Page 145 of Bratva Bidder

I step back, needing air, needing space that the tiled walls refuse to give. My mind races through every possibility—what it means for Nikolai, what it means for us. Trusting Dmitry feels like inviting a wolf to guard lambs, but refusing him feels like condemning our boy for pride.

Konstantin misreads my silence as judgment. “I don’t believe him,” he says quickly. “I don’t. But if there’s a chance?—”

I sink to my knees in front of him, take his battered hands in mine. “If there’s a chance,” I echo, my voice trembling, “we take it. But on our terms.”

I pause with the suture needle poised above his brow, the tiny point trembling in the cone of light. His words linger in the steamy air between us, heavy as the clove-scented antiseptic.

“I still don’t believe it. Your father decided to be put under?” I echo, hardly believing it. “Completely unconscious—voluntarily?”

“I don’t have an answer,” Konstantin cuts in gently, but there’s an edge beneath his calm. “My father never does anything without a reason. He’s a man who plots five steps ahead. But this…this feels different. Almost like he wants to make a point.”

A long pause stretches between us.

“He’s unpredictable,” I whisper. “And that makes him dangerous.”

Konstantin doesn’t argue. He just nods, jaw clenched, as if that truth has finally settled into his bones too.

I lift his knuckles to my lips, tasting salt and iron. “We get our own tests done,” I say. “We move Nikolai to a secure wing. Then Dmitry goes back to whatever shadows he crawled from.”

Konstantin nods again, but this time something shifts behind his eyes, hopeful. He presses our joined hands to his sternum like he’s trying to lock the feeling in place.

“He also said he didn’t hit the warehouse,” he adds quietly.

I swallow. “Do you believe him?”

“I don’t know what to believe.” His gaze drops to the damp towel on the counter, then lifts to meet mine. “But I know I can’t fight two wars at once. If he’s telling the truth, someone else is moving against us.”

“Then we find them,” I say. “Together.”

He leans forward until our foreheads touch, both of us breathing the same humid, blood-scented air. “I was so sure,” he murmurs, voice cracking, “that tonight would end with one of us dead.”

“Never say that in front of me,” I say.

For a long moment we stay like that—knees on tile, water dripping in the sink, the taste of peroxide in the air—two broken things holding each other up because there’s nothing else left to do.

Finally I pull back and offer a weak smile. “Let me stitch that cut. Then you’re going to bed.”

He almost smiles in return. “Only if you come with me.”

“Nonnegotiable,” I say, threading the needle.

In the mirror above us, I catch sight of our reflections—his battered face, my tear-red eyes, two survivors who keep choosing each other even when the night keeps trying to choose otherwise.

Somehow that feels like the first victory we’ve had in days.

The days blur.

There are consent forms, blood panels, pre-surgical consults. Long hours spent with doctors who speak in measured tones, their words laced with caution. I try to remember every detail, but it all starts to dissolve into one endless stretch of anxiety, punctuated only by Nikolai’s laughter—soft and fragile—and Konstantin’s hand on my back when I need to remember how to breathe.

Then, before I’m truly ready, the day arrives.

The hospital feels different today, its sterile hallways too bright, the antiseptic smell stronger. I stand frozen in the hospital corridor as Dmitry is wheeled past us on a gurney, the blue surgical cap pulled low over his silver hair. His eyes meet mine briefly. There’s no malice there today. No games. Just a man on his back, surrendering to something no one can walk away from unchanged.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

It’s barely a breath. I don’t even know if he hears it.

He doesn’t reply, just stares up at the ceiling as the doors swing open, and the corridor swallows him whole.