Page 32

“Watch?” I shake my head. “That’s not a relationship. Am I your prisoner?”

He doesn’t answer that. “You’re my woman, Erin. Mine. I want you safe. Niko might be dead, but that doesn’t mean the danger is gone.”

Demyan hangs up and I shiver.

What the hell does he mean by that?

Chapter Eight

DEMYAN

“Hey,”I say, walking into the hospital room, my stomach sinking. “How’s he doing?”

For a moment, I don’t think she’s going to answer. Sasha’s curled up on her lap and she’s holding Ilya’s hand.

She doesn’t turn.

“I’m not sure why you ordered me to stay here.”

“Ordered?”

Erin doesn’t respond to that.

“We were on our way to lunch when you called. Your men are here. They’ve been with me since we left the mansion. Driving me and Sasha. I’m perfectly safe and not running, so this is overkill. Besides, it’s not like I need you to tear yourself away from your very important plans. You’re going to know where I am.”

I ignore the dig and the fact her loaded words hit like tiny bombs.

“You’re better close to me.”

“Yes, I’m better being made to stay in the place where I was taken.”

I frown as I step in and walk to the other side of the bed.I don’t know what all the damn beeping machines are, but I look at my friend. He looks like he has more color. But when I asked, all they told me was stable but critical, whatever that means.

Not dead.

That’s what it means.

Still breathing.

A fighting chance.

I swallow. “How is he?”

Erin shrugs, and Sasha looks up. “Uncle Ils is sick, Dane.”

Shit. Dane. Dino, both names give me a little thrill and it hurts to see the worry on his little face. And on hers.

“Well, he’s clearly not conscious. But,” she says, “the doctors say there’s brain activity in all the right places—I’m paraphrasing—and that he should wake up, but they have no idea when. He was in a medically induced coma but now… he’ll wake when he’s ready.”

I cock my head. “How did you get that much info out of the doctors? They barely tell me a fucking thing. They’re scared of me, but I’m not family and there are rules. So…”

She blushes and smooths back Sasha’s hair. And he snuggles in against his mom. “I told them I was his sister. Easy enough as they know I came in with both of you, but he’s the one who stuck around. Like family.”

I could take her words two ways, the family thing as a dig for me not sticking around, or just surface value.

The latter is the one I choose. And I chuckle. “I like it when you’re devious.”

She offers me a slanted look and a frown. “I’m not the devious one, Demyan.”