Page 28 of Unbroken

“All those things,” he growls. “All the things she would’ve worried herself sick over, you never knew because I handled them.”

He handled them. Without permission. Without asking me.

"I never asked you for any of that," I say, aghast. "What the fuck? I had no idea you were doing all this behind my back."

"Of course you fucking didn’t. You're too damn stubborn." He blows out a breath. “Hang up the phone. I'm right next to you.”

I'm so surprised when I look out my window and see his huge, gleaming bike parked right next to me—still dressed, sexy as sin, in that white shirt with those charcoal-gray pants.

Only this time, his eyes are flashing at me, and he does not look too pleased.

I hang up the phone.

I hate coming here. I hate everything about it. Well, some of the staff are nice; some are not. It's expensive, my mother doesn't get the time or attention she needs, and it always smells like stale food and antiseptic.

So when I see the familiar chrome of Vadka's motorcycle, I feel like having a good cry. And I feel like that young girl again—at home, watching my older sister fall in love and share the burden of our mother's care with someone else. When Mariah was here, she spearheaded everything with our mother: getting her the help she needed and getting her into a group home. She was the one who took care of me when my mother couldn't, and she knew exactly when my mother needed to go in. Vadka helped her. Of course he did—it's what he always did.

I mean, I just found out he did more for me when I was a teen than my mom did her whole life. She needed a keeper herself.

"I thought you had an emergency?"

Why does my voice sound so sharp, so angry? Why do I always feel sharp and angry? I don't like feeling this way anymore. It makes me feel brittle.

"I do," he says quietly. "But Mariah would've wanted me to come."

So he didn't come here to help me, but out of some obligation to my dead sister. Somehow, that doesn't make me feel any better.

And then my phone rings, and I see it's the nurse again. "I'm here," I snap into the receiver.

"Second floor. Make it quick."

Jesus. I shove the phone into my pocket, and Vadka's eyebrows rise. "Nora?"

“Wait, you know her by name?"

"Yeah. She tried her bullshit with Mariah once."

"Once?"

He chuckles, and we are near enough now that I catch a whiff of his leather jacket. Why does he have to smell so fucking good?

"Yeah, I came with her the second time," he says.

I feel my jaw tighten. "Well, that's not fair. She treats my sister like shit, and a man comes on the scene, and all of a sudden she behaves herself?"

"Yeah, who said life was fair, Ruthie?"

Liars, that's who.

"And to be fair, I don't know if it had anything to do with me being aman," he adds pragmatically. "You’d be surprised what people do out of fear of the Bratva."

I roll my eyes, thankful that I'm wearing sunglasses so he doesn't see. He gets that strange look in his eyes, and his jaw clenches when I roll my eyes.

When we enter, they wave us past without having to show ID. We are regulars here. Josie, the head nurse on my mother's floor, sees us first.

"So glad you're here," she says with a sympathetic look. She was always kind. "How are you doing though?" she asks gently, and a lump forms in my throat. I don't like being so fragile that the smallest show of kindness makes me melt. I should be stronger.

"I'm good. How are you?" I manage to reply.