Page 10 of Trapped By the Bratva

One nodded and shut the door, giving us privacy.

“Seriously. How are you doing?”

I stared at him. “I want to get out of here.” I didn’t want a long, sappy discussion about how I was feeling or what hurt the most. None of it mattered. Eventually, my body would recover and I would regain strength. It would be a long, painful journey, but the end was all I focused on. Being strong enough to go after Erik.

“Sounds like it’ll be soon.”

“Then you can stop wasting time visiting me.”

He yawned, then rubbed his face. “It’s not a waste of time.”

“It is. I was beaten, and now I’m getting over it. Nothing to see.”

“I won’t try to say I know what it feels like. I’ve never been held captive for as long as you have or under those circumstances. But I understand that you’re mad.”

“At myself. For being captured at all. For taking so long to recover.”

He grunted a laugh. “Yeah. You’ve always been an impatient bastard. But I know you’re angry at Erik and want to?—”

“Angry?” I narrowed my eyes at him, slightly amused that the skin around my left one was moving smoother. “That’s an understatement.”

My fury for what Erik Avilov did to me was a living, feral beast within me, a monstrous, dark energy that wouldn’t be tamped down.

He lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I know.”

No. He didn’t know. I doubted anyone could comprehend the depth of my rage and the intensity of my need to exact revenge.

“Regardless of how unhappy you are and how unpleasant your company is, you’re entitled to it. I respect that. But you will never be a waste of my time. Nor the time of our brothers, and you won’t convince me otherwise.”

I sighed, looking my older brother in the eye and hating that he was right. I didn’t want their pity or their love. It was a twisted thought, but I couldn’t shake it. I only wanted to be fit to kill my torturer.

“I don’t need to be your priority,” I told him instead. “Go sit with Amy.”

He was hanging around here on the medical campus because of her, anyway.

“She kicked me out of the room.”

My sister-in-law was upstairs in the maternity ward, relegated to a similar status as me with an order for bedrest. Unlike me, she was doing her best to keep her babies in her womb for as long as possible. Those twins weren’t supposed to be born for another three or four weeks, and her pregnancy had been touch and go with complications.

The urge to laugh faded too quickly. “Why?”

“She says I’m hovering.”

“You probably are.” Nik loved his wife, and I knew he was excited to welcome his son and daughter to the world.

“I don’t care if I am.” He crossed his arms. “And you’re my priority too, Dmitri. You always will be.”

I shook my head and looked up at the ceiling. Already, my vision was improved. With the hits to my eye, I suffered significant retina tears. The doctors were amazed that I wasn’t blind with the evidence of abuse there.

“You all have other priorities now. All of you.”

He huffed a laugh. “Is that what this is about? You’re feeling left out because you’re the last bachelor?”

“No. I’m just saying that you have other priorities that take precedence over me. Your wife. Your kids.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, man. You’ll always be family no matter how much bigger it grows.” He barked another laugh. “The way you’re talking, you’re starting to sound jealous.”

I glowered at him.