Page 71 of Bronx

My stomach turns because that sounds serious.

“Thank you.”

The woman lifts her head, then bends her head over the desk and squints her closely set eyes at me. For a brief moment, I almost forgot about it, but I know exactly what she’s staring at.

“Are you okay, hun’? That’s a pretty bruised eye you’ve got there.”

“I hurt myself at work,” I reply, telling her a lie that I’ve practiced in my head so many times that it almost rings as truth.

“And your leg?” She points at my shin. “You’re bleeding.”

“I just ran into a wheelchair on my way in here.”

“You’re quite the accident prone little thing, aren’t you?” she asks with what feels like complete pity in her eyes.

Ugh, I don’t have the energy for this.

“Mam, the elevators please?”

“Let me just take care of that leg for you. I can’t have you bleeding in my elevators. That’s a health violation.”

I’m pretty sure people bleed in elevators every day, but I’m the type of person who prefers to avoid confrontation, so I agree to her aid.

“Um, sure.”

The woman is dressed in scrubs, but I’m not sure if she’s a nurse, nursing assistant or receptionist. I guess it doesn’t matter much. It’s just a bloody gash, and all I need is some hydrogen peroxide and a band-aid. She sanitizes her hands, then cleans up my leg and places a clean bandage on the gash.

“You’re going to want to clean this tomorrow. Try not to get any perfumed soaps or lotions on the wound.”

“Thank you so much.” My leg does feel a bit better now. “Can you point me in the direction of the elevators, please?”

She checks her computer screen again.

“The patient is in the Capitol Building. Eighth floor. Go around the corner, down the hall, make a left, and then get on the first set of elevators you come across.”

“Capitol building. Eighth floor. Got it. Thank you, again,” I call out in gratitude.

I limp into one of the available large metal elevators and exhale with relief that there is no one inside. Thanks to my first foster brother, Victor, I don’t particularly enjoy being enclosed in small spaces. He had a fondness for locking me in closets and basements.

Suddenly a giant hand with sizable knuckles and a small tattoo of a thick handled knife on his middle finger slides between the closing doors and pries it back open. Every blood vessel in my body contracts as a colossal man with bitter midnight-colored eyes and a raised scar across his throat enters the elevator.

He found me.

There’s something about his expression which has me practically scampering into the corner of the elevator as my heart thumps underneath my breastbone like a frightened doe.

How the hell did he find me so fast?

The elevator stops at the next floor and several people enter the car, inadvertently pushing me closer to him. He smells like his usual heady mixture mixed with the scent of fury. A scent that is firing all sorts of fireworks off inside of me.

When the elevator comes to a stop on the third floor, the sudden halt makes me falter for a moment. Bronx grabs me by the waist to keep me steady and when my banged up leg accidentally brushes against his jeans, I wince, which causes him to look down.

“You’re out of my sight for a few minutes and you get hurt again?”

“It was an accident,” I tell him, not really wanting to get into a full-blown conversation in front of the three passengers on the elevator with us.

Two people dressed in scrubs get off on the third floor and one stranger remains as the three of us continue our ascent.

“What are you doing here?” he asks firmly.