Page 4 of Forced to Marry the Russian Pakhan

“My brother’s hurt,” I yell. “I need the best surgeon on your team.”

No one. Literally no one walks up to me.

The first thing I see? A clipboard-pushing little nurse gawking at the tattoos running down my arms. The second? Some pencil-neck doctor behind the counter is giving me a once-over like I crawled out of the gutter.

“Hey!” I bark at the doctor. “My brother’s been shot. I need your best doctor. Now.”

The nurse freezes. The doctor doesn’t even move. He just raises his eyebrows and looks me over like I’m filth beneath his shoe. Ivy League type. Probably thinks I’m some thug who stumbled into their shiny hospital with no insurance and a bleeding mess on my hands.

“Sir,” the doctor starts, voice all patient in a way that grates at my nerves, “if you could just calm down—”

“Iamcalm.” It’s a lie, barely holding. “And I said, get me the best.”

“We’ll need intake forms—”

“Forms?” I snarl. “You think I give a fuck about forms? My brother’s bleeding out.”

The doctor’s mouth tightens. “I’m the attending tonight. You can trust me—”

Seriously? The guy looks like he’s in his thirties. More than a decade younger than me. This is Valentin we’re talking about. “I wouldn’t even trust you to put a needle in me. Find me someone better!”

I see a couple of heads turn. The nurses begin to whisper, and the doctor? He looks visibly annoyed. But I don’t care. Whether he likes me or not is none of my damn concern, and I know what he thinks of me. The usual ripple of fear I bring with me everywhere follows. I see it in their eyes—the tattoos, the scars, the blood on my hands.

If they think I’m trouble, they don’t even know the half of it yet.

“Get me your superior,” I snap.

“Sir, the chief of surgery isn’t available—”

“You’re wasting my time.”

My pulse hammers behind my eyes, rage and adrenaline tangling like barbed wire. I’m one second from snapping this little bastard’s neck when another voice cuts through the static.

“Excuse me.”

I turn, half-expecting another useless staff member—and stop cold. This new doctor, whoever she is, green-eyed, blonde, and fresh, looks even younger than this Dr. Chen I’ve been talking to. In another time, another place, she would have caught my attention within seconds.

But with Valentin’s life on the line, I’m not taking any chances.

I’m about to tell her my demands when she introduces herself.

“I’m Dr. Fyodorov,” she says, cool and clipped, like she’s talking to some asshole off the street. “What happened to your brother?”

I drink her in for half a second too long—the exhaustion sharpening her edges, the freckles across her nose, that stubborn crease between her brows—and fuck me, even running on empty, she’s beautiful.

“Gunshot wound. Lower abdomen. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

She glances at the idiot attending, then back at me with defiant eyes. Unimpressed by me, even though every other soul in this room just backed down.

“Let’s get him inside right now. We’ll stabilize him and assess the damage, then call in the surgical team.”

I open my mouth to argue, but she’s faster. She lets me know, without mincing words, that arguing is a waste of time.

Unless I want him bleeding out in the car, I'd better let them do their job.

And just like that, the fog clears. For a second, I actually hear her—the calm in her words, the authority that doesn’t waver, not even when facing me.

She’s the first person tonight to get through to me.