the only thing standing between this man’s life and death. I would have never trusted her with something like that before, and my heart is pounding in my chest as I speed out of the parking structure.
The traffic is particularly bad, and I turn myself around at every stoplight to check on the driver. His face has become ashen and his breaths are shallow, but he’s still breathing. For now, that’s as good as it’s going to get. He looks just like one of my close friends when he was shot in the street, and he was minutes from dying when I saw him.
We pull up to the Emergency Room entrance, and I have to make a decision that could cost us everything. Do I send Mika inside to get help while I stay behind, or should I go and leave her in here? If I send her, she might freeze up and have a panic attack. She’s already walking a thin line with her composure, and delaying the help he needs could kill this man.
“Mika, I’m going to go inside and get help. All you have to do is stay in here and hold the jacket to the wound. Do you understand?” I say, locking eyes with her to ensure that I have her full attention.
Those blue eyes of hers pierce through my soul as she fights back tears.
“Mika, do you understand me?”
She nods rapidly, tears falling as she gives in to her fear.
I run inside, straight to the reception desk in front of a line of six people. “I need help for a stab wound and head trauma. He’s been bleeding for the past thirty minutes.”
It takes a moment for the nurse to realize the immediacy of my demand, but she calls back a trauma team that rushes out with a stretcher and a series of IV bags. It looks like the driver might survive, but we can’t let something like this happen ever again.
I watch as they remove him from the back seat, sliding him out the door and onto the stretcher, where they immediately connect a dozen tubes and wires to his arms. The scene looks grave, and I’m convinced that he’s not even fully present at this point. When I look at his chest as the trauma nurse tears open his shirt, I figure that it might be for the best that he doesn’t remember.
When they’ve started to move him into the building, I check on Mika in the back of the car. She’s shaking and crying, her defenses crumbling into dust as she attempts to process everything that’s happened.
I want to comfort her, but with the way things have been going between us, I feel like it might be a better idea for me to just stay away.
For a girl who spent her whole life in the Bratva, she seems to react very strongly to the sight of blood. I can’t imagine she’s killed anyone herself, but hasn’t she at least seen a murder before? Didn’t Remi teach her how to handle herself?
