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He kisses my forehead and whispers back, “No apologies, baby. We’ll talk about this later. You just need to relax and try not to worry. We’re going to fix this.”
I drift in and out on the drive to Dominic’s, only fully waking back up when the car stops and Matvey gets out, still holding me tightly. The door opens as soon as we reach the top step, and when I look over, I see Dominic in another one of his impeccable suits, waiting for us.
He takes one look at me and says, “Follow me,” leading the way to the same room my brother was in not that long ago. Dr. Bianchi is ready and waiting. Pointing to the hospital bed, he tells Matvey to set me down. As soon as I feel the mattress beneath me, I reach up with my good hand and clutch his arm, not wanting him to leave.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he assures me, still keeping a tight grip on my injured wrist. I let go, shocked when he stands up and I see what I’ve done to him. His bare chest and stomach are covered in blood. Streaks of it decorate his skin, hiding some of his tattoos, but I can still read my name through the red smear over his heart.
“My name,” I whisper. “When did you do that?”
He’s too busy yelling at Dr. Bianchi to do something to hear me, and I’m too tired to repeat the question. Pain slices up my arm when Matvey lets go of my wrist so the doctor can see what I’ve done. His light brown eyes meet mine as he says something in Italian, but there’s no judgment in them, just a flash of sadness that’s quickly hidden before he’s wrapping my wrist up to stop the bleeding and then getting a syringe.
“What is that?” Matvey asks, stepping in between us and making it clear that the large needle isn’t coming anywhere near me until he knows exactly what’s in it.
“It’s something to knock her out for a bit.” When Matvey still doesn’t budge, he adds, “Her wrist is cut badly, and she’s going to need a lot of stitches to fix it. Do you want her to be awake for that?”
“She has nightmares.” Matvey says, keeping my hand in his. “What if she has one and can’t wake up?”
Dr. Bianchi looks over at me and gives me a reassuring smile. “It’s a light sedative, Alina. It’s just enough to put you out so I can get you fixed up. Okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper, squeezing one of Matvey’s fingers to let him know it really is okay.
Matvey relents and steps aside so Dr. Bianchi can give me the shot, but he still stays right next to the bed with his hand gripping mine as my other one lays wrapped up and throbbing so badly it’s making it hard to think.
Dr. Bianchi inserts the needle, but I barely feel it on top of the other pain. He looks up at the wall of bloody muscle next to my bed. “You should go wait in the other room.”
“That’s not going to happen. I’m not leaving her side.”
The stubborn glint in Matvey’s dark eyes is the last thing I remember before everything fades away.
Chapter 10
Matvey
My heart speeds up when Alina’s eyes close, the fear threatening to take over, but I force it away, reminding myself that she’s safe, that it’s just a sedative and that she’ll be fine. I keep her uninjured hand in mine, stroking her soft skin as the doctor unravels the bandage he’d put on her to stop the bleeding. Seeing what she’s done to herself, the raw, bloody skin that’s shredded like she was trying to skin herself, sends another rush of fear and pain through me.
“What does this tattoo mean?” Dr. Bianchi asks while he gently starts to clean the wounds. “I noticed it on her when I examined her, but I’m not familiar with it.”
“It’s a black viper ouroboros. It means she was trafficked and privately owned. It was a sign that she belonged to Konstantin.”
He nods but doesn’t say anything for several minutes as he looks at her wrist. It’s only after he starts on the stitches that he says, “She wasn’t trying to kill herself.”
“Are you sure?” My fear was that killing herself was exactly what she’d been trying to do, and knowing how close I almost came to losing her again is something I can’t even let myself think about right now.
“She was trying to cut the tattoo off.” He raises his eyes to mine, peering at me over the rim of his glasses. “It’s not an easy thing to do. Most people would have stopped after the first cut. The pain must’ve been enormous. She hated this thing,” he says, motioning toward the disfigured tattoo, “more than she cared about the pain.”
When he starts stitching up the deepest cut, his eyes quickly flick to me. He sees the burn scars that cover my arms, the way they disappear around to my back and the tattoos that cover them.
“Looks like you’re no stranger to pain yourself. Those scars look old.”
He goes back to work when I say, “I was fifteen.”
When I don’t elaborate, his lip curls up in a smile. “Tattooing over them must’ve been excruciating.”
“I didn’t give a fuck about the pain. I didn’t want them, but I was stuck with them, so I decided to make them mine.”
He lifts a brow at me, and without another word he ties off another stitch.
“You a fucking doctor of psychology, too?”
