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The angel smiles. A light all of its own.
Water - cool and crisp runs over my lips and I flap my mouth like a fish on land trying to guzzle every bit of it down. Moments later her cool, soothing touch is on my forehead before she replaces it with a damp cloth as she fishes around in her metal box of healing for something to help patch me up. I try my best to remain still. I don’t want to scare her away. It doesn’t matter to me if she’s real or not - or if she’s only helping patch me up with the express intention of hurting me all over again. If this face is the last one that I ever get to see, it will have been worth it.
“Stay with me.” She says in a sweet voice as she blots up blood and gingerly dabs salve on my bruises. Normally I detest physical touch but I’m far too weak to do anything but appreciate the soothing contact as she tends to me.
The angel asks me to stay with her, and I want to. I want to do anything she says. And anything is better than the state that I’ve been in until now. Except eternal sleep, which would certainly be the easier. But there is still a lot of work left for me to do on this mortal coil.
“I’m sorry if this hurts…” She mutters in a voice full of compassion as she tries to dip that same ointment from her kit between the ruined skin of my wrists and the thick metal of my cuffs. I watch as she eyes the thick band around my neck with what I can only assume is pity. She lifts her hand to touch it, and I flinch away. “...I’m sorry.” she mutters again.
I catch her hand, something my body protests violently, but I am shocked by how real she feels. I stare at the place where I’m holding her wrist in disbelief. My thumb passes over the inside of her wrist, seeking her pulse because I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like. I need to know if she’s real or if she’s an angel to carry me into the afterlife. I don’t think I would fight her. It would be better passing than I could have imagined myself worthy of.
“You have to let me go if you want me to help you.” She teases with a hint of a smile on her voice.
My blue eyes finally lift to her and study the fine details of her lovely face. “Help me?” I ask in disbelief. “Angel, I’m beyond helping.”
CHAPTER TWO
ANYA
I’ve been hearing screams coming from the basement for weeks. Weeks of forcing myself to endure the fact that, despite this brand-new house in a brand-new state, Nikolai’s already put in a torture dungeon.
Not the sexy kind that was in our last place in Vegas either.
I don’t even know why I’m surprised.
Nikolai has always been the sort of man to get off on violence. He is the very best at what he does and most of the time he’s a scary bastard. But he’s my scary bastard. My protector.
But even still - there’s only so much that a girl can take.
I’m not the kind of person that can just sit around and allow somebody to hurt when I have the power to do something about it. I don’t have the stomach for it. Even if I had never taken the Hippocratic oath - I still couldn’t have done it. I’ve been helping his personal doctor since we arrived here in Houston. It’s not exactly going to get me my legal nurses’ license but at least it allows me to practice. All the work that we do is strictly off the books and primarily pertains to the men that Nikolai brings in from this war that he’s in with Daniel Colombo.
The same war that’s been keeping him out of the house for several hours of the day - every day.
Nikolai will be furious with me when he finds out that I’ve stolen his key. I hope that he won’t notice until I’ve had a chance to help as much as I can. He’s expressly forbidden me from coming down here. Says that it’s where he’s working. Since we’ve moved here to Houston, he’s made it expressly clear that I’m to be kept wholly separate from his work now.
More than just at arm’s length.
I don’t love that he’s been pushing me away. We haven’t been married for nearly long enough for him to use that as an excuse either. I tried asking Nikolai why he was keeping the man in the basement and he just said that he deserves it. I can’t imagine what this man might have done to deserve enough pain to fill my nightmares for weeks. I can’t sleep. More than that, I have to be able to live with myself.
I just have to hope that my meager training in first aid will be enough to help in some capacity. Even if I can’t do much to help, I have to try. If I can just give it my best shot and know the extent of his injuries, then maybe I can finally get some sort of sleep tonight.
At least that’s what I’m going to tell Nikolai if he happens to catch me.
The very walls of this giant house feel like they are conspiring against me as I sneak down the large winding halls and stairs. I still have a hard time coming to grips with the fact that this is something I have to do inside of my own home. But it doesn’t really feel like that these days, does it? Whatever magical thing that makes a house into a home? This one doesn’t have it.
I sneak down into the basement with the help of Nikolai’s key and instantly wish that I had grabbed a sweater or something to fight off the intense cold lurking in the concrete halls. I hug my metal first aid kit to my chest as I wrap my arms around my body and slink down the long, winding hall. There’s nothing and nobody down here. Which is for the best. I don’t want to run into one of Nikolai’s men when I’m already breaking so many rules.
Most of the doors are unlocked and slightly ajar. But there’s one that’s locked and so I unlock it and brace myself for what I’m going to see inside of it. It’s so dark that it takes a moment to spot the lump of a man in the back corner of the room. The smell coming from inside of the room isn’t something I want to put into words.
“I’m a professional.” I mutter to myself and summon what is left of my courage before heading inside. I’ve attended to gun shots and stab wounds aplenty in the clinic. Broken bones and contusions. I can do this. Nothing that I can see in here can look any worse than what I’ve seen at the clinic - and then I see him. It’s worse. It’s so much worse. I’ve seen Nikolai’s men in just about every state and all manner of injuries from the war that he’s in with the mafia - but this is something else.
For a moment I’m frozen in the doorway.
My husband did this. This brutality. My husband, my Nikolai, is the one that inflicted these wounds and put this body in this state. I know he’s capable of violence. Some of it I like even, but this is on a whole other level. This man looks like he has one foot in the grave. There’s a wheezing rattle coming from his chest each every time he inhales and exhales. I don’t even know where to start. This is way beyond what I know how to handle - but I have to try.
It takes everything I have to keep my hands from shaking as I go closer.
This man is a stranger. Clearly, he’s done something truly horrible to Nikolai for him to have done this. He’s far too injured right now to be of much danger to me though, so it’s a risk that I’m willing to take.
