Page 14

ROMAN

W hen I saw the broken chair and the unconscious guard, still breathing but bleeding on my office floor, I wasn’t mad.

My heart hammered, a dark thrill curling low in my gut, like I’d been waiting my entire life for a woman to test me like this.

A tingling sensation traveled up my spine, and a smile pulled at my lips. My little printsessa was giving me a challenge.

A woman as strong as Zoya shouldn’t be easily captured or easily contained. She was going to make me work for every single inch I took, and I couldn’t wait.

After texting for another guard to come help his fallen colleague, I stalked through the cabin looking for her, hunting her, my Glock in one hand and a knife in the other.

There was no trail of bodies left like breadcrumbs for me to follow. That probably had more to do with the skeleton staff in the cabin than anything else.

She almost killed one man easily enough, and now she had his gun. I had no doubt she would take out anyone who got in her way. Zoya was fierce like that. Strong and fearless.

Stalking her through the cabin made me feel alive in a way I hadn’t felt in years. I was a hunter, following my prey—the wild, man-eating jungle cat.

It didn’t take long for me to find her in a hallway leading to the back door. Her stolen gun was trained on one of my men.

I could have just grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back like an animal. But I wanted her to know I was right behind her. I wanted her to feel the moment I took back control.

So instead, I moved silently, creeping up on her until I could press the gun between her shoulder blades.

Her entire body tensed before she whipped around faster than I thought possible and her head slammed into my gun.

Zoya pistol-whipped herself.

That was a first.

I opened my mouth to give her so much shit for that but before I could say anything she stumbled and then grabbed the wall. The hit didn’t have enough force to knock her out, but it certainly appeared to have the room spinning for her.

This was going to be fun. I didn’t want her to have any excuses, so I gave her a minute to collect herself. I wanted her to be as vicious and sharp-witted as ever when I took her back to the office and punished her severely.

It wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable if she didn’t fight back.

Then the bleeding started.

All head wounds bled a lot.

But this was more than normal.

It wasn’t a slow trickle, or even a small river trailing from the impact site.

Blood gushed from her head in thick, sticky pulses. It coated her temple and ran down her cheek, soaking into her collar and dripping onto the floor.

Her skin paled even more before the light behind her angry green eyes dimmed.

“Jesus Christ, baby. What the hell?” I rasped, but even as I cursed, my hand trembled—because I’d seen men die from less.

Still, she lifted her gun, her hand shaking and her expression defiant.

Even injured and losing an ungodly amount of blood, she was still fighting.

This woman would never go down without a battle.

The muzzle of the gun shook wildly as she placed her finger on the trigger.

My hand whipped out, grabbing it and wrenching it from her fingers. It was far too easy to take it from her.

She was losing strength, and fast.

“Zoya?” I said, just before she stumbled forward.

I didn’t think.

I didn’t consider the risks.

There wasn’t any time.

I grabbed her before she collapsed onto the floor, my fingers tight on her shoulders, steadying her.

Then her knees buckled.

Fuck.

I swooped her up in my arms, more and more blood gushing from the wound, the blonde hair at her temple now dark red and sticky.

Her pulse was rapid, but faint.

She was going to bleed out in my fucking hands.

I’d seen gut shots, slashed throats, men crying out for their mothers as their lifeblood pooled around them—but none of that had ever made me feel this fucking helpless.

What the hell?

She needed a doctor, but I couldn’t take her to a hospital. There were too many ways for her to get away, too many innocent people that would ask questions I couldn’t answer. Too many eyes, too many risks.

I couldn’t take her back to the compound, either.

Artem and Gregor would kill her before the blood loss had a chance to do it for them.

That wasn’t even an assumption—it was a fact.

Hell, there was a good chance that Alina would kill her before Gregor or Artem got near her. That girl was sweet and quiet, but her love for Pavel was fierce, and she was already in the medical suites.

As Zoya slumped in my arms, I held her to my chest, her hot blood soaking the front of my shirt, and I knew I had minutes before she went into shock.

“Get the doctor, now,” I demanded, my voice sharp, slicing through the air as I carried her to my bedroom.

Not the guest room, or even the office where I could lay her out on the desk.

I took her to my bed.

She felt so small in my arms, too small.

Too frail, too delicate for the fierce beast of a woman I knew she was.

The second I got her down on the bed, I grabbed towels and pressed them to her wound, trying at the very least to slow down the bleeding. There was just so much of it, and she was so pale.

Even her fingers as I held them in my hand were icy cold.

She looked ghostly white against my dark sheets. Like something already buried. Her skin had a waxy, bluish tint—the kind I’d only seen in morgues.

She couldn’t be dead.

Not now. Not ever.

Not like this. Not by accident. If I was going to break her, it was going to be with purpose, not because I let her die like a careless fucking amateur.

Where the fuck was that doctor?

It felt like hours passed before he finally showed up.

With Kostya on his heels.

I hadn’t even realized he was here.

Or maybe he had driven the doctor from the compound?

I had no idea. It didn’t matter.

The bleeding hadn’t stopped or slowed.

The white towel I was holding to her head was soaked through with it.

It wasn’t the first time I had ruined towels this way, but it was the first time I cared more about the injury than the mess.

The old man was red in the face, panting as he slammed his black leather bag onto the small wooden table next to the bed and shoved me out of the way.

If any other man shoved me like that, I’d have cut his throat before his hand left my chest.

I tried to push back at him, not wanting to let go of her hand.

She was in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by men she didn’t know.

It wasn’t rational, but I didn’t want her to think she was alone.

Kostya stopped me, putting a hand on my shoulder as he held me back. “Let him work, cousin.”

I had never wanted to strike a member of my own family more in my life. But he was right.

At that moment, Zoya’s life was more important than my pride. So I let her hand go. Her fingers slipped from mine, limp and cold like a doll’s, and something cracked open in my chest.

“How long has she been like this?” the doctor asked.

“It started less than a minute before you were called. She hit her head, not even very hard but?—”

He shot me a skeptical look but nodded and started reaching for things in his bag.

Kostya kept his hand on my shoulder. I had no idea if he meant it to ground me or not, but that was what it did. And I was grateful.

The doctor worked quickly—a shot of glue to close the wound and then hurried but practiced movements to clean it and stitch her up.

“Do you know her medical history?” he asked.

I shook my head until I realized that his back was to me so he couldn’t see my response.

“No,” I answered, my voice rougher than it should have been.

The doctor said nothing as he continued to work.

He pulled out several smaller versions of the machines I had seen Alina hooked up to in the medical suite.

A heart rate monitor, little nodes that went on her head, avoiding the gash, and an IV. For a doctor that did house calls, the man was well prepared.

Though if he worked for my family, he would have to be prepared for almost anything.

I recognized the bag of liquid that he hung, and I understood why it was saline.

She’d lost a lot of blood. She needed to be rehydrated to keep her blood pressure up. But then he attached another bag, one I didn’t recognize.

“I don’t think she will need a transfusion, but I am giving her an IV with TXA.”

“What is that?”

“Something to help her blood clot, and to make sure those clots don’t just dissolve.“

He spent the next several minutes checking her over and every single second he didn’t say something, my heart beat faster in my chest, and my stomach shrank.

Until finally, the man turned to me with a flat, unattached look.

“The IV is taking well, and the TXA will force her blood to clot for a period of time.” He cleared his throat and looked at the floor, then up at the ceiling, then to a spot over my left shoulder.

“Even if there is another unforeseeable… injury… over the next twenty-four hours, she won’t bleed like she did before. ”

My stomach turned.

Of course, any doctor willing to be at the beck and call of a mafia family would be familiar with the types of injuries my cousins usually caused.

He would know not to pass judgment, and he would know not to ask questions.

Despite the fact that we worked endlessly to make sure that we were better than our fathers and our grandfather, the Ivanovs had a reputation.

Regardless, I didn’t like the accusation this doctor was letting linger in the air.

He assumed I had intentionally done this to her.

Like I would bash a woman in the head as if she was some criminal, some enemy who… kidnapped my cousin and almost killed him.

Ok, she was my enemy, even if it didn’t feel like it.

Still, I didn’t need to resort to beating her to get what I needed.

At least, not in a way that didn’t make her tight little virgin cunt needy.

And for him to not even be concerned or bothered about anyone doing further injury to Zoya, actually giving her a drug to prevent her bleeding from getting out of control so I could torture her some more— that was disgusting.

What were my cousins doing out here that a doctor thought we beat women?

“No one hit her,” I said, gritting my teeth and conveniently not counting the spanking I had given her earlier. “It was an accident. Why was she bleeding so much? When will she wake up?”

“I’m not sure how long it’ll take for her to regain consciousness.

I’d say an hour, maybe two. The medication shouldn’t make her groggy, she just needs to replenish her bodily fluids.

As far as I can tell without tests, I would assume she has a bleeding disorder, something like Von Willebrand disease. ”

A warrior with a fatal flaw.

And I’d nearly exploited it without even knowing.

I should have treated it as an advantage—used it, like any good soldier would.

But instead, something primitive and wrong curled inside my chest.

A savage, unshakable instinct to protect her.

No more accidents.

Not because she was valuable.

Not because she had answers.

But because she was mine.

It was betrayal in its purest form—this need to keep her breathing, to keep her safe.

My loyalty was supposed to be to my people. To Pavel. To the family.

Not to the woman who tried to burn it all down.

And yet, holding her lifeless hand, watching her chest barely rise with each labored breath, there it was: a splintering of the mission straight through the middle.

Zoya wasn’t just my enemy anymore.

She was my weakness.