Page 18 of Trapped By the Bratva

“It’s still not your job to be a nurse for me.”

“Shame you make all of them run as soon as they see your surly face.”

I arched a brow, wincing as I tried to sit back again. “I didn’t make the last one run.”

“Hmm.” She hummed and nodded. “That’s true.”

Maxim found out—after the fact—that the last nurse was a niece of a capo within the Rossini family, trying to spy on us. Alek saw her out immediately, but I argued they should’ve done a lengthier background check on her before she got in the house. I knew they were diligent, as much as they could be. The turnover of nurses and therapists was so high that I was probably keeping Maxim too busy with the task of looking into them all.

“You would do well with qualified help, though, young man.”

I smirked. “Youngman?”

She smiled. “You boys will always be ‘young men’ to me. I understand that you’re angry. But for the sake of your own health, you’ve got to stop acting like a wounded lion snapping at us for removing the thorn in your paw.”

I clamped my lips shut. “I’m not trying to be difficult.”

She crossed her arms. “No?”

I shook my head. “No. This justisdifficult.”

“Oh, don’t start telling me you’re not the man you used to be.”

“I’m not.”

She smirked, lowering her arms for Emily to reach up to her. “But you can be. Healing takes time, Dmitri. For once in your life, you’ll need the lesson of being patient.”

“Dmitri? Being patient?” Ivan joked as he entered the room with Alek.

“That’s a joke if I ever heard one,” Alek said.

I glowered at them. “What is this, a fucking party?”

Ivan rolled his eyes at me as Emily reached out to be picked up by him. Margie transferred her over as Becca entered. “Watch your language.”

I groaned. “You come into myspace, you deal withmylanguage.”

Becca, never one to back down, huffed. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.”

“What isn’t a good idea?” I asked, dreading that they were deciding something for me.

“Finding you another nurse to help,” Becca replied. She smiled at someone who approached from the main living area of my suite of rooms.

“For the last time,” a sweet voice sassed good-naturedly, “I’mnota nurse.”

“Then what the fuck are you bringing her in here for?” I demanded.

As soon as she entered the room, two things happened at once.

I swore my heart stopped.

Emily reacted too. She recognized the gorgeous woman. “Ha. Ha!” She wasn’t laughing, but trying to say her name. Ivan laughed as the toddler reached out her arms to be moved again, this time, to her former babysitter she still recognized.

“Em!” She held her hands out and grinned so wide with excitement to see the little redhead clamoring to get to her for a big hug.

Hannah?

I couldn’t believe it washer. She’d never left my mind. I often thought back to her, wondering how she was doing since I drove her to the hospital for the head injury she’d received when Emily was almost kidnapped.